Calyx OS - The next big Android Competitor?

                                fun fact for the past week I've not been using android or ios I've been using something called calyx os and it's the most fascinating operating system you've ever heard of I'm going to show you why there's a need for it what exactly it is how it's better than normal android like some of the stuff it does is a complete game changer and then how much of a threat it is to google okay so the one thing that we need to establish for this to make any sense is that android at its very core is open source meaning that its code is completely public and because of that there are no hidden trackers or spyware google made it this way because back when it started they had nothing they were behind apple in the race for a smartphone operating system 

                so the way they encouraged people to adopt android and develop for it was by using the fact that it's completely free and open but this is changing as android started to explode in popularity google realized well hey this is great but we're not really benefiting from this for as long as android remains open-source the code is everyone's it doesn't really belong to us what we want is really to channel this user base that we've built up and push them towards closed source google products that do make us money like our chrome browser so as the years have gone on google has one by one been taking the core features of android the calendar the music app 

                the keyboard the camera and improving them but then making the improved versions of these apps closed source instead of open they've made it such that for you to use youtube Gmail maps or even an app that just has google services in its code like uber then you have to consent to hand your data to google play services whose code base and inner workings are completely hidden

                 we don't know what data is being collected we just know that data is being collected an average android phone connects to google servers once every 4.5 minutes to send them info about you some of it for your benefit to allow your apps to work but some of it probably not you've got to remember that first and foremost google is an advertising company so there's the obvious implication that at least some of this data will be used to just squeeze more money out of users by laser targeting them with just the right ads at just the right time but there are bigger implications

                 we know that this data is not always just kept within google there are plenty of governments around the world who want to control and censor their populations and google has been shown to have willingly handed over user data when asked for it by those governments we've even had cases where innocent people have been taken to court because their google location data has shown that they were near the scene of a crime

                 how did law enforcement get that data google gave it to them oh yeah and thanks to surfsharkvpn for sponsoring this video the point is 99 of android phones that you can buy off the shelf right now attracting us in ways that we don't fully know and this is why calyx os exists but what is it you know i mentioned that at its very core if you stripped away all those extras from google and your service providers android is open source right well kalix uses that core but instead of having google play services as the layer that sits on top of that it uses something called micro g which you could think of as a bit like a fake id for your phone it creates a random anonymous unique identifier which allows it to be registered as a certified google device but one for which your activity can't be traced back to you so i can use google maps i can watch youtube videos i can download apps without needing to sign into a single account and using this os you get not one but two app stores you have f droid which provides you with 100 open source applications 

                    whose code is completely public and so by their very nature cannot steal your data but then also the super interesting aurora store it's basically the play store except when you download an app through it instead of you going directly to google and requesting that app it's aurora who goes to google and gets that app for you so the only info about you that google sees is a random email address that the aurora store creates for you the only thing it can't do right now is let you pay for apps I think they're working on that

             what's really cool is that also unlike the play store aurora tells you for every single app how many and which trackers it comes with you're starting to get the idea calyx basically has most of the main perks of android but I've barely touched on this yet you will not believe the privacy features, for example, it has a built-in firewall that allows you to restrict what level of internet access that you want each of your apps to have 

            let's say for example that I really want to use the closed source google pixel camera app because really the quality of google's open source android camera kind of sucks but at the same time I'm worried about the faces of my friends and family potentially being stored on a server somewhere well 

            now I can still download the app and then just use the firewall to cut off its communications with google fun fact doing this also removes ads and extends your battery life because you're limiting the number of processes that are happening in the background I've actually got the exact same phone here pixel 5 and this one's running android and when I tested the battery side by side this isn't a conclusive experiment but I found that calyx lasted six per cent longer which is still significant plus it gives you supreme control over app permissions including a visualization 

             how many times has each permission of your phone has been accessed but on top of that it has a permanently active free VPN baked into it to make your internet traffic untraceable that said I've turned mine off because of the fact that it is a single server-based all the way in new york does bottleneck my speed these are just such thoughtful features for example on calyx os when you go into the dialer and call someone by default instead of using a normal voice call which can be snooped on it will do a signal call to them which is end-to-end encrypted in fact they've literally managed to swap every single data gathering app for a clean alternative that doesn't feel like a compromise they swapped google chrome for chromium 

which is basically chrome but without all the proprietary extras google maps has gone in place of open street maps even google drive is gone and instead in its place you have a seed vault that can backup all your files both to a local USB drive and an open-source cloud solution called nextcloud but this whole privacy thing it's about more than just privacy from google 

