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https://f-droid.org/ https://f-droid.org/ has a catalouge of ~1500 apps which have absolutely no dependencies on the proprietary google play services. Those fe

https://f-droid.org/ https://f-droid.org/ has a catalouge of ~1500 apps which have absolutely no dependencies on the proprietary google play services. Those few proprietary apps for which there are no free alternatives (spotify, duolingo) seemed to work fine without the play services.

csydas 8y ago
Not to be dismissive of what f-droid does, but a large majority of the applications available might be generously described as a student's end-of-year project, and often are not very good. This is not to diminish what is being done, as I do appreciate the option of a wide array of OSS items decoupled from the Google eco-system, but it's nowhere near independence from Google's eco-system. I would hardly say that it's a replacement so much as a novelty at the moment, even though there are a few absolutely golden apps to be found there. (Free advertisement for PassAndroid, the Android equivalent of Passbook from iOS, which does exactly what it advertises)
- BubuIIC 8y ago
  I strongly disagree. I never used an android phone with google services. Apart from the mentioned unique apps I never missed anything from the FOSS ecosystem. Often the free alternatives are vastly superior over their google counterparts. Also I told all my family and close friends who only grumpily got a smartphone recently to not bother with creating a google account but just install F-Droid. I only got good feedback. The real benefit here being that there was never any case of malware found in F-Droid. So you really can just tell someone to play around and try out what they like. Anyway, just listing some of the definitely not student level apps: Firefox (Fennec and Klar/Focus), OsmAnd, K9 Mail, Nextcloud + Davdroid, Newpipe, Riot, Conversations, Telegram, a bunch of good quality Hacker news, reddit, Twitter, Mastodon, Github, etc. clients. All these with clearly marked tracking/advertising where present at all.
  - beenBoutIT 8y ago
    This idea that F-droid apps are garbage largely stems from the time when Firefox was the only open source browser available. Objectively speaking, Firefox for Android is terrible. Newer open source Android apps like Chromium and NewPipe are actually in many ways superior to their respective Google Play counterparts, Chrome and YouTube.
    - BubuIIC 8y ago
      To be fair Firefox for Andorid has gotten a lot better lately as well.
  - Markoff 8y ago
    well Firefox is slowest browser around plus have no pull down to refresh, K9 doesn't have exchange in general FOSS apps have horrible design/UI

csydas 8y ago

Not to be dismissive of what f-droid does, but a large majority of the applications available might be generously described as a student's end-of-year project, and often are not very good. This is not to diminish what is being done, as I do appreciate the option of a wide array of OSS items decoupled from the Google eco-system, but it's nowhere near independence from Google's eco-system. I would hardly say that it's a replacement so much as a novelty at the moment, even though there are a few absolutely golden apps to be found there. (Free advertisement for PassAndroid, the Android equivalent of Passbook from iOS, which does exactly what it advertises)

BubuIIC 8y ago
I strongly disagree. I never used an android phone with google services. Apart from the mentioned unique apps I never missed anything from the FOSS ecosystem. Often the free alternatives are vastly superior over their google counterparts. Also I told all my family and close friends who only grumpily got a smartphone recently to not bother with creating a google account but just install F-Droid. I only got good feedback. The real benefit here being that there was never any case of malware found in F-Droid. So you really can just tell someone to play around and try out what they like. Anyway, just listing some of the definitely not student level apps: Firefox (Fennec and Klar/Focus), OsmAnd, K9 Mail, Nextcloud + Davdroid, Newpipe, Riot, Conversations, Telegram, a bunch of good quality Hacker news, reddit, Twitter, Mastodon, Github, etc. clients. All these with clearly marked tracking/advertising where present at all.
- beenBoutIT 8y ago
  This idea that F-droid apps are garbage largely stems from the time when Firefox was the only open source browser available. Objectively speaking, Firefox for Android is terrible. Newer open source Android apps like Chromium and NewPipe are actually in many ways superior to their respective Google Play counterparts, Chrome and YouTube.
  - BubuIIC 8y ago
    To be fair Firefox for Andorid has gotten a lot better lately as well.
- Markoff 8y ago
  well Firefox is slowest browser around plus have no pull down to refresh, K9 doesn't have exchange in general FOSS apps have horrible design/UI