18 ms·

De-Googling my phone

481 points by JetSpiegel 9y ago

JetSpiegel 9y ago
I'm running basically this, with microG Nano so that most apps don't crash right away. I would recommend Yalp Store instead, it works pretty well.
im_dario 9y ago
Nice setup. I would just recommend andOTP instead of FreeOTP.
- yjftsjthsd-h 9y ago
  Any reason? I'm currently using both and they both seem nice.
  - im_dario 9y ago
    For example, andOTP allows to back up your codes. FreeOTP doesn't.
- jbboehr 9y ago
  If your Android phone supports USB-C, there's another alternative: you can embed your TOTP tokens on a Yubikey and access it via USB-C and the Yubico Authenticator on F-Droid: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.yubico.yubioath/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.yubico.yubioath/ You can also use GPG keys embedded on the Yubikey for encrypted emails via OpenKeychain and K-9.
infinity0 9y ago
I did a similar thing a couple years ago, it should still be pretty up-to-date: https://infinity0.github.io/droid-hacks/ https://infinity0.github.io/droid-hacks/ I go into a bit more detail than the OP does, though with less-flowing prose.
ggm 9y ago
Your increased trust in these stores is motivated by .... what governance and audit structure? yes, its a devils-advocate position. You might (for instance) have high trust because you know them from hacker traeff you've been on, f2f. I can't have this a-priori knowledge. From here, this looks no better than "trust google" and in some dimensions looks significantly worse. Of course for the primary goal of "distrust google" it works very well. (well done btw, its a good, complete list, and has apps I think I too would put on my need-list)
- Sir_Cmpwn 9y ago
  Consider the incentives. Google: track every detail of your life and use it to serve up ads that support their bottom line. Implements changes that serve themselves at your expense. F-Droid et al: build cool open-source software cause they like cool open-source software. Implements changes because they make the software better.
  - psergeant 9y ago
    Missing option: Apple iPhone. Just works, aggressive security team.
    - greenhouse_gas 9y ago
      Downside: 1. Do you really know what your apps are doing? You can't compile from source. 2. You may only use apps Apple approves. So no Firefox for you.
      - incadenza 9y ago
        Point taken, but Firefox is on iOS FWIW.
        catach 9y ago
        iOS Firefox is a reskinned WebKit, unfortunately. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox_for_iOS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox_for_iOS
alexozer 9y ago
Nice, I've also thought about moving all my notes and todo stuff to Org Mode. I did figure out a way to sync org mode files between laptop and phone with low latency (unlike with Syncthing) running Unison inside Arch Linux inside Termux, using git to automatically merge conflicts. It's a little crazy, but seems to work? Maybe will do a write-up at some point.
- j88439h84 9y ago
  Please do!
- kqr 9y ago
  Syncthing has recently gotten inotify support for lower latencies. These days I barely even notice any latency, actually. (Where previously it would depend on your scan interval, default 60 s.)
deepbreath 9y ago
I think one of the things I'd really miss is Google Maps. The directions are really good, and the web app is unusably slow
- ssvss 9y ago
  I use Yalp to install google maps. It works without play store.
- dublinben 9y ago
  If you don't need real-time traffic data, OsmAnd or Maps.me are both pretty good replacements.
  - Qwertie 9y ago
    The voice directions on OsmAnd is pretty horrid. It often doesn't say anything where there is an important turn and hardly ever says the street name to turn on to. I suspect it gets really confused by the little turning lanes on the edge of intersections which usually have no data in OSM as they aren't a real road. If you have your phone in a dock with the screen on it's usable. Also the search is pretty bad and forget looking up most stores by name.
  - Markoff 9y ago
    maps.me doesn't have traffic data? what is the traffic light icon in top left corner for?
- endemic 9y ago
  I'm using HERE WeGo, installed from Amazon Appstore. Obviously nothing will be as good as Google Maps, but it seems decent enough.
tbolt 9y ago
I was interested in reading this until I realized the scrolling was broke. Please consider using default scrolling
- pwg 9y ago
  What browser were you using. Scrolling works perfectly in Firefox 57 on Linux.
  - tbolt 9y ago
    iOS Safari
    - efrafa 9y ago
      To clarify, its kinetic scrolling that is broken.
      - pwg 9y ago
        Interesting. Because with Firefox 59 for Android, both kinetic and inertial scrolling work as expected (just tested). Odd that it does not work for iOS Safari.
        ddtaylor 9y ago
        I don't know about this specific case, but mobile Safari versions have a history of doing special things like CSS position: fixed works entirely different on that platform.
        efrafa 9y ago
        Adding `-webkit-overflow-scrolling: touch;` to the #content selector will fix it :)
    - lern_too_spel 9y ago
      That's your problem. iOS Webkit has buggy scrolling behavior if you use fixed position elements or iframes. Unfortunately, Apple won't allow non-buggy browsers on their platform, so there's nothing you can do about it.
Sir_Cmpwn 9y ago
Great list! NewPipe is really good, far better than the proprietary YouTube app. K9 is also a superb app and holds up very well against the proprietary options. I have to recommend andOTP over FreeOTP, though, it's more featureful and does some important things like backups.
- drewmol 9y ago
  Thanks for the intro to NewPipe. K9 is superbe, used it as a reliable email client for several years.
- glenstein 9y ago
  Agreed completely on NewPipe. I have installed NewPipe, and it's not a case of me tolerating a second-tier app because I want something free. I actually like NewPipe better than the Youtube app.
- em3rgent0rdr 9y ago
  NewPipe lets me play audio of YouTube videos in the background, allowing me to turn off my display. While Google's official YouTube app stops the video entirely when turn off the display, and pesters me to upgrade to "YouTube Red" so that I can pay money to do what NewPipe already does for free.
  - SSLy 9y ago
    >and pesters me to upgrade to "YouTube Red" so that I can pay money to do what NewPipe already does for free. It's even worse if you're supposed to have YT Red as a Google Play Music subscriber, but they don't enable that functionality in almost any country.
- drcharris 9y ago
  I used NewPipe for a while and then switched to SkyTube - anecdotally I found it had fewer issues with higher-res formats and audio than NewPipe did. It uses the Youtube APIs though, so isn't as Google-free as NewPipe. Anyway, worth a look if you just want to ditch the Youtube app. https://f-droid.org/en/packages/free.rm.skytube.oss/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/free.rm.skytube.oss/
EvilMonkeyMat 9y ago
Very interesting. I've been looking for something like Syncthing for a while now, without luck. I ran into TLS/https issues (can't remember what exactly) while configuring OwnCloud/NextCkound, and realized it had some security flaws I wasn't ready to live with. I decided to stick with Google Drive. I'll give a try to Syncthing this summer. Thanks!
- kqr 9y ago
  Syncthing is great once you get it set up correctly. On my first attempt it accidentally wept my $HOME[1], but on my second attempt it was really easy. Now I have it on all my devices and I don't want to live without it. [1]: Still not sure if some sequence of commands looked like I intended to delete stuff, or if it was a bug that has since been fixed.
- frabcus 9y ago
  I had problems with SyncThing's reliability, and although it is proprietary am using Resilio Sync (was BitTorent Sync). Hope SyncThing is much better now and I can switch back next time I set it all up! Still nice to control my syncing and files with Resilio.
- JepZ 9y ago
  I use Nextcloud since a few years and I am very happy with it (especially with the desktop integrations, e.g. KDE/Dolphin). I even use the Nextcloud WebDav server as a backend to store and sync data for my own Progressive Web App :D The only security flaw I see is that it is written in PHP, which makes it harder for the devs to write secure code, but not impossible.
robbomacrae 9y ago