            also, just privacy from everyone else for example if you go into the dialer you have a list of helplines things like the number for domestic abuse in your region or childline or suicide hotlines and this software will know that when you dial those numbers not to save them in your call log in case someone in your own home tries to pry they've even got I just think this is such a wacky interesting feature a panic button so if I hold down my power button I can see emergency services and the option to shut down as usual 

             also, this third option and I can configure that button to do pretty much wherever I want wanted to I can make it hide my private messages I can make it delete certain apps I can even make it factory reset my phone if I get into a really sticky situation I spent the last two days trying to fault this os but I'm struggling like yes the default calyx user interface is kind of grim but it's got enough customization controls that you can pretty much recreate the look of any other company's home screen yes there are some google features that you just can't use on this phone without logging into your google account even when you have micro g like for example if I just want to plot a route on google maps I can do that anonymously 

            If I then want to quickly select from my past routes then I am going to have to log in because google needs to know which user I am but this is kind of the whole appeal of an operating system like this installing Alex once is not just going to immediately make you disappear off the grid-like you never existed but it is going to give you that control back it's going to mean that you can pick the level of privacy you want based on the features you need as opposed to just defaulting to sharing everything this all seems a bit too good to be true and so at this point, I started wondering who made 

 

            why isn't everyone using calyx instead of android and should google be worried about this after all it's basically encouraging people to use Google services without google getting the full benefit from that well to find out I jumped on a call with this guy Nicholas Merrill who's the founder of the project and kind of a badass he used to run his own internet service provider but one day the FBI came knocking at his door they said we want to see the data of some of your customers but he didn't hand it to them and instead of saying no he sued them and won his argument was that privacy is a basic human right and in the exact same way that no one should be allowed to break into your home and read your diary no one should be allowed to read your private online data and that moment was kind of the trigger as to 

            why he started the calyx institute which is this not-for-profit company that he's saying has one goal to bring privacy to as many people as possible it sounds like an incredibly noble mission so why has no one heard of this well i think the fundamental barrier here is that yes this calyx institute has a membership program which does bring in some income but because of how this entire calyx operating system is open-source it in itself is not really a sustainable business model I'm told that right now the team behind this is just 11 people and with a format like this it's really tough to take that and scale up and make advertising campaigns and get compatibility with all phones right now this only works on google pixel devices besides for the time being at least even though google and other companies do have piles of data on us and even though there does seem to be a growing population who would go to great lengths to protect their privacy for the vast majority it's still not enough of an incentive to go through even the minor effort of installing something like 

            this there's no hard evidence that for an average user in a democratic society giving away their data causes them any harm and so this entire pitch of trying to protect that data doesn't really carry any urgency I'm the same and to be honest the only reason I can even do this talk tech with you and make a living from it is because of these trackers and spyware that google uses so it has its positives too oh while you're out there by the way if you are enjoying this then a sub to the channel would be safe what would be a game-changer though something these guys are really pushing for is to get a partnership with an OEM a company like Xiaomi or one plus who makes phone hardware and who'd be willing to pre-install calyx os instead of android it's definitely possible like this company actually did recently just get calyx working on a Xiaomi phone and I could see the appeal of it

             let's just say Xiaomi said yeah sure we'll use calyx on one of our models then straight away without any effort on their part they've already got their slogan sorted to keep your private stuff private no probably not that slogan actually but I guess what makes this really tricky is that Xiaomi would then be running the risk of getting on the wrong side of google which given how much they rely on them may not be the best idea it's tricky one but do consider sharing this video with someone who is more privacy-conscious who knows maybe one day 

                this will be the norm okay at this point I probably don't need to tell you what a VPN is if you either want to browse the internet anonymously change the location of your device to another country to watch tv shows from that country or just avoid censorship or even if all you want is to escape data throttling from your internet service provider then a VPN is the way to go but at that point, you're faced with a question of which one do I go for and from what I've seen at least

                there is no other VPN that's offering close to what surf shark is unlimited number of users and 24 7 support for this kind of price if you do use the code boss then you get an 81 discount as well as three months for free which takes the price to basically 2.49 per month I spend more on paper clips than that oh yeah and it does also have the option to remove ads and trackers 

            while browsing to see the biggest nightmare tech fails of all time click here or to learn more about the Linux operating system which is actually in a way similar to this click here my name is Aaron this is Mr who's the boss and I'll catch you in the next one  should never have opened the source