Review: iodeOS 6.0
Quoting: DistroWatch.com: Put the fun back into computing. Use Linux, BSD. —
I think iode is a fairly young project and it's already doing a great job. It has a store for people who want to buy phones with a privacy-focused operating system pre-installed, they have a wide range of supported phones with an installer which works on Linux and Windows, and the FAQ covers most of the information I wanted.
Once installed, iodeOS mostly acts like a typically Android phone - offering the same widgets, features, apps, and cellular abilities. It can call and text, and the operating system appears to receive regular updates (around once per month, based on their announcements). The main difference is it doesn't fill the screen with ads and nagging messages to enable features. iodeOS does what I ask it to and mostly stays out of the way so I can use my phone like a tool rather than have it regularly distract me like an advertising platform.
As I mentioned above, the key feature iodeOS brings to the ecosystem is its powerful and detailed iode filtering app. I really like this application. It's easy to use and its dashboard provides most of the information we might want. It also gives us a great deal of flexibility in terms of blocking apps, tracking where our data is sent, and filtering apps based on connection types. It's unusually flexible (compared to equivalents used on other platforms) and I enjoyed exploring its options a lot.
Earlier in my trial I was talking about this demo phone with someone and commented that I feel like Murena is trying to replace Android for less tech-savvy folks. It's good for people who want single-tap solutions and cloud storage. iodeOS feels like it's aimed at techies, such as myself, who want to have all the information, to have all the control, and to have nothing syncing or communicating with the outside world by default. We can add these features if we wish, but iodeOS offers a cleaner slate to start with and we can build on features to its foundation.
In short, if you are really curious about where your data is going, who is spying on you, and wish to stop it then iodeOS is a great place to start.