Interesting article. You can add Hound as a surprisingly powerful alternative voice AI to Google Assistant! I'd be curious to know if anyone has had any positive experiences with any of the non google/apple OS phones or if there is a comparison out there as I'm so fed up with that duopoly. Apple has terrible battery life and intentionally obsoletes their expensive equipment every year. Not to mention they rip off third party devs (its why theres no amazon store app). Googles design on the other hand is so bad it takes forever to figure out how to do something stupidly simple like turn a text message pic into your background or it even tries to kill you with a full screen text wall pop up on google maps when driving over a bump. You find the tiny dismiss and then... bump again...
- a3_nm 9y ago
  > You can add Hound as a surprisingly powerful alternative voice AI to Google Assistant! Is this available on F-droid? I didn't see it there.
- super_trooper 9y ago
  I thought hound was dead? There was hype a couple years ago but have never heard anybody using it since. It's not nearly as integrated with IOT as Assistant or Siri.
incompatible 9y ago
I factory reset my (old) Android phone a while ago and now use it without a connection to Google Play. The only app I installed is Firefox, from an APK file. Works for me, although I rarely use a phone anyway. It's also nice not getting the constant upgrades of apps that came with the phone but which I don't use.
- gruez 9y ago
  >The only app I installed is Firefox, from an APK file a manually updated web browser... what could possibly go wrong?
  - incompatible 9y ago
    There's not a lot of information on the phone to lose anyway. I understand that it's not a secure device and use it accordingly.
zoom6628 9y ago
For who ever is interested.... I live in China and have lived in a "google free" microcosm for some time forced on me by the government. Generally do not miss anything at all - at least I dont miss anything i dont know about. FTR i dont game or media watch on my phone. For me a phone is a mobile device for getting things done when im not at my desk. I use a Blackberry DTEK60. The apps I use: APKpure for getting apps - great selection and its fast. But you do need to know which ones need GPlay Services before downloading. work : Blackberry Hub - use this for work and service integration. Simply the BEST bar none - and yes I am huge fan of BB devices and yes i do/have owned and used everything else. email : MailDroid - for personal email. photos: Simple Gallery - photos txt: YAATA - sms/mms pCloud: cloud storage riot.im: messaging with a few friends and family + calls T-UI: a power saving and very efficient UI for android TurboClient: ftp client - fastest way to move files between pc/Mac and phone Have loaded and will try some of the author's suggested apps as well. Im not anti-google, just need to have my apps work all the time whether im in Hongkong or China.
- lopmotr 9y ago
  That's much easier in China because all the important local apps are obviously available without the Play store. Like banking, ridesharing, payment, etc. App publishers in the rest of the world always depend on Play store and it's a real pain for people with Chinese phones who're travelling/moving.
  - zoom6628 9y ago
    Good points. In China one needs only alipay & wechat and basically everything you need in life is covered....and I mean everything! Previously i used the xiaomi store for apps on local phones, and phones bought elsewhere and it worked a charm - looks first on its own store and then has option to search elsewhere for the apk. Worked faultlessly for me until i decided to switch to APKpure because the signing in F-Droid and its occasional blocking became a pain for me.
- firic 9y ago
  Is there a way to verify that the apk on apkpure is the same as the one on Google play? Or is that site very reliable by itself?
garyfirestorm 9y ago
Awesome! I am almost done building copperheados from source for my Pixel XL. This is exactly what I was looking for. edit : I used this for reference https://gist.github.com/ramann/62abe0b266bb8c3e8483c7c7ca60fdb8 https://gist.github.com/ramann/62abe0b266bb8c3e8483c7c7ca60f...
dguillot 9y ago
This is something I did a week ago, After finding a version of LineageOS with MicroG, I quickly realized that some apps just don't work without the real Google Services like Snapchat and Uber. I just gave up and keep only the Play store and Services Framework.
reddotX 9y ago
Ubuntu phone is not dead, it's now developed by ubports http://ubuntu-touch.io/ http://ubuntu-touch.io/
- John_KZ 9y ago
  It is dead. Someone forked it. I'm sorry but I can't trust some random team with almost zero funding to write my everyday os. Ubuntu phone died when Canonical dropped it. Same for Mozilla. It's a shame and kind of bizarre that Google can go on without any competition, but without the hardware manufacturers cooperating this isn't working out. We need open hardware for this to work.
  - DoingIsLearning 9y ago
    > Same for Mozzila. I'm out of the loop, what happened with Mozilla?
    - ForHackernews 9y ago
      S/he means the pre-Firefox Mozilla browser suite that was abandoned https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Application_Suite https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Application_Suite
      - SmellyGeekBoy 9y ago
        Surely Firefox OS? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox_OS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox_OS
    - krylon 9y ago
      They used to work on a mobile OS called FirefoxOS, but they gave up on it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox_OS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox_OS
anonu 9y ago
Isn't it ironic that lineage is still basically Google? I get a bit of solace knowing it's open source... But I certainly won't be crawling through the code and compiling. I hope others do...
- greenhouse_gas 9y ago
  Its Google as in the code was written by Google (AOSP). But the binary is built by themselves, on their build server (As with any other custom ROM). It's like Chromium on Debian. It's Google code compiled by Debian
- SmellyGeekBoy 9y ago
  > Isn't it ironic that lineage is still basically Google? Could you not say the same about any Android ROM?
- Avamander 9y ago
  To be fair, it's tremendously difficult to even know what gets compiled in to the final package you get. Fun fact, Lineage, without GAPPS still phones home for network connection checks.
Lurkars 9y ago
I run a similiar setup for almost 1,5 years. LineageOS 14.1 with f-droid "store"; syncing contacts and calendar with davdroid over nextcloud; also switched search to duckduckgo (on desktop, too) and I really don't miss anything. Another advantage of missing Google play services on my now 5 year old phone is, that the power last two times longer than before. A google service free phone is absolutely usable in my opinion and I can recommend this to anyone who does not want to share all its data with google. Some word to the play store problem: I've heard of so much malware and fake apps there, that I don't think the trust is less for an open source community. To install any proprietary apps, I can recommend yalp store, which uses the play store. It's interesting to see how much apps depend on google services and the only trusted source is the google play store, which requires a google account (which I don't have). At this time any request on providing google free apps are ignored or denied with google play being the only trustable source for android. I don't think that this is true, at least not for people with some technical background.
- letsgetphysITal 9y ago
  How do you find it when communicating with people who don't share your ethos, say those heavily invested in Whatsapp, or another platform to which there is no F/OSS compatible client.
  - Markoff 9y ago
    you can use whatsapp without gapps
    - beagle3 9y ago
      But backup, at least in the past, did require gapps
      - throwaway2048 9y ago
        microg is an implementation of most relevant playstore APIs
      - 9y ago
WindowsFon4life 9y ago
ApkPure is a very nice replacement for the play store.
kqr 9y ago
I have been running non-stock ROMs for a while now (specifically AOSP Extended, on my Samsung S7 Edge) and ny main issues have been related to reliability/stability, primarily in what I assume is the device drivers' area. Camera freezes phone or gives shitty pictures, microphone not working, etc, etc. This is nearly enough to cause me to go back to stock. However, I do see the number of ROMs built for my phone has increased a lot, so maybe I should try something else?
- SmellyGeekBoy 9y ago
  LineageOS is my go-to, FWIW.
evjim 9y ago
I used k9mail for awhile until I realized it had sent every temporary draft of an email as I revised something and changed between apps. Was super embarrassing. Hard to trust it now even though the ui seemed great.
- ddtaylor 9y ago
  That's horrifying. I imagine the moment you found out a cold wave went down your spine.
