9 ms·

How de-Googled is Lineage OS?

136 points by ingve 2y ago

jaredhallen 2y ago
I've been running Lineage with microg for a couple years now, and for the same reasons as the author. I don't consider myself a tin-foiler, either. I think the concerns he expresses are perfectly valid. Anyway, FWIW, I have noticed a night and day difference in the targeted advertising. It's a little amusing, because my wife has an iPhone, and she'll get nearly instant targeted ads based on conversations we have, while I don't. Anecdotal, sure, but there seems to be something to it.
- throwaway48540 2y ago
  Interesting, I replaced my android (with Lineage and without even microg) with iPhone and all the hyper-targeted ads stopped.
  - kmeisthax 2y ago
    Apple's long-term play with iOS is to shut all competing ad networks out of the data flow that iPhones generate. This is not solely for privacy reasons. We know Apple runs their own ads in the App Store, and they do collect data on those ads, which they conveniently do not consider to be "tracking" because it doesn't cross an organizational boundary. And to be clear, every other big tech company operates on this same logic. "Tracking" to both Apple and Google is this really specific technical definition rooted in the same-origin policy of web browsers, in the same way that "malware" to Apple is "anything we didn't sign, including useful developer tools, third-party JIT compilers, and games that won't pay us 30% of their microtransaction sales". In fact, this sort of "we'll protect you from the competition's - and ONLY the competition's - malfeasance" bullshit is why Google isn't allowed to block third-party cookies. The UK CMA is legally enshrining third-party cookies - at least in Google browsers - because all of Google's own privacy posturing with that was just to shut off the data flow in Chrome.
    - throwaway48540 2y ago
      Tracking how many times someone requested an API endpoint while using the App Store seems acceptable to me. Very comparable to server side logging which I also don't have any problem with. I don't do it much anyways, I have installed the apps I use when I got the phone and never opened the App Store again.
- tiahura 2y ago
  So you go through all that effort just so you can see more irrelevant ads?
  - deng 2y ago
    LineageOS with MicroG is really not much effort nowadays as long as you - get an officially supported phone with easily unlocked bootloader (which usually means: Pixel or OnePlus) - get the LineageOS&MicroG bundle from https://download.lineage.microg.org https://download.lineage.microg.org, which should really be more advertised - don't root your phone, because that'll definitely require more effort fuzzing around with Magisk and Zygote deny lists etc. There are of course apps that won't work with MicroG, period. Anything requiring hard DRM (Netflix EDIT: according to below list, it's actually working now, but I cannot test), games (Pokemon Go for instance), also quite a few banking apps, so if you can't live without some of those, check beforehand for instance on https://community.e.foundation/t/list-apps-that-work-or-do-not-work-with-microg/21151 https://community.e.foundation/t/list-apps-that-work-or-do-n...
    - fragmede 2y ago
      just so you can see more irrelevant ads?
      - flotzam 2y ago
        It can be looked at as cognitive defense. I don't want a hostile ad/surveillance system to charm me with relevance.
      - deng 2y ago
        No, just because I find the default Google experience in Android annoying, and I don't see why they should know everything about me. Thanks to ublock, adaway and pi.hole I don't see ads anyway.
      - gljiva 2y ago
        What a disingenous question, yuck. No, whether ads are relevant or not was never the core issue, so that alone wasn't the cause of his actions (btw, doesn't sound like much effort tbh). The relevance of ads is just a symptom of underlying cause.
- rapnie 2y ago
  Anecdotal, I use adblockers, and for many years I think "Huh, ads?"
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- medstrom 2y ago
  What you describe sounds like the data on both of you gets stored due to your choice of messaging app, and you just don't get shown ads due to your choice of OS. Data may still be there.
akimbostrawman 2y ago
>But I’m not paranoid. I don’t think Google is out to get me, or is in league with people who are. they are a data selling company. anybody now or in the future who deems that data valuable can acquire it. worrying about such data falling into the wrong hands sooner or later is not paranoid but knowing history and learning from it. i agree that if you are serious about de-Googling that GrapehenOS is a much better fit not to mention superior security, however that is only the first step.
- fsflover 2y ago
  > i agree that if you are serious about de-Googling that GrapehenOS is a much better fit A GNU/Linux smartphone is an even better fit for this. GrapheneOS uses Google hardware and AOSP written by Google.
