6 ms·

Sometimes I am wondering what Google employees think when they read headlines like this one. I mean they probably have no problem giving the personal data to Go

by JepZ 9y ago

Sometimes I am wondering what Google employees think when they read headlines like this one. I mean they probably have no problem giving the personal data to Google, but at the same time many of them are probably open source proponents and would support a world where the Google services would be entirely optional to Android. A few days ago I was thinking about a new smartphone and because my main problem with my current android is the outdated kernel and driver setup, I was searching for smartphone with open source drivers. Wikipedia tells us since the start of the Smartphone era about 22 phones had open source drivers (with the exception of the proprietary baseband firmware): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_open-source_mobile_phones https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_open-source_mobile_pho... Doesn't look like something where you can select the hardware specifications you prefer. So I feel a little lost. In general, I like Android but for my taste the Google services are too intrusive. Uploading my data before I had a chance to deactivate it is just unacceptable. Asking me every day to add photos to Maps sucks too. I can accept giving some of my information to Google to improve the product, but lately Google feels like the data mooch on my smartphone...

lern_too_spel 9y ago
Google services are entirely optional to Android. See AOSP. This criticism appears often on HN, despite how little sense it makes. If you don't like the data that Google Maps collects, simply use another map application. I delete all the useless Google apps off my phone as soon as I get it and keep only the ones that are actually useful.
- paulryanrogers 9y ago
  Lots of third party apps rely upon Google APIs which are not a part of ASOP
  - lern_too_spel 9y ago
    In what way does that mean that Google services are required for Android? Lots of Linux games rely on Steam being present. If you don't want Steam, don't use games that require it. If you don't want Google services like Google's Maps widget or its push messaging service or its game leaderboard, use apps that use another data source for maps and another persistent connection for push messages and another leaderboard service. F-Droid and Amazon's App Store are filled entirely with apps that don't (can't) use Google's services, yet many on HN blindly continue to claim that this is not possible.
  - dublinben 9y ago
    There are over a half billion Android users in China who are prevented from using any of Google Play Services, and they're still fine. AOSP may not be as fully featured as it could be, but it's clearly quite possible to use Android without Google.
    - loxs 9y ago
      They mostly have their own version of it, just developed by Chinese companies and controlled by the government. From what I have seen, it's quite on par with Google Play Services.
    - izacus 9y ago
      Google Play Services are pretty much replaced by Baidus package there which pretty much does a lot of things the same way.
  - jayd16 9y ago
    Yeah and most of them wouldn't exist without those APIs. These complaints often feel like they're trying to square a circle.
  - izacus 9y ago
    And those APIs actually rely on things hosted on Google servers (Push notification system, fused location system, Google login and other come to mind) which can't exist without Googles involvement. Making people implement their own services proved to be problematic, because most developers didn't care enough to optimize their services for low memory and battery usage, resulting in terrible battery life on Android devices. Since Android must compete against iOS, a central system had to be established to reach similar battery life.
    - ryukafalz 9y ago
      >fused location system ... which can't exist without Googles involvement That's kind of a cop-out though. It certainly could exist without Google's involvement if the location provider were a pluggable module within AOSP. microG does this - my phone supports the fused location API using Mozilla's location database instead of Google's. (There are other modules too, like a local database of cell towers if you're willing to dedicate some storage to it.) Push notifications and Google login sure, but some of what's in the Play Services APIs should really be in AOSP, IMO. EDIT: For that matter, you could even have the push provider available as a module too, even though Google's push service is the only one currently available.
      - izacus 9y ago
        Sure and you can use microG and other services on your Google free phone. I do agree that flashing firmware without Google services should be easier on devices, but the actors preventing that aren't Google (locked bootloaders are demanded by your American telcos like Verizon, DRM lockdown is demanded by the copyright lobby and SoC vendors refuse to release the kernel sources). But in general, I don't get what your expectation is, that Google will spend millions developing an OS and then give it to competition or deliberately provide worse user experience than their main competitor?
      - lern_too_spel 9y ago
        How would you have push provider available as a module? The sender is communicating with a particular push provider.
- dominotw 9y ago
  I've done this with all Google apps minus maps. Haven't found anything close to Google maps. Also how do I turn off location tracking by Google, constantly asking me to upload pictures, write a review, answer questions ect
  - zanedb 9y ago
    Yes please! I understand you can disable the notifications in Maps settings, but that likely doesn't disable the constant location tracking. Does anyone know how to disable this?
    - efigle2501 9y ago