- super_trooper 9y ago
  Wow, you've tarnished that client's reputation forever in my mind. How many "drafts" went out?
- didsomeonesay 9y ago
  This appears to be still an open issue. https://github.com/k9mail/k-9/issues/2060 https://github.com/k9mail/k-9/issues/2060
  - Boulth 9y ago
    I just tested it. It saves a draft each time I switch the screen but when I press Send only one email is delivered (the last one, as expected).
- obrajesse 9y ago
  Original author of K-9 here. I haven’t been involved in the project for some time, but my recollection is that any time we investigated this issue, we found that the issue was GMail displaying multiple drafts to the sender as having been sent, not actually sending the drafts via SMTP. (That’s what the bug reference in a reply to this comment is about)
  - lowtto 9y ago
    Yes I actually faced this exact bug myself a week ago. What happened was - my mobile app gmail displayed my draft as sent (but actually I have already completed it and send it using desktop web app), but when double checked on desktop, it indeed actually send my completed email, not the draft. I tried restarting the app/ refresh email threads, but it didn't fix the visual bug. I'm not sure if the bug is still present today as the email thread has been buried down and I couldn't care enough to follow up on it. I'm just glad it didn't actually send my draft when somehow the app displayed my draft version as sent. Note that I'm not a user of K9, I'm just describing similar buggy encounter with Gmail desktop and its android app. I only noticed this that one time and just shrug it off due to me turning off apps auto update. Usually I only update manually when I really think I need to and after carefully reading each change logs.
m4lvin 9y ago
The Deutsche Bahn navigator mentioned in the article runs fine without Google Play Services. The only thing missing is the map view. And you can use yalp to install and update it.
- cJ0th 9y ago
  I downloaded it from uptodown a few weeks ago and can confirm that it runs fine without google play services. It only gives you an error message on some occasions which you can ignore. However, I don't really trust uptodown. When I asked them where they sourced their apps from I didn't get a reply. I also mailed DB and they said they publish to Google Play only. Now I've checked the apk file with various online tools but I still feel slightly uneasy about it. I really hope that one day institutions like public transport operators and public service broadcasters publish they apps in google-free stores. I don't want to depend on the Google Playstore one day because there's no other way to purchase an electronic ticket or to use tv on demand services.
- mkesper 9y ago
  Just use https://github.com/grote/Transportr/blob/master/README.md https://github.com/grote/Transportr/blob/master/README.md (in F-Droid). It supports many transports worldwide.
_o_ 9y ago
Maybe I can help, I have written this in google context, but it is general privacy enabled configuration. This is what I am using: https://lineage.microg.org/ https://lineage.microg.org/ (get rid of google play (and save 1/3 of battery)) apps have a dependancies to google framework and just not having it breaks lots of stuff (this is google true vendor lock-in). Microg is opensource reimplementation of it, but it needs patches into android to fake its file signatures. And lineage microg takes care about it) First thing, get rid of your gmail/android account, register new account with 3rd party email provider. If you are buying phone, check xda-developers which has most support from ROM builders as you don't want, for instance, Samsung ROM. Only than go for hw specifications. Root phone (don't be afraid, it is nothing special, companies are scaremongering here), flash recovery TWRP (imagine it as "bootloader" for android), flash lineage microg. From here, you start playing with OS. - Replace dns server (root required) 8.8.8.8 with other (I use my own but there are plenty privacy oriented like ccc.de) - Install yalp store (replaces play store, buy things using browser, if developer drm doesnt support verifying that you have bought its app, break it using lucky patcher or demand money back) - Install xposed framework, install netguard, install xprivacylua (one of rare developers I trust for this, due to his privacy work), pay him donations to get pro versions (I have my own versions of those two built and a tad modified) - use netguard logging to block all the fishy urls that system is calling (gps service, block complete network access,...) - take special care about firefox, block all privacy details using xprivacylua, install webapi manager add-in, learn to use it. - You have set up base os now start using it and block everything that is trying to be contacted using microg. Lineage is by no means clean but you can silence it. Dont trust system apps, broadcom drivers are, for instance, contacting their servers. Dont start installing apps until you have done it, later you will get huge noise from apps. Take a day or two and just use phone normal features blocking everything that seems faul (google ntp servers,...) - For those who havent noticed it yet (or reversed a few of apps), most of android applications are demanding crazy lot of permissions. The reason is that in they have ~1/3 of developer code any 2/3 of spying code, from ad providers to trackinb and analytics and simply code that "just" needs to access your contacts =/. So... for every application you install, start it with everything blocked (netguard + xprivacylua) and work your way trough allowances. Don't give any app allow for internet if it doesn't need it, fake all the details to app that doesnt need them (South Pole is a nice place to be for gps coordinates)... To really unhook yourself from google, you will need a server, I came to the point where all google domains are blocked (I mean ALL, not just google.*), all my comunication from all my computers/devices is passing server (i have two ways of doing it, either vpn or ssh tunnel) where communication is cleaned, http (+https mitm) over squid with huge blocklist, caching cdns forever,... and having squid in separate routing table (ok, its freebsd fib but close enough) with openvpn client, so also my ip is gone. I am completely self hosted (own "cloud" for webdav,webcal, files; mailserver; searx;...) and... .. I am not missing anything that google has to offer, I am using android apps, but without google. I would really recomend doing it, if you aren't familiar with networks, OS,... it will take a year, two, five, but you will learn a lot. I have probably forgot about lots of details but please ask it, if you are interested. Just for a taste, my google data export is 28kb (bought apps,...) after few years. What about yours? :) Some links you might use: https://lineage.microg.org/ https://lineage.microg.org/ http://repo.xposed.info/ http://repo.xposed.info/ https://www.xda-developers.com/ https://www.xda-developers.com/ https://www.netguard.me/ https://www.netguard.me/ https://github.com/M66B/XPrivacyLua https://github.com/M66B/XPrivacyLua
Double_a_92 9y ago
Am I the only one that is weirded out by out-of-context images of people especially faces?
- jwilk 9y ago
  It's a photo of the author next to their name. It's not "out-of-context".
  - Double_a_92 9y ago
    Yes but I'm interested in the content of the article, not how the author looks like. Especially not if his head is almost 33% of the window height. And also in general. I often see articles where there really are completely random images in them to fluff things up... Like "Oh you're reading some technical article? Here have some people sitting on a bench eating ice cream!" Why?
tehsurf 9y ago
Thanks for the great blog post! I did exactly the same a couple of month ago. Instead of using my own server for contacs and calendars, I used posteo.de for syncronisation. By the way, the DB-Navigator works fine without google. I installed it with the amazon market app.
aurelien 9y ago
Nice job! Thanks
nuand999 9y ago
Very interesting! And you should have a look at https://eelo.io https://eelo.io because they are industrializing your ideas :-)
JepZ 9y ago
That blog post is mostly just about the apps. Sadly we still have a lot Google services in use afterwards, like e.g. the optional location service which speeds up the GPS positioning, but those parts are much harder to replace :-/ Some time ago MicroG[1] was set to solve that problem, but I don't know how far they have come. [1]: https://microg.org https://microg.org
- firmgently 9y ago
