Purism shows Android emulator for Librem 5 smartphone

Manufacturer Purism has announced that Anbox, an Android emulator, will be available for its smartphone Librem 5 based on PureOS. Librem says that apps and games perform less well than if Android were native on the phone.

Anbox works by a full system image from Android in a container and run apps there. The installation is done by installing Anbox and putting Android.img in the correct folder, says Purism. After that, a reboot is sufficient.

Purism does say that the performance and expected battery life when running Android apps and games is less due to the emulation. The Librem 5 runs on PureOS, one fork from Linux distribution Debian. That operating system makes it possible to run desktop software on the smartphone, according to Purism. Furthermore, PureOS includes the Tor browser and privacy tools such as Privacy Badger. All communication is provided with end-to-end encryption with Matrix.

Purism urges users to ensure that apps are privacy-friendly when installing apps and recommends F-Droid as a download store. The Librem 5 was released for the first time last year. Purism does not say when Anbox will be available to install, but claims it will be available soon.