Murena

Reader supplied reviews for Murena Average rating 8.8 from 19 review(s) What are your thoughts on Murena? Please include a few pros and a few cons, along with your overall impression of the operating system. Our FAQ page has tips on writing a good mini-review. Version: -- 2.81.21 Rating:    -- 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 out of 10 Your review (minimum 250 words): Past reviews - sort by: DateVotes Version: 2.8 Rating: 10 Date: 2025-03-08 Votes: 4 Hi, I started e/OS as an experiment to reuse my daughters old sony-smartphone (Model I3113), after she stopped using it, due to heavy battery usage, and she bougt herself a new smartphone. After about 3 weeks of testing different apps and updates, I switched my dayly usage smartphone, and now this e/OS smartphone is my dayly companion for more than 9 months. The operating systems works reliably, and due to the minimal background prozesses this old smartphone only needs a battery-reload about 2 times per week. ... I find it VERY positive that I do not need a google-account or a murena-account to get software-updates, and can use the full playstore (even online-banking app works without any problems, it is only necessary to grant that one app more security-rights to work ... every other app does not need that much rights) ... I am very happy to have found this OS by accident, because it is a reliable alternative to google and apple Was this review helpful? Yes No Version: 2.0 Rating: 9 Date: 2024-06-14 Votes: 60 I am using /e/OS (Murena) since 2020 (on a Fairphone 3). Starting from the beta-version 0.x I think it has developed nicely over time. I think the fact that I am still using it after four years is a statement for itself. Additionally, I list some thoughts of mine in a pro/con list: pro: . very good job for removing Google components (even though certainly some aspects are left). - easy to get: easy installer and even phones with preinstalled /e/OS are available. - More or less everything works out-of-the-box. Including banking apps and everything else what I have tried. - Access to the apps from the Google store through a Aurora-like construction. - For the day-to-day use I barely recognize any difference between /e/OS and a standard Android. - stable in the meanwhile. - regular updates, sometimes better support of older smartphones than standard Android. - good forum and support for a large number of phones. cons: - /e/ is still heavily developed which sometimes features and settings change significantly between system updates. In the past there have also been a few minor bugs like phantom notifications (during version 0.x) or some issues with the mobile internet which sometimes had random interruptions (during one of the early 1.x versions, I do not remember which one). But these bugs were always fixed very fast and appeared much less frequent recently. - Even though the compared to AOSP and also to LineageOS security updates arrive one to two months later, which is a debatable delay. - Integration in the Murena environment might have similar disadvantages as the integration into the Google environment. In general I am less convinced of the Murena cloud services. On the other hand, using them is optional and can easily be turned off (the same is not possible for the google services on standard Android) - When using a (partially) deGoogled phone, one always has to be clear that there are a few applications which cannot replaced by free software while retaining the same functionality. For me, the most important example is Google Maps. While for the general navigation MagicMaps (the preinstalled map in /e/) or OSM+ works great, something like the search/display of opening times/other details for local stores/restaurants or real-time traffic information cannot be provided by free services since these functionalities heavily rely on data. In summary, I think /e/OS (Murena) is a good compromise between privacy and usability. For me /e/OS includes everything what I need for my day-to-day-life and does not require my constant attention. While some other custom ROMs like GrapheneOS are better in security and privacy aspects, these options require by far more work and knowledge for installation, maintenance and for running all desired functionalities (additionally GrapheneOS is restricted to Google Pixel phones, which contradicts the motivation not to support Google). I am subtracting one point of the rating for the delayed security patches, but otherwise it is for me a great OS for my phone. But I am aware that a different weighting between usability, privacy and security might lead to a different conclusion. Was this review helpful? Yes No Version: 2.0 Rating: 10 Date: 2024-05-24 Votes: 146 I use this distro more than half a year. They provide quite often updates. I'm glad from it. It does not drain your battery and runs smoothly + you have fresh android with security updates every month/two months. I have bank app and broker one and they both work even I read about broker one does not like rooted systems. I haven't used murena cloud yet. Version 2.0 have nicer look and feel. I really like it looks like. The mail client (k-9 clone maintained by Murena) on previous OS versions was not working very well, so I installed original k-9. It does work perfectly with my gmail account. I also use tuta/tutanota client and works fine. The map app was difficult at the beginning, but as I learned it more it is quite good replacement for google maps. Was this review helpful? Yes No See all 19 reader reviews of Murena...