  "LineageOS 14.1 without the Google apps" (from the OP) Google apps/Gapps is what MicroG replaces. Gapps is an optional, separate install not included in LineageOS. Location services etc are part of that. MicroG works well, I use it on one Android device and have another using LineageOS without either Google apps or MicroG. Both devices are extremely useful and capable and do everything I require, but I've never let myself become dependent on any Google services in the first place (despite having been a web dev for almost 20 years).
Markoff 9y ago
i stopped reading after claim that Firefox is fast on android. it's objectively one of the slowest browsers freeotp is also crap compared to andotp and name other alternatives are questionable and seem author has no clue about android/apps
- codq 9y ago
  Firefox for Android, and Firefox Focus have been my go-to browsers on Android for a while now. Zero complaints.
giancarlostoro 9y ago
Been thinking of getting the Essential Phone as my next phone as opposed to the Pixel 2 but not sure if I want to root and install Lineage, which begs two questions: how secure is Lineage does it maintain close ties to Android or does it drift a little? and... Are there LineageOS phones out there yet?
- boneitis 9y ago
  Isn't one of the main purposes of the LineageOS project to preserve as close-to-stock of an experience as possible? Personally in terms of security, I would worry more about the Essential-specific builds, not general LineageOS releases. For example, a quick search shows LOS having the KRACK vulnerability seemingly patched the same month after public disclosure. As for my distinction between Essential builds vs. general LOS builds, bear in mind LOS has not reached Official status for the Essential phone and is very unlikely to within the foreseeable future, primarily due to the difficulty in decoupling Google services from the OS. BUT! If the Essential LineageOS Discord channel is any indication, maintenance and updates are super active. And, the (volunteer-run) support is VERY helpful. Keep in mind, they are supporting LineageOS on Essential, not necessarily cases of rooted devices. Furthermore, rooting isn't a 1-click process at this time, either. You'll have to bust out the computer terminal, run some adb/fastboot commands, and do a couple additional things that get your hands dirty. If you use T-Mobile and have the money for a Pixel 2, I would just go with that. Essential has widely varied reception for T-Mobile users. Mine for example simply doesn't work much of the time that it says I have full signal, and it flat out drops incoming calls and text messages with absolutely no indication whatsoever that anybody even tried to contact me. I kind of regret my choice in phone to replace my aging, problematic N5. Pretty healthy pool of LineageOS phones "out there." https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/ https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/
sidcool 9y ago
I am adopting a different approach. It seems likely that I may not be able to de-BigBrother myself without tremendous efforts. There are all kinds of devils out there, why not at least sell the soul only to a single devil? So I am going all Google. Nothing else. I exclusively use all their products (even Google+). I don't have FB, Twitter etc. Google is the devil I have sold my soul to.
- Avamander 9y ago
  I'm pretty much same. I don't like it, but I won't use anything else either. It's bad enough that one company has so much data. I kind-of like the analogy someone told to me at some point that I prefer to shoot myself once in the chest instead of three times to the leg.
- Kagerjay 9y ago
  I do the same and with youtube as well. I bookmark video timestamps by leaving comments and liking videos to see if I've watched the entire thing. I do the same with stackoverflow too(upvoting comments if it was helpful). Later i can browse my likes across many platforms to refresh what I was looking up. Might as well apply data capturing to yourself and reap its benefits
- ataturk 9y ago
  Uh, there is something wrong with your logic. You are right that all this data ends up in the hands of "intelligence agencies" but you can't just sit back and say "ah, the Stasi aren't so bad" while they're kicking in doors and terrorizing people. Which, granted, hasn't happened on a large scale in the US--yet. But here's the thing: Parallel construction is real and so my suspicion is that this data is being used--A LOT--and it flies under the radar because nobody cares about drug dealers and gang members. Sooner or later it gets used on all of us, though. It's only a matter of time. Look at China with that whole life score thing they are doing. It's cringeworthy--a total abuse of technology to compress individualism and destroy any will to fight Communist oppression. It is inhumane how the state crushes us. We must resist, the same as if machines took over and Skynet tried to kill us all.
- pbhjpbhj 9y ago
inlined 9y ago
I'm curious about the battery and reliability effects of push notifications without FCM. Using a single service for notifications allows a single wakeup across the device when fetching notifications. Last I checked, the minimum interval for coalesced timers in android is 15m and that's just in time for most telco NATs in the US to have silently killed your connection. [Source: I used to run a 3P push network on android]
- chrismartin 9y ago
  In my totally subjective experience, the reduced power consumption of doing away with Google Spy Services exceed whatever background drain I've suffered with 3+ apps doing their own messaging for notifications. My phone (Moto G5 Plus) has been off the charger for over a day now and is still at 65% battery. As for reliability, I have notifications for email (using K9 Mail and IMAP idle), XMPP (Conversations), and Signal. Emails (using IMAP idle) always reach me within a second or so. Occasionally, Signal messages will take hours to reach me, but I suspect that's not a problem with the websocket connection to my phone, as others running Signal (on a Google-laden phone) have had the same issue.
- lucb1e 9y ago
  Well I'm not sure how Telegram does it, but I get messages pushed instantly, it doesn't use Google spy services for that, and it's super low in battery usage rankings. I might be wrong but isn't it simply about building a tcp connection whenever Internet is available or changes, and the server will push whenever there's something new? You don't need a single thing polling (which would indeed save power) if the server is pushing. Recently I learned that sleeping (power-conserving) clients are even part of the WiFi spec, so that an access point will hold onto messages for some time until the client is listening again. I assume this is just some ms, but still.
chrismartin 9y ago
I've been running LineageOS (and its predecessor Cyanogenmod) for 6 years now across three phones, currently a Moto G5 Plus. Have also set it up for several other people. Subjectively, the overall stability and quality has improved drastically in the past few years. It's almost certainly better than the stock build of Android on most phones. Performance and battery life is improved without Google Spy Services always running in the background. It feels great to run a (mostly) surveillance-free smartphone that answers to me, and only me. If you do need an app from the Google Play Store in a pinch, Yalp Store gives you access to that, and most of them work well enough. For the occasional app that really needs Google Spy Services, I keep an older 'burner' phone around which runs the factory-default build of Android.
- mlrtime 9y ago
  Agreed, a 5 year old one plus one runs very smooth with the latest oreo 8.1 on LineageOS.
ataturk 9y ago
It is sad that in is 2018, we know full well that there are serious privacy implications, and yet we have no good choices for really protecting ourselves and our interests because corporations want it that way.
mandelbulb 9y ago
[[
tunap 9y ago
If de-googling IRL, what is a viable webview alternative that retains not-inet related functionality in apps?
- lucb1e 9y ago
  Doesn't Firefox add itself as option if you have the browser installed?
  - tunap 8y ago
    Sorry for delay, am unsure what you're asking. Webview is a G gramework baked into all android & ios systems to provide web functions through apps(sans browser).
ivanfon 9y ago
FreeOTP hasn't been updated in years. I recommend andOTP, it has more updates and features.
antb123 9y ago
I've been doing this for 3-4 years. Most of the apps are what he recommends A couple of other recommendations: Try using amazon app store as they have some commercial apps and don't use google KeepPassDroid - and use syncthing to sync Skype (on amazon) The two that I have problems with are uber which use to allow you to use their web interface and google maps replacement. I ended up with a burner phone after a while...