      Created an account to share this, as it seems not many people know... You can use an AOSP such as lineage, or carbon. There are quite a few options. Then, use fdroid and a play store alternative. You DO NOT need the google play services, such as microgapps, or opengapps. Even to use Google Maps! I use google maps by downloading maps anonymously with the Yalp store, and then I don't sign in. I don't have the so called high accuracy location, but I still have GPS, which, obviously, is sufficient. I can navigate easily in a large city, for example. As far as I know google can't link me to any data that maps sends. Spotify works fine, along with a half dozen other apps. Signal can a bit of a pain, as it complains about not having a google api backend, which I think is for contacts. Again, the pain is worth it. And there are open source contact alternatives. I can't get apps that I paid for, for that I would have to sign in with Yalp, which I haven't bothered with. The freedom is so much better. Everything else works, banking apps, Firefox, Dropbox, etc. I'm using a Sony Xperia Z2. The battery is AMAZING! I really wish a largish company would pick this idea up, and start selling phones without google. Sony? The freedom and privacy is worth a lot in my opinion.
      - JepZ 9y ago
        Well, Fdroid is great and with the automatic upgrade extension (totally optional) really easy to use. But using an Android without access to the Play Store is just kinda weird. So yes, you can remove Google completely from your smartphone, but then many things are getting much more complicated. So I don't want to remove Google completely from my phone. I just want to have easy options to turn things off I do not like. I just wish Google would respect their users wishes a little more and would keep developing their services in a direction which would embrace community contributions to the eco system.
- gsnedders 9y ago
  Except AOSP doesn't even pass the Android certification [edit: should be compatibility, not certification] test suite, so stage one of building non-Google Android is making AOSP actually work as it should. :(
  - cpeterso 9y ago
    What functionality is AOSP missing that is necessary to pass Android certification?
    - gsnedders 9y ago
      See, e.g., https://twitter.com/CopperheadOS/status/907720250501844994 https://twitter.com/CopperheadOS/status/907720250501844994 It's mostly not functionality missing to pass the CTS, but just broken untested AOSP-only code (that is replaced by Google closed source code in Google builds).
      - lern_too_spel 9y ago
        These only fail because there is extra unused noop functionality in AOSP that CTS complains about (a bug in AOSP), not because Google services are required to pass CTS.
        gsnedders 9y ago
        The point was that AOSP isn't a perfect base, because the Android team obviously don't care enough to actually test it, not that Google services are required.
        lern_too_spel 9y ago
        That makes your first comment completely irrelevant with respect to its parent. It's also a stretch to say that you need to do anything to make AOSP work as it should simply because it contains extra noop APIs.
  - deleted 9y ago
notspanishflu 9y ago
My hope is in the Halium Project https://halium.org/ https://halium.org/ Now I'm running UBPorts in my Nexus 5 https://ubports.com/ https://ubports.com/ Edit: if you are downvoting this comment, please explain why at least. It improves the conversation. Thank you.
- O_H_E 9y ago
  So do you consider UBports stable on your phone
  - notspanishflu 9y ago
    Yes I do. It works great after the recent OTA-3 release.
- mtgx 9y ago
  Is Halium an old project? If it is, I imagine everything just got a whole lot easier with Project Treble and with the new six-year LTS Android kernels.
  - notspanishflu 9y ago
    No, it's a fairly new project and the devs are pretty active. The best place to keep you updated about Halium is their Telegram group https://t.me/halium https://t.me/halium
rifung 9y ago
> Sometimes I am wondering what Google employees think when they read headlines like this one. Hello Google employee here! I suspect we don't all have the same opinion but I can share my own since you asked. Note that I work in Cloud so I work in an area far far away from this stuff and opinions are obviously my own. Frankly the headline makes me a little bit sad because of course I would like to make things which people are happy about. On the other hand, I also realize that it's not easy to make a product which fits every single person's use case, and in this case I suspect most this level of privacy is overkill for most people, and it's wonderful that there is something for those who want that extra privacy and security. I also think it's awesome these people contribute security patches to AOSP! > I mean they probably have no problem giving the personal data to Google, but at the same time many of them are probably open source proponents and would support a world where the Google services would be entirely optional to Android. I like to think I'm a proponent of open source as I try to contribute but to be honest I don't actually think it really matters for Android to be independent of Google services because as far as I can tell, most people like Android with Google services? Is there a reason that removing Google services would be better for the users? I can understand from a philosophical or ideological standpoint why it would be better but not really from a product point of view since I think I can confidently say 99% of Android users do not care or even know that it is open source..
- cornholio 9y ago
  You might be a Google employee, but you do not seem to be an Open source proponent. That's you prerogative, but you completely miss the point of the discussion if you ask why should users want to be independent from proprietary services. Sure, 99% don't want that and would click any colored and shiny button if it promises them a free Justin Bieber ringtone, but this is not the topic of the thread.
  - zeep 9y ago
    Cloud services are probably the thing that is the farthest away from being open-source non-proprietary software... and he is working on cloud services, so I can understand where he comes from...