  - akimbostrawman 2y ago
    i like GNU/Linux but on smartphones they are inferior to GraphenOS security which is a integral part to privacy not to mention lacking app support.
    - fsflover 2y ago
      Security depends on the threat model. I do not trust Google hardware. Also Librem 5 has a smart card and hardware kill switches.
  - BadHumans 2y ago
    Too bad Linux smartphones fail at the smartphone part of it.
    - fsflover 2y ago
      They don't. I use one as a daily driver.
      - reginald78 2y ago
sulandor 2y ago
tl;dr not much but it's a start
elric 2y ago
I've given up on Lineage, mostly because updates are a pain. Switched to GrapheneOS and am pretty happy so far. I think their approach of sandboxing the Google-foo is pretty sensible, as it strikes a balance between usability and privacy. It's a shame that the mobile phone market is such a complete and utter shitshow. Can't root your device because a boatload of apps will stop working. Can't have an unlocked bootloader because other apps will stop working. You effectively have a choice between two walled gardens (and never the twain shall meet!), with varying degrees of privacy violations. How did we let it come to this? For a brief moment we had the glorious N900 and Maemo ecosystem, but that's all gone now. Open phones seem impossible now.
- ductsurprise 2y ago
  Maemo really was impressive, and to think how far it could be with more than a decade development and refinements had Nokia managed keep that team on it. Sailfish OS still seems to be going, and latest and installable on Sony Xperia 10 V. Though that is based on Meego which was what replaced Maemo and ended up on the Nokia N9 and was no longer Debian based IIRC. Tizen OS was the other offshoot of Meego and Samsung was working with it, but they appear be abandoning it. I never had the chance to pick up a compatible device try them out.
  - elric 2y ago
    Nokia was able to keep the team, AFAIR Nokia kicked them out (and Nvidia hired a bunch of them). I tried Sailfish for a while, but it got progressively slower and I vaguely remember some weird Russian involvement?
- keyringlight 2y ago
  I see platforms becoming less fruitful to tinkering as a characteristic of them maturing, especially when a commercial side is linked either by whoever 'owns' the platform or companies that make use of it. Tinkerers are great for pathfinding the platform and a certain amount of evangelism among early adopters, but when the platform is established among the mass market it seems lockdown is inevitable.
- 2y ago
wkat4242 2y ago
> I’ve subsequently learned that hard-core de-Googlers eschew Lineage OS, because it remains too close to the stock configuration of the Android Open-Source Project (AOSP) on which it is based. This is true, LineageOS is mainly used by people that end up installing Google Play Services afterwards. They have said themselves that 90+% of people install it on top of Lineage. They are also very afraid of pissing Google off, and thus they are extremely against MicroG which is an open-source phone-side API for Google Play that is more privacy preserving. For example it replaces the location service with alternatives and supports firebase push messaging without sharing too much data. But Lineage hate it, if you so much as mention it in their IRC channel you get insta-kicked. I view Lineage not really as a privacy ROM but more as a long term support ROM for the people that want normal Android with Google but their phone has fallen out of support from the vendor. PS: There is a great fork from MicroG itself: https://lineage.microg.org/ https://lineage.microg.org/ . Of course not using Google at all is even better but the problem is that most app backends only speak to Firebase (google) for their push messaging. > I don’t like Google knowing so much about me, but I don’t believe Google’s data collection is directly harmful to me. My disapproval of Google’s activities (and I know Google is not the only culprit) is mainly one of principle. For me it's not about harmful or not. I just don't want to be spied upon, whether I receive negative effects from it or not. > I don’t want to be a source of revenue for Google, or to legitimize their behaviour by my own inaction. I don’t want Google to make the Internet more of a hellscape that it currently is. Well Google and their model of tracked advertising goes hand in hand with enshittification. They're responsible (though not single-handedly) for establishing the model of 'the user is not the customer but the product'. Kowtowing to their services will certainly make things worse.