481 points by JetSpiegel 9y ago

I'm running basically this, with microG Nano so that most apps don't crash right away. I would recommend Yalp Store instead, it works pretty well.

im_dario 9y ago

Nice setup. I would just recommend andOTP instead of FreeOTP.

yjftsjthsd-h 9y ago
Any reason? I'm currently using both and they both seem nice.
- im_dario 9y ago
  For example, andOTP allows to back up your codes. FreeOTP doesn't.
jbboehr 9y ago
If your Android phone supports USB-C, there's another alternative: you can embed your TOTP tokens on a Yubikey and access it via USB-C and the Yubico Authenticator on F-Droid: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.yubico.yubioath/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.yubico.yubioath/ You can also use GPG keys embedded on the Yubikey for encrypted emails via OpenKeychain and K-9.

infinity0 9y ago

I did a similar thing a couple years ago, it should still be pretty up-to-date: https://infinity0.github.io/droid-hacks/ https://infinity0.github.io/droid-hacks/ I go into a bit more detail than the OP does, though with less-flowing prose.

ggm 9y ago

Your increased trust in these stores is motivated by .... what governance and audit structure? yes, its a devils-advocate position. You might (for instance) have high trust because you know them from hacker traeff you've been on, f2f. I can't have this a-priori knowledge. From here, this looks no better than "trust google" and in some dimensions looks significantly worse. Of course for the primary goal of "distrust google" it works very well. (well done btw, its a good, complete list, and has apps I think I too would put on my need-list)

Sir_Cmpwn 9y ago
Consider the incentives. Google: track every detail of your life and use it to serve up ads that support their bottom line. Implements changes that serve themselves at your expense. F-Droid et al: build cool open-source software cause they like cool open-source software. Implements changes because they make the software better.
- psergeant 9y ago
  Missing option: Apple iPhone. Just works, aggressive security team.
  - greenhouse_gas 9y ago
    Downside: 1. Do you really know what your apps are doing? You can't compile from source. 2. You may only use apps Apple approves. So no Firefox for you.
    - incadenza 9y ago
      Point taken, but Firefox is on iOS FWIW.
      - catach 9y ago
        iOS Firefox is a reskinned WebKit, unfortunately. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox_for_iOS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox_for_iOS

alexozer 9y ago

Nice, I've also thought about moving all my notes and todo stuff to Org Mode. I did figure out a way to sync org mode files between laptop and phone with low latency (unlike with Syncthing) running Unison inside Arch Linux inside Termux, using git to automatically merge conflicts. It's a little crazy, but seems to work? Maybe will do a write-up at some point.

j88439h84 9y ago
Please do!
kqr 9y ago
Syncthing has recently gotten inotify support for lower latencies. These days I barely even notice any latency, actually. (Where previously it would depend on your scan interval, default 60 s.)

deepbreath 9y ago

I think one of the things I'd really miss is Google Maps. The directions are really good, and the web app is unusably slow

ssvss 9y ago
I use Yalp to install google maps. It works without play store.
dublinben 9y ago
If you don't need real-time traffic data, OsmAnd or Maps.me are both pretty good replacements.
- Qwertie 9y ago
  The voice directions on OsmAnd is pretty horrid. It often doesn't say anything where there is an important turn and hardly ever says the street name to turn on to. I suspect it gets really confused by the little turning lanes on the edge of intersections which usually have no data in OSM as they aren't a real road. If you have your phone in a dock with the screen on it's usable. Also the search is pretty bad and forget looking up most stores by name.
- Markoff 9y ago
  maps.me doesn't have traffic data? what is the traffic light icon in top left corner for?
endemic 9y ago
I'm using HERE WeGo, installed from Amazon Appstore. Obviously nothing will be as good as Google Maps, but it seems decent enough.

tbolt 9y ago

I was interested in reading this until I realized the scrolling was broke. Please consider using default scrolling

pwg 9y ago
What browser were you using. Scrolling works perfectly in Firefox 57 on Linux.
- tbolt 9y ago
  iOS Safari
  - efrafa 9y ago
    To clarify, its kinetic scrolling that is broken.
    - pwg 9y ago
      Interesting. Because with Firefox 59 for Android, both kinetic and inertial scrolling work as expected (just tested). Odd that it does not work for iOS Safari.
      - ddtaylor 9y ago
        I don't know about this specific case, but mobile Safari versions have a history of doing special things like CSS position: fixed works entirely different on that platform.
        efrafa 9y ago
        Adding `-webkit-overflow-scrolling: touch;` to the #content selector will fix it :)
  - lern_too_spel 9y ago
    That's your problem. iOS Webkit has buggy scrolling behavior if you use fixed position elements or iframes. Unfortunately, Apple won't allow non-buggy browsers on their platform, so there's nothing you can do about it.

Sir_Cmpwn 9y ago

Great list! NewPipe is really good, far better than the proprietary YouTube app. K9 is also a superb app and holds up very well against the proprietary options. I have to recommend andOTP over FreeOTP, though, it's more featureful and does some important things like backups.

drewmol 9y ago
Thanks for the intro to NewPipe. K9 is superbe, used it as a reliable email client for several years.
glenstein 9y ago
Agreed completely on NewPipe. I have installed NewPipe, and it's not a case of me tolerating a second-tier app because I want something free. I actually like NewPipe better than the Youtube app.
em3rgent0rdr 9y ago
NewPipe lets me play audio of YouTube videos in the background, allowing me to turn off my display. While Google's official YouTube app stops the video entirely when turn off the display, and pesters me to upgrade to "YouTube Red" so that I can pay money to do what NewPipe already does for free.
- SSLy 9y ago
  >and pesters me to upgrade to "YouTube Red" so that I can pay money to do what NewPipe already does for free. It's even worse if you're supposed to have YT Red as a Google Play Music subscriber, but they don't enable that functionality in almost any country.
drcharris 9y ago
I used NewPipe for a while and then switched to SkyTube - anecdotally I found it had fewer issues with higher-res formats and audio than NewPipe did. It uses the Youtube APIs though, so isn't as Google-free as NewPipe. Anyway, worth a look if you just want to ditch the Youtube app. https://f-droid.org/en/packages/free.rm.skytube.oss/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/free.rm.skytube.oss/

EvilMonkeyMat 9y ago

Very interesting. I've been looking for something like Syncthing for a while now, without luck. I ran into TLS/https issues (can't remember what exactly) while configuring OwnCloud/NextCkound, and realized it had some security flaws I wasn't ready to live with. I decided to stick with Google Drive. I'll give a try to Syncthing this summer. Thanks!

kqr 9y ago
Syncthing is great once you get it set up correctly. On my first attempt it accidentally wept my $HOME[1], but on my second attempt it was really easy. Now I have it on all my devices and I don't want to live without it. [1]: Still not sure if some sequence of commands looked like I intended to delete stuff, or if it was a bug that has since been fixed.
frabcus 9y ago
I had problems with SyncThing's reliability, and although it is proprietary am using Resilio Sync (was BitTorent Sync). Hope SyncThing is much better now and I can switch back next time I set it all up! Still nice to control my syncing and files with Resilio.
JepZ 9y ago
I use Nextcloud since a few years and I am very happy with it (especially with the desktop integrations, e.g. KDE/Dolphin). I even use the Nextcloud WebDav server as a backend to store and sync data for my own Progressive Web App :D The only security flaw I see is that it is written in PHP, which makes it harder for the devs to write secure code, but not impossible.

