3 ms·

Does it make sense to use AOSP without Google ecosystem? If you can't use Android Market, Gmail, YouTube, Google Maps what the point? And to use Market you have

by deely3 3y ago

Does it make sense to use AOSP without Google ecosystem? If you can't use Android Market, Gmail, YouTube, Google Maps what the point? And to use Market you have to accept Google license.

rglullis 3y ago
yes, you can use android without google. Just ask anyone using MurenaOS, GrapheneOS, Lineage with microg...
- barbazoo 3y ago
  I couldn't get microG to work on Lineage without using the microG build of LineageOS https://lineage.microg.org/ https://lineage.microg.org/
jraph 3y ago
Yes. If you need a smartphone but want to avoid as much Apple and Google (GAFAM in general) and/or reduce your reliance on proprietary software as must as possible, that's the easiest way to do it. Linux mobile goes further but is not there yet for most people. If you need a smartphone to call, message people, browse the web, for maps/directions/location/gps, to display PDFs, you can do it on a Google-free Android: - App "store": F-Droid - Navigation: Organic Maps and OSMAnd. I guess you won't have traffic information nor radar warnings which seems a big thing for many people. - Browser: Firefox or any Chromium-based browser found in F-Droid - Emails : K9-Mail (has it been rebranded to Thunderbird yet?) - Messages : the AOSP Messaging app (or maybe a fork of it if any) or QKSMS; Element, Telegram, Rocket Chat…. For Signal you'll need to download the APK from the Signal's website as they are against distribution of unofficial builds of it, or use Aurora. - PDF : There are PDF viewers on F-Droid but can't remember their names. and you still have Aurora for downloading things from the Play Store. I fortunately never had to use WhatsApp and Messenger but they can be downloaded from there if you need them. You may miss some things, but it covers a lot already. Most things work.
- hfjjbf 3y ago
  But this is the problem: everything you describe is 10-20x the effort for an average consumer. As they say “Linux is only free if you don’t value your time”. No company cares if they lose the Linux nerd market segment for consumer tech, they have never been in play. The real market is for the “it just works” crowd. Personally despite me being entirely competent to do what you describe I have a family and a small business. I don’t have time to screw around with my phone as my time is very valuable. To the point where if something breaks I don’t even bother to figure out how to fix it anymore I just get a new one as it’s the rational time investment. I say this as a person who has several kits of tiny smartphone screw drivers, has run a million flavors of every OS, and has taken apart tons of phones, PC, laptop and the like. At some point either you have infinite cheap time or limited expensive time. Once you cross that barrier it’s economically irrational to be screwing around with k-9 mail.
  - jraph 3y ago
    > But this is the problem: everything you describe is 10-20x the effort for an average consumer You are pushing it. Once the phone is set up, everyday use is easy enough. Some things are less convenient and you are missing some bells and whistles, but the phone is still usable. it's still Android, with the same UI, for the most part. But I know this "My time is limited and expensive, I have no time for X" argument too well. (X being "freedom" and "the environment" in your comment). The world does not progress in the right direction if everybody considers their time too limited to spend time making it better. Of course, trying to improve things takes time but someone has to do it. Maybe you are improving the world in your way but if so, you are probably spending time on it. At some point we need some people to slow down and take the time to think if we are doing / how we can do the right things. Being fast and efficient towards the wrong direction is useless or even harmful. Yes, that's the idealistic person in me speaking. > if something breaks I don’t even bother to figure out how to fix it anymore I just get a new one as it’s the rational time investment. See, that's my point. It's rational until the world breaks apart because we kept burning resources building too much stuff instead of limiting the production and repairing things that can be repaired. Throwing things away and getting new stuff because one thinks their time it too important to bother is rational only in some specific meaning of "rational". I don't live to be economically efficient. The way the economy works today is absolutely not efficient with how we use our resources and produces a lot of waste. By focusing on being economically efficient, you are missing the bigger picture. As an aside: > As they say “Linux is only free if you don’t value your time”. This sentence has to die. It assumes I'm less efficient with Linux than with its alternatives, but this can't be more wrong. For what I do with computers, Linux is far more efficient and has everything I need. I'll admit free software on mobile is still far from perfect (degoogled Android is far from being bad though), but Desktop Linux is solved for me, and has been for a long time. It's not perfect and it's ever improving, but any desktop OS has its quirks. And K-9 mail is quite fine too. And I value my time. We might have different priorities.
Xeamek 3y ago
For enthusiast it's doable - you can simply side load those apps, things like graffene os (afaik) let you even install entire Google services and run it in sandbox to prevent it from spying on you. But if You want to hit the mass market, you can't rely on this 'tricks', and there is no easy way to make the process streamlined for average user. That's why the only big phone manufactured who isn't using google services anymore is Huawei, and it wasn't by choice. (I guess amazon tried it as well but only kinda)

by deely3 3y ago

Does it make sense to use AOSP without Google ecosystem? If you can't use Android Market, Gmail, YouTube, Google Maps what the point? And to use Market you have to accept Google license.