by JepZ 9y ago

lern_too_spel 9y ago

Google services are entirely optional to Android. See AOSP. This criticism appears often on HN, despite how little sense it makes. If you don't like the data that Google Maps collects, simply use another map application. I delete all the useless Google apps off my phone as soon as I get it and keep only the ones that are actually useful.

paulryanrogers 9y ago
Lots of third party apps rely upon Google APIs which are not a part of ASOP
- lern_too_spel 9y ago
  In what way does that mean that Google services are required for Android? Lots of Linux games rely on Steam being present. If you don't want Steam, don't use games that require it. If you don't want Google services like Google's Maps widget or its push messaging service or its game leaderboard, use apps that use another data source for maps and another persistent connection for push messages and another leaderboard service. F-Droid and Amazon's App Store are filled entirely with apps that don't (can't) use Google's services, yet many on HN blindly continue to claim that this is not possible.
- dublinben 9y ago
  There are over a half billion Android users in China who are prevented from using any of Google Play Services, and they're still fine. AOSP may not be as fully featured as it could be, but it's clearly quite possible to use Android without Google.
  - loxs 9y ago
    They mostly have their own version of it, just developed by Chinese companies and controlled by the government. From what I have seen, it's quite on par with Google Play Services.
  - izacus 9y ago
    Google Play Services are pretty much replaced by Baidus package there which pretty much does a lot of things the same way.
- jayd16 9y ago
  Yeah and most of them wouldn't exist without those APIs. These complaints often feel like they're trying to square a circle.
- izacus 9y ago
  And those APIs actually rely on things hosted on Google servers (Push notification system, fused location system, Google login and other come to mind) which can't exist without Googles involvement. Making people implement their own services proved to be problematic, because most developers didn't care enough to optimize their services for low memory and battery usage, resulting in terrible battery life on Android devices. Since Android must compete against iOS, a central system had to be established to reach similar battery life.
  - ryukafalz 9y ago
    >fused location system ... which can't exist without Googles involvement That's kind of a cop-out though. It certainly could exist without Google's involvement if the location provider were a pluggable module within AOSP. microG does this - my phone supports the fused location API using Mozilla's location database instead of Google's. (There are other modules too, like a local database of cell towers if you're willing to dedicate some storage to it.) Push notifications and Google login sure, but some of what's in the Play Services APIs should really be in AOSP, IMO. EDIT: For that matter, you could even have the push provider available as a module too, even though Google's push service is the only one currently available.
    - izacus 9y ago
      Sure and you can use microG and other services on your Google free phone. I do agree that flashing firmware without Google services should be easier on devices, but the actors preventing that aren't Google (locked bootloaders are demanded by your American telcos like Verizon, DRM lockdown is demanded by the copyright lobby and SoC vendors refuse to release the kernel sources). But in general, I don't get what your expectation is, that Google will spend millions developing an OS and then give it to competition or deliberately provide worse user experience than their main competitor?
    - lern_too_spel 9y ago
      How would you have push provider available as a module? The sender is communicating with a particular push provider.
dominotw 9y ago
I've done this with all Google apps minus maps. Haven't found anything close to Google maps. Also how do I turn off location tracking by Google, constantly asking me to upload pictures, write a review, answer questions ect
- zanedb 9y ago
  Yes please! I understand you can disable the notifications in Maps settings, but that likely doesn't disable the constant location tracking. Does anyone know how to disable this?
  - efigle2501 9y ago
    Created an account to share this, as it seems not many people know... You can use an AOSP such as lineage, or carbon. There are quite a few options. Then, use fdroid and a play store alternative. You DO NOT need the google play services, such as microgapps, or opengapps. Even to use Google Maps! I use google maps by downloading maps anonymously with the Yalp store, and then I don't sign in. I don't have the so called high accuracy location, but I still have GPS, which, obviously, is sufficient. I can navigate easily in a large city, for example. As far as I know google can't link me to any data that maps sends. Spotify works fine, along with a half dozen other apps. Signal can a bit of a pain, as it complains about not having a google api backend, which I think is for contacts. Again, the pain is worth it. And there are open source contact alternatives. I can't get apps that I paid for, for that I would have to sign in with Yalp, which I haven't bothered with. The freedom is so much better. Everything else works, banking apps, Firefox, Dropbox, etc. I'm using a Sony Xperia Z2. The battery is AMAZING! I really wish a largish company would pick this idea up, and start selling phones without google. Sony? The freedom and privacy is worth a lot in my opinion.
    - JepZ 9y ago
      Well, Fdroid is great and with the automatic upgrade extension (totally optional) really easy to use. But using an Android without access to the Play Store is just kinda weird. So yes, you can remove Google completely from your smartphone, but then many things are getting much more complicated. So I don't want to remove Google completely from my phone. I just want to have easy options to turn things off I do not like. I just wish Google would respect their users wishes a little more and would keep developing their services in a direction which would embrace community contributions to the eco system.
gsnedders 9y ago
Except AOSP doesn't even pass the Android certification [edit: should be compatibility, not certification] test suite, so stage one of building non-Google Android is making AOSP actually work as it should. :(
- cpeterso 9y ago
  What functionality is AOSP missing that is necessary to pass Android certification?
  - gsnedders 9y ago
    See, e.g., https://twitter.com/CopperheadOS/status/907720250501844994 https://twitter.com/CopperheadOS/status/907720250501844994 It's mostly not functionality missing to pass the CTS, but just broken untested AOSP-only code (that is replaced by Google closed source code in Google builds).
    - lern_too_spel 9y ago
      These only fail because there is extra unused noop functionality in AOSP that CTS complains about (a bug in AOSP), not because Google services are required to pass CTS.
      - gsnedders 9y ago
        The point was that AOSP isn't a perfect base, because the Android team obviously don't care enough to actually test it, not that Google services are required.
        lern_too_spel 9y ago
        That makes your first comment completely irrelevant with respect to its parent. It's also a stretch to say that you need to do anything to make AOSP work as it should simply because it contains extra noop APIs.
- deleted 9y ago