robbomacrae 9y ago

Interesting article. You can add Hound as a surprisingly powerful alternative voice AI to Google Assistant! I'd be curious to know if anyone has had any positive experiences with any of the non google/apple OS phones or if there is a comparison out there as I'm so fed up with that duopoly. Apple has terrible battery life and intentionally obsoletes their expensive equipment every year. Not to mention they rip off third party devs (its why theres no amazon store app). Googles design on the other hand is so bad it takes forever to figure out how to do something stupidly simple like turn a text message pic into your background or it even tries to kill you with a full screen text wall pop up on google maps when driving over a bump. You find the tiny dismiss and then... bump again...

a3_nm 9y ago
> You can add Hound as a surprisingly powerful alternative voice AI to Google Assistant! Is this available on F-droid? I didn't see it there.
super_trooper 9y ago
I thought hound was dead? There was hype a couple years ago but have never heard anybody using it since. It's not nearly as integrated with IOT as Assistant or Siri.

incompatible 9y ago

I factory reset my (old) Android phone a while ago and now use it without a connection to Google Play. The only app I installed is Firefox, from an APK file. Works for me, although I rarely use a phone anyway. It's also nice not getting the constant upgrades of apps that came with the phone but which I don't use.

gruez 9y ago
>The only app I installed is Firefox, from an APK file a manually updated web browser... what could possibly go wrong?
- incompatible 9y ago
  There's not a lot of information on the phone to lose anyway. I understand that it's not a secure device and use it accordingly.

zoom6628 9y ago

For who ever is interested.... I live in China and have lived in a "google free" microcosm for some time forced on me by the government. Generally do not miss anything at all - at least I dont miss anything i dont know about. FTR i dont game or media watch on my phone. For me a phone is a mobile device for getting things done when im not at my desk. I use a Blackberry DTEK60. The apps I use: APKpure for getting apps - great selection and its fast. But you do need to know which ones need GPlay Services before downloading. work : Blackberry Hub - use this for work and service integration. Simply the BEST bar none - and yes I am huge fan of BB devices and yes i do/have owned and used everything else. email : MailDroid - for personal email. photos: Simple Gallery - photos txt: YAATA - sms/mms pCloud: cloud storage riot.im: messaging with a few friends and family + calls T-UI: a power saving and very efficient UI for android TurboClient: ftp client - fastest way to move files between pc/Mac and phone Have loaded and will try some of the author's suggested apps as well. Im not anti-google, just need to have my apps work all the time whether im in Hongkong or China.

lopmotr 9y ago
That's much easier in China because all the important local apps are obviously available without the Play store. Like banking, ridesharing, payment, etc. App publishers in the rest of the world always depend on Play store and it's a real pain for people with Chinese phones who're travelling/moving.
- zoom6628 9y ago
  Good points. In China one needs only alipay & wechat and basically everything you need in life is covered....and I mean everything! Previously i used the xiaomi store for apps on local phones, and phones bought elsewhere and it worked a charm - looks first on its own store and then has option to search elsewhere for the apk. Worked faultlessly for me until i decided to switch to APKpure because the signing in F-Droid and its occasional blocking became a pain for me.
firic 9y ago
Is there a way to verify that the apk on apkpure is the same as the one on Google play? Or is that site very reliable by itself?

garyfirestorm 9y ago

Awesome! I am almost done building copperheados from source for my Pixel XL. This is exactly what I was looking for. edit : I used this for reference https://gist.github.com/ramann/62abe0b266bb8c3e8483c7c7ca60fdb8 https://gist.github.com/ramann/62abe0b266bb8c3e8483c7c7ca60f...

dguillot 9y ago

This is something I did a week ago, After finding a version of LineageOS with MicroG, I quickly realized that some apps just don't work without the real Google Services like Snapchat and Uber. I just gave up and keep only the Play store and Services Framework.

reddotX 9y ago

Ubuntu phone is not dead, it's now developed by ubports http://ubuntu-touch.io/ http://ubuntu-touch.io/

John_KZ 9y ago
It is dead. Someone forked it. I'm sorry but I can't trust some random team with almost zero funding to write my everyday os. Ubuntu phone died when Canonical dropped it. Same for Mozilla. It's a shame and kind of bizarre that Google can go on without any competition, but without the hardware manufacturers cooperating this isn't working out. We need open hardware for this to work.
- DoingIsLearning 9y ago
  > Same for Mozzila. I'm out of the loop, what happened with Mozilla?
  - ForHackernews 9y ago
    S/he means the pre-Firefox Mozilla browser suite that was abandoned https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Application_Suite https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Application_Suite
    - SmellyGeekBoy 9y ago
      Surely Firefox OS? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox_OS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox_OS
  - krylon 9y ago
    They used to work on a mobile OS called FirefoxOS, but they gave up on it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox_OS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox_OS

anonu 9y ago

Isn't it ironic that lineage is still basically Google? I get a bit of solace knowing it's open source... But I certainly won't be crawling through the code and compiling. I hope others do...

greenhouse_gas 9y ago
Its Google as in the code was written by Google (AOSP). But the binary is built by themselves, on their build server (As with any other custom ROM). It's like Chromium on Debian. It's Google code compiled by Debian
SmellyGeekBoy 9y ago
> Isn't it ironic that lineage is still basically Google? Could you not say the same about any Android ROM?
Avamander 9y ago
To be fair, it's tremendously difficult to even know what gets compiled in to the final package you get. Fun fact, Lineage, without GAPPS still phones home for network connection checks.

Lurkars 9y ago

I run a similiar setup for almost 1,5 years. LineageOS 14.1 with f-droid "store"; syncing contacts and calendar with davdroid over nextcloud; also switched search to duckduckgo (on desktop, too) and I really don't miss anything. Another advantage of missing Google play services on my now 5 year old phone is, that the power last two times longer than before. A google service free phone is absolutely usable in my opinion and I can recommend this to anyone who does not want to share all its data with google. Some word to the play store problem: I've heard of so much malware and fake apps there, that I don't think the trust is less for an open source community. To install any proprietary apps, I can recommend yalp store, which uses the play store. It's interesting to see how much apps depend on google services and the only trusted source is the google play store, which requires a google account (which I don't have). At this time any request on providing google free apps are ignored or denied with google play being the only trustable source for android. I don't think that this is true, at least not for people with some technical background.

letsgetphysITal 9y ago
How do you find it when communicating with people who don't share your ethos, say those heavily invested in Whatsapp, or another platform to which there is no F/OSS compatible client.
- Markoff 9y ago
  you can use whatsapp without gapps
  - beagle3 9y ago
    But backup, at least in the past, did require gapps
    - throwaway2048 9y ago
      microg is an implementation of most relevant playstore APIs
    - 9y ago

WindowsFon4life 9y ago

ApkPure is a very nice replacement for the play store.

kqr 9y ago

I have been running non-stock ROMs for a while now (specifically AOSP Extended, on my Samsung S7 Edge) and ny main issues have been related to reliability/stability, primarily in what I assume is the device drivers' area. Camera freezes phone or gives shitty pictures, microphone not working, etc, etc. This is nearly enough to cause me to go back to stock. However, I do see the number of ROMs built for my phone has increased a lot, so maybe I should try something else?