rglullis 3y ago

yes, you can use android without google. Just ask anyone using MurenaOS, GrapheneOS, Lineage with microg...

barbazoo 3y ago
I couldn't get microG to work on Lineage without using the microG build of LineageOS https://lineage.microg.org/ https://lineage.microg.org/

jraph 3y ago

Yes. If you need a smartphone but want to avoid as much Apple and Google (GAFAM in general) and/or reduce your reliance on proprietary software as must as possible, that's the easiest way to do it. Linux mobile goes further but is not there yet for most people. If you need a smartphone to call, message people, browse the web, for maps/directions/location/gps, to display PDFs, you can do it on a Google-free Android: - App "store": F-Droid - Navigation: Organic Maps and OSMAnd. I guess you won't have traffic information nor radar warnings which seems a big thing for many people. - Browser: Firefox or any Chromium-based browser found in F-Droid - Emails : K9-Mail (has it been rebranded to Thunderbird yet?) - Messages : the AOSP Messaging app (or maybe a fork of it if any) or QKSMS; Element, Telegram, Rocket Chat…. For Signal you'll need to download the APK from the Signal's website as they are against distribution of unofficial builds of it, or use Aurora. - PDF : There are PDF viewers on F-Droid but can't remember their names. and you still have Aurora for downloading things from the Play Store. I fortunately never had to use WhatsApp and Messenger but they can be downloaded from there if you need them. You may miss some things, but it covers a lot already. Most things work.

hfjjbf 3y ago
But this is the problem: everything you describe is 10-20x the effort for an average consumer. As they say “Linux is only free if you don’t value your time”. No company cares if they lose the Linux nerd market segment for consumer tech, they have never been in play. The real market is for the “it just works” crowd. Personally despite me being entirely competent to do what you describe I have a family and a small business. I don’t have time to screw around with my phone as my time is very valuable. To the point where if something breaks I don’t even bother to figure out how to fix it anymore I just get a new one as it’s the rational time investment. I say this as a person who has several kits of tiny smartphone screw drivers, has run a million flavors of every OS, and has taken apart tons of phones, PC, laptop and the like. At some point either you have infinite cheap time or limited expensive time. Once you cross that barrier it’s economically irrational to be screwing around with k-9 mail.
- jraph 3y ago
  > But this is the problem: everything you describe is 10-20x the effort for an average consumer You are pushing it. Once the phone is set up, everyday use is easy enough. Some things are less convenient and you are missing some bells and whistles, but the phone is still usable. it's still Android, with the same UI, for the most part. But I know this "My time is limited and expensive, I have no time for X" argument too well. (X being "freedom" and "the environment" in your comment). The world does not progress in the right direction if everybody considers their time too limited to spend time making it better. Of course, trying to improve things takes time but someone has to do it. Maybe you are improving the world in your way but if so, you are probably spending time on it. At some point we need some people to slow down and take the time to think if we are doing / how we can do the right things. Being fast and efficient towards the wrong direction is useless or even harmful. Yes, that's the idealistic person in me speaking. > if something breaks I don’t even bother to figure out how to fix it anymore I just get a new one as it’s the rational time investment. See, that's my point. It's rational until the world breaks apart because we kept burning resources building too much stuff instead of limiting the production and repairing things that can be repaired. Throwing things away and getting new stuff because one thinks their time it too important to bother is rational only in some specific meaning of "rational". I don't live to be economically efficient. The way the economy works today is absolutely not efficient with how we use our resources and produces a lot of waste. By focusing on being economically efficient, you are missing the bigger picture. As an aside: > As they say “Linux is only free if you don’t value your time”. This sentence has to die. It assumes I'm less efficient with Linux than with its alternatives, but this can't be more wrong. For what I do with computers, Linux is far more efficient and has everything I need. I'll admit free software on mobile is still far from perfect (degoogled Android is far from being bad though), but Desktop Linux is solved for me, and has been for a long time. It's not perfect and it's ever improving, but any desktop OS has its quirks. And K-9 mail is quite fine too. And I value my time. We might have different priorities.

Xeamek 3y ago

For enthusiast it's doable - you can simply side load those apps, things like graffene os (afaik) let you even install entire Google services and run it in sandbox to prevent it from spying on you. But if You want to hit the mass market, you can't rely on this 'tricks', and there is no easy way to make the process streamlined for average user. That's why the only big phone manufactured who isn't using google services anymore is Huawei, and it wasn't by choice. (I guess amazon tried it as well but only kinda)