All photos in Ente are E2EE — only client devices can decrypt it. Immich doesn’t have any encryption thus allowing anyone who manages the server to view your photos as they are. Immich is fully self-hosted while with Ente you have an option for paying Ente or self-host. I honestly prefer Immich because the features outweigh the encryption as I own the server myself and Ente is a bit complicated to setup — I think you even have to deploy the entire Ente Ecosystem Stack.
If you don’t want to pay Immich for backups, you can take care of off-site backups yourself using tools like rclone to your hard drive or any off-site storage of your choice. A paywall here would be not allowing offsite backups at all unless you pay Immich.
I don’t think it’ll play out that way. Manufacturers aren’t going to ditch Google. Play Store and Google certification are too valuable for them. And for small developers, most of them rely on Google’s infrastructure. If the EU decides to take that away, only big players with resources could handle their own systems, which ironically makes things less open because indies get squeezed out.
If we skip the Play Services part, the EU might push for sideloading and more openness, but realistically Play Services will remain dominant simply because it’s the easiest and most convenient option for developers. So we’ll probably end up with a halfway solution: technically more open, but practically still dependent on Google.
If we really want change, proper GNU/Linux phones need to catch up or at least run Android apps (APKs) reliably. That alone would solve 70% of the problem. The remaining 30% comes down to infrastructure and right now Google Play Services is just too polished and convenient (especially for indies who don’t care about FOSS ideals) for devs to walk away from.
Agreed, but is a chicken and egg problem. People won’t use Linux because the apps they want don’t support it and apps won’t support it because most people don’t use Linux. Someone will have to cave in if we want to break this stupid proprietary duopoly.
I used to pay for Ente as well but then I tried Immich & IMO is just so much better. It is THE Google Photos alternative with almost all the features. And as you said, you can get encryption with LUKSing your drive or partitions. I have automated my backups so I am pretty much at ease especially after the stable release.