SmellyGeekBoy 9y ago
LineageOS is my go-to, FWIW.

evjim 9y ago

I used k9mail for awhile until I realized it had sent every temporary draft of an email as I revised something and changed between apps. Was super embarrassing. Hard to trust it now even though the ui seemed great.

ddtaylor 9y ago
That's horrifying. I imagine the moment you found out a cold wave went down your spine.
super_trooper 9y ago
Wow, you've tarnished that client's reputation forever in my mind. How many "drafts" went out?
didsomeonesay 9y ago
This appears to be still an open issue. https://github.com/k9mail/k-9/issues/2060 https://github.com/k9mail/k-9/issues/2060
- Boulth 9y ago
  I just tested it. It saves a draft each time I switch the screen but when I press Send only one email is delivered (the last one, as expected).
obrajesse 9y ago
Original author of K-9 here. I haven’t been involved in the project for some time, but my recollection is that any time we investigated this issue, we found that the issue was GMail displaying multiple drafts to the sender as having been sent, not actually sending the drafts via SMTP. (That’s what the bug reference in a reply to this comment is about)
- lowtto 9y ago
  Yes I actually faced this exact bug myself a week ago. What happened was - my mobile app gmail displayed my draft as sent (but actually I have already completed it and send it using desktop web app), but when double checked on desktop, it indeed actually send my completed email, not the draft. I tried restarting the app/ refresh email threads, but it didn't fix the visual bug. I'm not sure if the bug is still present today as the email thread has been buried down and I couldn't care enough to follow up on it. I'm just glad it didn't actually send my draft when somehow the app displayed my draft version as sent. Note that I'm not a user of K9, I'm just describing similar buggy encounter with Gmail desktop and its android app. I only noticed this that one time and just shrug it off due to me turning off apps auto update. Usually I only update manually when I really think I need to and after carefully reading each change logs.

m4lvin 9y ago

The Deutsche Bahn navigator mentioned in the article runs fine without Google Play Services. The only thing missing is the map view. And you can use yalp to install and update it.

cJ0th 9y ago
I downloaded it from uptodown a few weeks ago and can confirm that it runs fine without google play services. It only gives you an error message on some occasions which you can ignore. However, I don't really trust uptodown. When I asked them where they sourced their apps from I didn't get a reply. I also mailed DB and they said they publish to Google Play only. Now I've checked the apk file with various online tools but I still feel slightly uneasy about it. I really hope that one day institutions like public transport operators and public service broadcasters publish they apps in google-free stores. I don't want to depend on the Google Playstore one day because there's no other way to purchase an electronic ticket or to use tv on demand services.
mkesper 9y ago
Just use https://github.com/grote/Transportr/blob/master/README.md https://github.com/grote/Transportr/blob/master/README.md (in F-Droid). It supports many transports worldwide.

_o_ 9y ago

Maybe I can help, I have written this in google context, but it is general privacy enabled configuration. This is what I am using: https://lineage.microg.org/ https://lineage.microg.org/ (get rid of google play (and save 1/3 of battery)) apps have a dependancies to google framework and just not having it breaks lots of stuff (this is google true vendor lock-in). Microg is opensource reimplementation of it, but it needs patches into android to fake its file signatures. And lineage microg takes care about it) First thing, get rid of your gmail/android account, register new account with 3rd party email provider. If you are buying phone, check xda-developers which has most support from ROM builders as you don't want, for instance, Samsung ROM. Only than go for hw specifications. Root phone (don't be afraid, it is nothing special, companies are scaremongering here), flash recovery TWRP (imagine it as "bootloader" for android), flash lineage microg. From here, you start playing with OS. - Replace dns server (root required) 8.8.8.8 with other (I use my own but there are plenty privacy oriented like ccc.de) - Install yalp store (replaces play store, buy things using browser, if developer drm doesnt support verifying that you have bought its app, break it using lucky patcher or demand money back) - Install xposed framework, install netguard, install xprivacylua (one of rare developers I trust for this, due to his privacy work), pay him donations to get pro versions (I have my own versions of those two built and a tad modified) - use netguard logging to block all the fishy urls that system is calling (gps service, block complete network access,...) - take special care about firefox, block all privacy details using xprivacylua, install webapi manager add-in, learn to use it. - You have set up base os now start using it and block everything that is trying to be contacted using microg. Lineage is by no means clean but you can silence it. Dont trust system apps, broadcom drivers are, for instance, contacting their servers. Dont start installing apps until you have done it, later you will get huge noise from apps. Take a day or two and just use phone normal features blocking everything that seems faul (google ntp servers,...) - For those who havent noticed it yet (or reversed a few of apps), most of android applications are demanding crazy lot of permissions. The reason is that in they have ~1/3 of developer code any 2/3 of spying code, from ad providers to trackinb and analytics and simply code that "just" needs to access your contacts =/. So... for every application you install, start it with everything blocked (netguard + xprivacylua) and work your way trough allowances. Don't give any app allow for internet if it doesn't need it, fake all the details to app that doesnt need them (South Pole is a nice place to be for gps coordinates)... To really unhook yourself from google, you will need a server, I came to the point where all google domains are blocked (I mean ALL, not just google.*), all my comunication from all my computers/devices is passing server (i have two ways of doing it, either vpn or ssh tunnel) where communication is cleaned, http (+https mitm) over squid with huge blocklist, caching cdns forever,... and having squid in separate routing table (ok, its freebsd fib but close enough) with openvpn client, so also my ip is gone. I am completely self hosted (own "cloud" for webdav,webcal, files; mailserver; searx;...) and... .. I am not missing anything that google has to offer, I am using android apps, but without google. I would really recomend doing it, if you aren't familiar with networks, OS,... it will take a year, two, five, but you will learn a lot. I have probably forgot about lots of details but please ask it, if you are interested. Just for a taste, my google data export is 28kb (bought apps,...) after few years. What about yours? :) Some links you might use: https://lineage.microg.org/ https://lineage.microg.org/ http://repo.xposed.info/ http://repo.xposed.info/ https://www.xda-developers.com/ https://www.xda-developers.com/ https://www.netguard.me/ https://www.netguard.me/ https://github.com/M66B/XPrivacyLua https://github.com/M66B/XPrivacyLua

Double_a_92 9y ago

Am I the only one that is weirded out by out-of-context images of people especially faces?

jwilk 9y ago
It's a photo of the author next to their name. It's not "out-of-context".
- Double_a_92 9y ago
  Yes but I'm interested in the content of the article, not how the author looks like. Especially not if his head is almost 33% of the window height. And also in general. I often see articles where there really are completely random images in them to fluff things up... Like "Oh you're reading some technical article? Here have some people sitting on a bench eating ice cream!" Why?

tehsurf 9y ago

Thanks for the great blog post! I did exactly the same a couple of month ago. Instead of using my own server for contacs and calendars, I used posteo.de for syncronisation. By the way, the DB-Navigator works fine without google. I installed it with the amazon market app.

aurelien 9y ago

Nice job! Thanks

nuand999 9y ago

Very interesting! And you should have a look at https://eelo.io https://eelo.io because they are industrializing your ideas :-)

JepZ 9y ago

That blog post is mostly just about the apps. Sadly we still have a lot Google services in use afterwards, like e.g. the optional location service which speeds up the GPS positioning, but those parts are much harder to replace :-/ Some time ago MicroG[1] was set to solve that problem, but I don't know how far they have come. [1]: https://microg.org https://microg.org

firmgently 9y ago
"LineageOS 14.1 without the Google apps" (from the OP) Google apps/Gapps is what MicroG replaces. Gapps is an optional, separate install not included in LineageOS. Location services etc are part of that. MicroG works well, I use it on one Android device and have another using LineageOS without either Google apps or MicroG. Both devices are extremely useful and capable and do everything I require, but I've never let myself become dependent on any Google services in the first place (despite having been a web dev for almost 20 years).

