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Something I've wondered- does this allow you to totally forego Google's web APIs? I.e., sending any data to Google at all? Or is it just that the local code is

by _bxg1 7y ago

Something I've wondered- does this allow you to totally forego Google's web APIs? I.e., sending any data to Google at all? Or is it just that the local code is open source?

ocdtrekkie 7y ago
This is just a local code replacement. It still uses Google services, and it wouldn't work any other way, since many Google APIs that Play Services interacts with connect to Google accounts. The site does claim that you can more readily monitor and restrict what data is sent to Google with microG compared to Play Services though.
- _bxg1 7y ago
  Since many of the google services are for generic things like notifications and location, I've heard it can spoof at least some of those. I was more asking whether it can work as a wholesale boycott, or only partial.
  - ocdtrekkie 7y ago
    The challenge is that "notifications" tend to be treated like a service now. Push notifications delivered "from an app" actually come from Google services to your device. Which is why sometimes you get a notification "from an app", and open the app, and it still has to sync before it shows what you were notified of already. To replace Google in this transaction, the app developer would need to pipe their notification pushes to your alternative server. Amazon and Microsoft have both played with replacing Google's location API, basically by using their own location service but formatting it like a response from Google though. On the Fire Phone/Kindle line, and Microsoft's Android layer they built and abandoned for Windows Phone respectively.
codethief 7y ago
AFAIK MicroG doesn't send any data to Google unless you explicitly tell it to. Here are some situations where you might want to do that: - You might want to enable the Google Cloud Messaging feature inside MicroG, so that your apps can receive push notifications just like they would on a regular Google phone. - SafetyNet. If you want some app to work that requires Google SafetyNet, your phone will necessarily have to communicate with the Google servers. MicroG provides functionality to do that. (Though, if you're worried about your phone's security, I strongly advise against using this feature because SafetyNet essentially requires the phone to download and run a binary blob from the Google servers.) - If you want to install apps from the Play Store you will have to install the Google Play Store app or at least some open-source alternative like YalpStore or Aurora Store both of which will obviously download the .apks from and therefore connect to the Google servers. However, this has nothing to do with MicroG per se. Anyway, you decide all this for yourself. If you don't want your phone to connect to Google at all, that's perfectly possible. UPDATE: Indeed, I just checked and found a setting in MicroG saying "Allow connecting to Google servers. If disabled, all connections to Google servers usually done by microG will be denied. This overrides service-specific settings."
- commoner 7y ago
  One of the key benefits to MicroG is that you can turn on/off Google Cloud Messaging for every single app that uses it. As far as I'm aware, this fine-grained permission is not available on Google Play Services.
izacus 7y ago
MicroG still talks to Google servers in some cases - e.g. their push notification module will keep a long-polling connection to Google infrastructure to receive notifications.

by _bxg1 7y ago

Something I've wondered- does this allow you to totally forego Google's web APIs? I.e., sending any data to Google at all? Or is it just that the local code is open source?

ocdtrekkie 7y ago

This is just a local code replacement. It still uses Google services, and it wouldn't work any other way, since many Google APIs that Play Services interacts with connect to Google accounts. The site does claim that you can more readily monitor and restrict what data is sent to Google with microG compared to Play Services though.

_bxg1 7y ago
Since many of the google services are for generic things like notifications and location, I've heard it can spoof at least some of those. I was more asking whether it can work as a wholesale boycott, or only partial.
- ocdtrekkie 7y ago
  The challenge is that "notifications" tend to be treated like a service now. Push notifications delivered "from an app" actually come from Google services to your device. Which is why sometimes you get a notification "from an app", and open the app, and it still has to sync before it shows what you were notified of already. To replace Google in this transaction, the app developer would need to pipe their notification pushes to your alternative server. Amazon and Microsoft have both played with replacing Google's location API, basically by using their own location service but formatting it like a response from Google though. On the Fire Phone/Kindle line, and Microsoft's Android layer they built and abandoned for Windows Phone respectively.

codethief 7y ago

AFAIK MicroG doesn't send any data to Google unless you explicitly tell it to. Here are some situations where you might want to do that: - You might want to enable the Google Cloud Messaging feature inside MicroG, so that your apps can receive push notifications just like they would on a regular Google phone. - SafetyNet. If you want some app to work that requires Google SafetyNet, your phone will necessarily have to communicate with the Google servers. MicroG provides functionality to do that. (Though, if you're worried about your phone's security, I strongly advise against using this feature because SafetyNet essentially requires the phone to download and run a binary blob from the Google servers.) - If you want to install apps from the Play Store you will have to install the Google Play Store app or at least some open-source alternative like YalpStore or Aurora Store both of which will obviously download the .apks from and therefore connect to the Google servers. However, this has nothing to do with MicroG per se. Anyway, you decide all this for yourself. If you don't want your phone to connect to Google at all, that's perfectly possible. UPDATE: Indeed, I just checked and found a setting in MicroG saying "Allow connecting to Google servers. If disabled, all connections to Google servers usually done by microG will be denied. This overrides service-specific settings."

commoner 7y ago
One of the key benefits to MicroG is that you can turn on/off Google Cloud Messaging for every single app that uses it. As far as I'm aware, this fine-grained permission is not available on Google Play Services.

izacus 7y ago

MicroG still talks to Google servers in some cases - e.g. their push notification module will keep a long-polling connection to Google infrastructure to receive notifications.