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On 27/11/12 09:30, George Parker wrote:
After the usual months of thinking about it and researching I have got myself an Android tablet running Android 4.1 Jellybean. After so long being able to configure everything to within an inch of it's life on various distros it is very frustrating to be back in a box. Google is nasty and pernicious and very difficult to sidestep. Very controlling. I don't have an Android phone or i anything so I'm having to learn a lot from scratch but in between I'm trying to configure myself out of the traps as far as possible. I've loaded the Firefox android browser to get away from the inbuilt browser that has Google in big letters on every web page you go to. I synchronised with my desktop PC but I can't find my bookmarks on the tablet. Hey ho... The email takes some getting used to and I must get away from Google play. But, after only one day, I quite like the thing and I think it will repay the effort. Even if it's only to let herself sit in bed in a morning with her cup of tea checking the BBC news and emails, leaving me in peace on the desktop. Any tips from other Android users? George
To be honest, if you don't like Google, why buy an Android tablet? Just seems a bit odd to me.
I think part of the problem is getting apps on the thing generally uses Google Play. You can in some cases get apps manually and install them but it's long winded and you're not going to get automatic updates.
Can't help with the Firefox issue, I found Firefox for Android to be quite poor on my phone (Galaxy S), not sure if that was down to the low spec of my phone compared to newer devices or if it was down to the bloat of Firefox.
You can install the Amazon App Store from here (www.amazon.co.uk/appstore-web). It'll give you an .apk file which you'll need to install (you'll have to play around with the developer settings on the menu to allow installation from untrusted sources). When it's installed you'll be able to get a variety of apps and every day there is a free app available. However, I have found with the daily free app you do need constant connectivity on the device to be able to run it and you'll need to register for an Amazon.co.uk account if you don't already have one (I can't remember if I had to register card details for this).
Other app stores are available but I haven't really looked into them.You might possibly be able to get Flash, but I gather it's no longer supported.
Depending on what device you have you might be able to root it, or possibly install an alternative version of Android like Cyanogenmod (although this might invalidate any warranty).
Rob -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/listfaq