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Honest question: can one (reasonably) use an Android phone without a Google account? If not, should one just accept losing access to half the phone market? What
by gspr 4y ago
Honest question: can one (reasonably) use an Android phone without a Google account? If not, should one just accept losing access to half the phone market? What if Apple decides to pull a similar move?
In many places, you need a phone from one of those two providers in order to do mundane things like riding the subway without having to jump through extra hoops.
- googl-free 4y agoYou can use several google-free AOSP builds. GrapheneOS is great. You lose the ability to use a few apps like uber/lyft, but you should also know how to navigate cities without those apps.
- Freak_NL 4y agoI'm impressed by GrapheneOS. Only when you need apps from the Play Store will you need a Google account. As long as anything you get there is free and easy to reinstate if you lose your Google account, that's not much of a risk. For navigation without transportation, OsmAnd and OrganicMaps (both OpenStreetMap) often do quite well.
- melff 4y agoYou can use "Aurora Store" to download apps without a google account, I use that on lineageOS
- Freak_NL 4y agoIs https://auroraoss.com/ https://auroraoss.com/ their home page? This site gives off a weird vibe with the broken FAQ link and all.
- melff 4y agoyes it is, and I agree their home page is shit. I downloaded it trough F-Droid and didn't really background check it, maybe you wanna take a look at their repo: https://gitlab.com/AuroraOSS/AuroraStore https://gitlab.com/AuroraOSS/AuroraStore
- gspr 4y ago> Only when you need apps from the Play Store will you need a Google account. Which is a lot of apps that society assume people have access to!