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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 sear
by Lurkars 8y 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 8y agoHow 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 8y agoyou can use whatsapp without gapps
- beagle3 8y agoBut backup, at least in the past, did require gapps
- throwaway2048 8y agomicrog is an implementation of most relevant playstore APIs
- captn3m0 8y agoIf you install the drive app, microG + whatsapp backups works. There is an open ticket to natively support this in microG as well. Also, WhatsApp has long supported compressed file backups (non-cloud) for a while now.
- Lurkars 8y agoThe topic was more on google free, than FOSS. To go fully FOSS, you have to walk some extra miles and just don't use these services. I don't, so in the case of WhatsApp, you're lucky because they offer official apk (https://www.whatsapp.com/android/ https://www.whatsapp.com/android/) and have an autoupdate function. As mentioned, the backup service has do be done manually. As I said before, for other proprietary Apps, you can use p.a. Yalp store, which downloads apks directly from play store. There are of course some Apps, that fully depends on play services, which I cannot use. MicroG is no real alternative, because it still communicates with Google service AFAIK.
- dleslie 8y agoI use SMS and email; I've never had a whatsapp account and stopped using gchat and messenger when they broke with jabber. People who provide meaningful value are worth a little extra effort.