Markoff 9y ago

i stopped reading after claim that Firefox is fast on android. it's objectively one of the slowest browsers freeotp is also crap compared to andotp and name other alternatives are questionable and seem author has no clue about android/apps

codq 9y ago
Firefox for Android, and Firefox Focus have been my go-to browsers on Android for a while now. Zero complaints.

giancarlostoro 9y ago

Been thinking of getting the Essential Phone as my next phone as opposed to the Pixel 2 but not sure if I want to root and install Lineage, which begs two questions: how secure is Lineage does it maintain close ties to Android or does it drift a little? and... Are there LineageOS phones out there yet?

boneitis 9y ago
Isn't one of the main purposes of the LineageOS project to preserve as close-to-stock of an experience as possible? Personally in terms of security, I would worry more about the Essential-specific builds, not general LineageOS releases. For example, a quick search shows LOS having the KRACK vulnerability seemingly patched the same month after public disclosure. As for my distinction between Essential builds vs. general LOS builds, bear in mind LOS has not reached Official status for the Essential phone and is very unlikely to within the foreseeable future, primarily due to the difficulty in decoupling Google services from the OS. BUT! If the Essential LineageOS Discord channel is any indication, maintenance and updates are super active. And, the (volunteer-run) support is VERY helpful. Keep in mind, they are supporting LineageOS on Essential, not necessarily cases of rooted devices. Furthermore, rooting isn't a 1-click process at this time, either. You'll have to bust out the computer terminal, run some adb/fastboot commands, and do a couple additional things that get your hands dirty. If you use T-Mobile and have the money for a Pixel 2, I would just go with that. Essential has widely varied reception for T-Mobile users. Mine for example simply doesn't work much of the time that it says I have full signal, and it flat out drops incoming calls and text messages with absolutely no indication whatsoever that anybody even tried to contact me. I kind of regret my choice in phone to replace my aging, problematic N5. Pretty healthy pool of LineageOS phones "out there." https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/ https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/

sidcool 9y ago

I am adopting a different approach. It seems likely that I may not be able to de-BigBrother myself without tremendous efforts. There are all kinds of devils out there, why not at least sell the soul only to a single devil? So I am going all Google. Nothing else. I exclusively use all their products (even Google+). I don't have FB, Twitter etc. Google is the devil I have sold my soul to.

Avamander 9y ago
I'm pretty much same. I don't like it, but I won't use anything else either. It's bad enough that one company has so much data. I kind-of like the analogy someone told to me at some point that I prefer to shoot myself once in the chest instead of three times to the leg.
Kagerjay 9y ago
I do the same and with youtube as well. I bookmark video timestamps by leaving comments and liking videos to see if I've watched the entire thing. I do the same with stackoverflow too(upvoting comments if it was helpful). Later i can browse my likes across many platforms to refresh what I was looking up. Might as well apply data capturing to yourself and reap its benefits
ataturk 9y ago
Uh, there is something wrong with your logic. You are right that all this data ends up in the hands of "intelligence agencies" but you can't just sit back and say "ah, the Stasi aren't so bad" while they're kicking in doors and terrorizing people. Which, granted, hasn't happened on a large scale in the US--yet. But here's the thing: Parallel construction is real and so my suspicion is that this data is being used--A LOT--and it flies under the radar because nobody cares about drug dealers and gang members. Sooner or later it gets used on all of us, though. It's only a matter of time. Look at China with that whole life score thing they are doing. It's cringeworthy--a total abuse of technology to compress individualism and destroy any will to fight Communist oppression. It is inhumane how the state crushes us. We must resist, the same as if machines took over and Skynet tried to kill us all.
pbhjpbhj 9y ago

inlined 9y ago

I'm curious about the battery and reliability effects of push notifications without FCM. Using a single service for notifications allows a single wakeup across the device when fetching notifications. Last I checked, the minimum interval for coalesced timers in android is 15m and that's just in time for most telco NATs in the US to have silently killed your connection. [Source: I used to run a 3P push network on android]

chrismartin 9y ago
In my totally subjective experience, the reduced power consumption of doing away with Google Spy Services exceed whatever background drain I've suffered with 3+ apps doing their own messaging for notifications. My phone (Moto G5 Plus) has been off the charger for over a day now and is still at 65% battery. As for reliability, I have notifications for email (using K9 Mail and IMAP idle), XMPP (Conversations), and Signal. Emails (using IMAP idle) always reach me within a second or so. Occasionally, Signal messages will take hours to reach me, but I suspect that's not a problem with the websocket connection to my phone, as others running Signal (on a Google-laden phone) have had the same issue.
lucb1e 9y ago
Well I'm not sure how Telegram does it, but I get messages pushed instantly, it doesn't use Google spy services for that, and it's super low in battery usage rankings. I might be wrong but isn't it simply about building a tcp connection whenever Internet is available or changes, and the server will push whenever there's something new? You don't need a single thing polling (which would indeed save power) if the server is pushing. Recently I learned that sleeping (power-conserving) clients are even part of the WiFi spec, so that an access point will hold onto messages for some time until the client is listening again. I assume this is just some ms, but still.

chrismartin 9y ago

I've been running LineageOS (and its predecessor Cyanogenmod) for 6 years now across three phones, currently a Moto G5 Plus. Have also set it up for several other people. Subjectively, the overall stability and quality has improved drastically in the past few years. It's almost certainly better than the stock build of Android on most phones. Performance and battery life is improved without Google Spy Services always running in the background. It feels great to run a (mostly) surveillance-free smartphone that answers to me, and only me. If you do need an app from the Google Play Store in a pinch, Yalp Store gives you access to that, and most of them work well enough. For the occasional app that really needs Google Spy Services, I keep an older 'burner' phone around which runs the factory-default build of Android.

mlrtime 9y ago
Agreed, a 5 year old one plus one runs very smooth with the latest oreo 8.1 on LineageOS.

ataturk 9y ago

It is sad that in is 2018, we know full well that there are serious privacy implications, and yet we have no good choices for really protecting ourselves and our interests because corporations want it that way.

mandelbulb 9y ago

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tunap 9y ago

If de-googling IRL, what is a viable webview alternative that retains not-inet related functionality in apps?

lucb1e 9y ago
Doesn't Firefox add itself as option if you have the browser installed?
- tunap 8y ago
  Sorry for delay, am unsure what you're asking. Webview is a G gramework baked into all android & ios systems to provide web functions through apps(sans browser).

ivanfon 9y ago

FreeOTP hasn't been updated in years. I recommend andOTP, it has more updates and features.

antb123 9y ago

I've been doing this for 3-4 years. Most of the apps are what he recommends A couple of other recommendations: Try using amazon app store as they have some commercial apps and don't use google KeepPassDroid - and use syncthing to sync Skype (on amazon) The two that I have problems with are uber which use to allow you to use their web interface and google maps replacement. I ended up with a burner phone after a while...