- jraph 2y ago
  Of course it's better if you can find your rom on lineage.microg.org, but you can also install MicroG on Lineage using something like NanoDroid [1]. I see FairPhone has something like this too [2]. [1] https://gitlab.com/Nanolx/NanoDroid https://gitlab.com/Nanolx/NanoDroid [2] https://github.com/WeAreFairphone/flashable-zip_microG https://github.com/WeAreFairphone/flashable-zip_microG
  - 2y ago
checkyoursudo 2y ago
I have been a long-time iPhone user, but my daily driver is Linux. Once, a long time ago, I had high hopes for a Linux phone. TFA mentions Lineage and Graphene. Are these the only realistic alternatives these days? Why would one choose one over the other?
- _heimdall 2y ago
  CalyxOS is another option, though I haven't tried it personally. If you need Google services and just want an OS closer to ASOP, I'd recommend Lineage. If you want a de-Googled device and are okay with the limitations that comes with, go with Graphene. I've been using Graphene for a few years now and have always been happy with it.
  - mab122 2y ago
    Honestly except occasional location service/embedded maps not working in some app that only implemented google maps APIs - I have like one app that actually doesn't work (is not usable) and I am using grapheneOS as daily driver for at least 3 years now.
    - seanw444 2y ago
      Been using it for almost 2 years myself, and I can say the same. Everything just works pretty much. For the couple Play Store things I need, I just get them via Aurora Store. So the actual Play Store app isn't even installed on my phone. On the maps topic: other than finding locations via address, OsmAnd+ is better than Google Maps in my opinion. Even tells you what lanes to be in ahead of time when driving. I'm pleasantly surprised by it. Sure, you also lose out on the traffic heatmaps, but that's an acceptable loss to me as it means my phone isn't part of a spyware botnet anymore. Plus my state runs its own traffic heatmap website. If I need to see it, I can go there.
- fsflover 2y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41356567 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41356567
replete 2y ago
DivestOS is based on lineageOS and while not as good as grapheneOS, does support a number of other devices [0]. I think its the next best alternative to GrapheneOS. Monthly security updates too. [0]: https://divestos.org/pages/devices https://divestos.org/pages/devices
BadHumans 2y ago
As much as I would like an alternative, the downsides to not using Google Play Services is too great for me to seriously consider a degoogled phone. This may be a use case for PWAs but until banking apps and ride sharing apps are fully functional on the webs this isn't an option.
- gspencley 2y ago
  This obviously isn't 100% "de-Googled' but I use GrapheneOS with the sand-boxed Google Play Services and Aurora Store for the few proprietary apps that I use. I don't do online banking using my phone so I'm not sure how well that works (GrapheneOS' documentation has some words of warning about banking apps), but for ride sharing and other stuff that I occasionally need it has worked pretty well. The one thing that didn't work well was Location services when my wife and I travelled to Walt Disney World. The My Disney Experience app worked great for the most part, but occasionally I would get errors related Location claiming that I was outside of the country. Uber worked fine though. Fortunately we were travelling together and had her phone to fall back on when we needed it.
  - jraph 2y ago
    This looks like something microG would handle (a free software reimplementation of Google Play Services, including push notifications and location services). I see GrapheneOS is unwilling to support it.
    - codethief 2y ago
      Yes, because according to the GrapheneOS devs it would weaken the security properties of the OS. Besides, GrapheneOS already supports the native Google Play Services (with additional sandboxing), so I have a hard time seeing how MicroG would help here. (I used MicroG on LineageOS for years and it certainly wasn't without bugs.) Also, regarding what GP wrote, I haven't encountered a single app in a long time that wouldn't run on GrapheneOS.
  - e12e 2y ago
    I assume you give up Google pay? I'm surprised at how convenient it turned out to not have to carry a credit/debit card around - just tap with phone.
kelsey98765431 2y ago
I looked into why I was unable to use a secure encryption password on android devices about a year ago and i was shocked to find the AOSP bug that was over a decade old identifying a max 16 character encryption password, and was absolutely floored to see CyanogenFraud now called LineageOS had willingly not patched this until literally the very latest release, which was not available for my one plus device at that time. 16 character max for a decade is a juicy rainbow table for the small cost of a few petabytes, something most law enforcement is easily capable of paying for. Between the devils I know I much prefer my apple mobile devices, even with a fix applied I wonder about the intentions of a team that ignored security concerns for over a decade (both Alphabet and Lineage)
- e12e 2y ago
  > 16 character max for a decade is a juicy rainbow table for the small cost of a few petabytes Surely the kdf is salted and not prone to rainbow table attack? If it is, that's a flaw on its own - and much more serious than a 16 character limit? log2((2*26+10+10)^16) ~98bits of entropy - that's nothing to sneeze at?