notspanishflu 9y ago

My hope is in the Halium Project https://halium.org/ https://halium.org/ Now I'm running UBPorts in my Nexus 5 https://ubports.com/ https://ubports.com/ Edit: if you are downvoting this comment, please explain why at least. It improves the conversation. Thank you.

O_H_E 9y ago
So do you consider UBports stable on your phone
- notspanishflu 9y ago
  Yes I do. It works great after the recent OTA-3 release.
mtgx 9y ago
Is Halium an old project? If it is, I imagine everything just got a whole lot easier with Project Treble and with the new six-year LTS Android kernels.
- notspanishflu 9y ago
  No, it's a fairly new project and the devs are pretty active. The best place to keep you updated about Halium is their Telegram group https://t.me/halium https://t.me/halium

rifung 9y ago

> Sometimes I am wondering what Google employees think when they read headlines like this one. Hello Google employee here! I suspect we don't all have the same opinion but I can share my own since you asked. Note that I work in Cloud so I work in an area far far away from this stuff and opinions are obviously my own. Frankly the headline makes me a little bit sad because of course I would like to make things which people are happy about. On the other hand, I also realize that it's not easy to make a product which fits every single person's use case, and in this case I suspect most this level of privacy is overkill for most people, and it's wonderful that there is something for those who want that extra privacy and security. I also think it's awesome these people contribute security patches to AOSP! > I mean they probably have no problem giving the personal data to Google, but at the same time many of them are probably open source proponents and would support a world where the Google services would be entirely optional to Android. I like to think I'm a proponent of open source as I try to contribute but to be honest I don't actually think it really matters for Android to be independent of Google services because as far as I can tell, most people like Android with Google services? Is there a reason that removing Google services would be better for the users? I can understand from a philosophical or ideological standpoint why it would be better but not really from a product point of view since I think I can confidently say 99% of Android users do not care or even know that it is open source..

cornholio 9y ago
You might be a Google employee, but you do not seem to be an Open source proponent. That's you prerogative, but you completely miss the point of the discussion if you ask why should users want to be independent from proprietary services. Sure, 99% don't want that and would click any colored and shiny button if it promises them a free Justin Bieber ringtone, but this is not the topic of the thread.
- zeep 9y ago
  Cloud services are probably the thing that is the farthest away from being open-source non-proprietary software... and he is working on cloud services, so I can understand where he comes from...