z3c0 2y ago
I've used both Lineage and Graphene extensively, and contrary to a lot of what I see even here in this thread, I find Lineage (without MicroG) to be a more Google-free experience, at least on the surface. Graphene's sandboxed GApps can still learn information about your usage patterns if you log into the services, albeit far less than they would on a standard Android device. However, it's for the sandboxed GApps that I consider Graphene to be more usable for the average smartphone user. I'll admit to not really understanding what about the AOSP is inherently bad other than being maintained by Google. To my understanding, it's only the GApps binary that remains shrouded in sinister mystery, and obviously that's not present in Lineage.
oaththrowaway 2y ago
I've moved from Lineage+MicroG to /e/OS. Overall it's fine. I don't feel like I'm missing anything from a full Google experience
motohagiography 2y ago
the way to do mobile privacy well would be to run an android image with a VoIP phone number in a cloud container and then actuate the image using another handheld via wireguard. I don't know that market well, but it seems like you should be able to run a virtual cloud android devices as a digital twin. secure hardware is a honeypot. disposable hardware with keys you manage is the best possible.
- aesh2Xa1 2y ago
  I don't think secure hardware is unimportant, let alone a honeypot. For example, what happens when someone just takes your disposable handheld in your model of private Android?
Springtime 2y ago
One caution about changing the captive portal as described in various de-Googling guides is you can shoot yourself in the foot, as ime the entire cellular (and even Wi-Fi) connection can fail to work if the captive portal domain doesn't return the correct 204 status code (which can happen when some independent servers randomly fail or their HTTPS cert isn't renewed), which becomes frustrating to troubleshoot as the issue can be intermittent. Additionally the guide I've seen referenced the most (from Reddit, which a popular Youtube video is directly based upon and which this article covers the main points of) suggests an outdated HTTPS URL which no longer works. I'd imagine many are just blindly copying adb settings and encountering problems (the burden of which often falls onto LineageOS community support as people spend time trying to identify an issue).
rty32 2y ago
> I just keep it disabled, and live with the disadvantage of longer GPS start-up times. The reality is that it is extremely painful to spend minutes locating satellites -- it is a battery drain and very difficult to deal with, almost in every case you need to use GPS (location, navigation etc). It is a dealbreaker for me personally and probably most of people.
- wkat4242 2y ago
  Yes but MicroG does allow to use AGPS and cellular location through services other than Google. Unfortunately Mozilla was the biggest one and they just shut theirs down. But there's a plugin for apple's and you can also use one that automatically caches cells wherever you have been, which works really great if you end up in the same places a lot.
ndr 2y ago
My Pixel 6 Pro just started making a sound anytime I take a screenshot. There's no way to turn it off[0]. I don't care about the de-Googling as much but I'm considering wiping to something freer, maybe Lineage OS. How destructive is that going to be? [0] It doesn't do it when I take a picture with the camera (mCameraSoundForced=false) and I'm in a country where that would be unnecessary anyway.
- dotBen 2y ago
  That's your reason to use something 'freer'? To avoid a screenshot sound? I mean, you do you but that's kind a extreme.
  - ndr 2y ago
    It's maddening that I tell my phone to stay quiet and it disobeys. All that code and settings live in a protected partition. If I have to root my phone for this at least I'd like it to be nicer to hack on.
  - foresto 2y ago
    They're talking about agency. Having control of the hardware they bought. The screenshot sound is just a convenient example.
- noman-land 2y ago
  If you have a Pixel, use Graphene instead. It's incredibly easy to install and is better by every metric.
Eavolution 2y ago
I really want to use Lineage, I really do. I have a device thats supported and can easily unlock the bootloader, but I'd need my bank apps all to work, and I know that they don't. Even if they did, I don't want the uncertainty of them not working when a few don't have a internet banking without an app, and others require an app for 2fa, otherwise I'd use Lineage in a heartbeat. This feels like an issue for the EU to step in on, a functional duopoly created by apps for essential services that almost everyone needs requiring one of 2 platforms to work.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- burnerthrow008 2y ago
  > This feels like an issue for the EU to step in on, a functional duopoly created by apps for essential services that almost everyone needs requiring one of 2 platforms to work. Never going to happen, for the same reason the EU forced Apple to open the NFC chip: They're working for European businesses, not European people. European banks depend on a having a trustable platform for their apps. They are going to lobby hard against such rules because they don't want to be overrun by fraud. Maybe Apple will help you out if you're lucky. They seem to hold a grudge, and maybe they will lobby the EC for such a rule just to fuck over the banks who forced them to open up the NFC chip.
  - wkat4242 2y ago
    > They are going to lobby hard against such rules because they don't want to be overrun by fraud. The vast majority who run a degoogled phone knows what they're doing. And it's such a niche phenomenon anyway. They're not going to be overrun by anything.
- Fire-Dragon-DoL 2y ago
  Same. The hardware attestation made it so no open source os can run with full functionality. Not grapheneos, not lineageos. I'm stuck on normal android, and probably stuck on a pixel because I want updates and Samsung keeps delivering horrible uis and phones that break on my wife
_rdvw 2y ago
Please see https://eylenburg.github.io/android_comparison.htm https://eylenburg.github.io/android_comparison.htm

136 points by ingve 2y ago

I've been running Lineage with microg for a couple years now, and for the same reasons as the author. I don't consider myself a tin-foiler, either. I think the concerns he expresses are perfectly valid. Anyway, FWIW, I have noticed a night and day difference in the targeted advertising. It's a little amusing, because my wife has an iPhone, and she'll get nearly instant targeted ads based on conversations we have, while I don't. Anecdotal, sure, but there seems to be something to it.

throwaway48540 2y ago
Interesting, I replaced my android (with Lineage and without even microg) with iPhone and all the hyper-targeted ads stopped.
- kmeisthax 2y ago
  Apple's long-term play with iOS is to shut all competing ad networks out of the data flow that iPhones generate. This is not solely for privacy reasons. We know Apple runs their own ads in the App Store, and they do collect data on those ads, which they conveniently do not consider to be "tracking" because it doesn't cross an organizational boundary. And to be clear, every other big tech company operates on this same logic. "Tracking" to both Apple and Google is this really specific technical definition rooted in the same-origin policy of web browsers, in the same way that "malware" to Apple is "anything we didn't sign, including useful developer tools, third-party JIT compilers, and games that won't pay us 30% of their microtransaction sales". In fact, this sort of "we'll protect you from the competition's - and ONLY the competition's - malfeasance" bullshit is why Google isn't allowed to block third-party cookies. The UK CMA is legally enshrining third-party cookies - at least in Google browsers - because all of Google's own privacy posturing with that was just to shut off the data flow in Chrome.
  - throwaway48540 2y ago
    Tracking how many times someone requested an API endpoint while using the App Store seems acceptable to me. Very comparable to server side logging which I also don't have any problem with. I don't do it much anyways, I have installed the apps I use when I got the phone and never opened the App Store again.
tiahura 2y ago
So you go through all that effort just so you can see more irrelevant ads?
- deng 2y ago
  LineageOS with MicroG is really not much effort nowadays as long as you - get an officially supported phone with easily unlocked bootloader (which usually means: Pixel or OnePlus) - get the LineageOS&MicroG bundle from https://download.lineage.microg.org https://download.lineage.microg.org, which should really be more advertised - don't root your phone, because that'll definitely require more effort fuzzing around with Magisk and Zygote deny lists etc. There are of course apps that won't work with MicroG, period. Anything requiring hard DRM (Netflix EDIT: according to below list, it's actually working now, but I cannot test), games (Pokemon Go for instance), also quite a few banking apps, so if you can't live without some of those, check beforehand for instance on https://community.e.foundation/t/list-apps-that-work-or-do-not-work-with-microg/21151 https://community.e.foundation/t/list-apps-that-work-or-do-n...
  - fragmede 2y ago
    just so you can see more irrelevant ads?
    - flotzam 2y ago
      It can be looked at as cognitive defense. I don't want a hostile ad/surveillance system to charm me with relevance.
    - deng 2y ago
      No, just because I find the default Google experience in Android annoying, and I don't see why they should know everything about me. Thanks to ublock, adaway and pi.hole I don't see ads anyway.
    - gljiva 2y ago
      What a disingenous question, yuck. No, whether ads are relevant or not was never the core issue, so that alone wasn't the cause of his actions (btw, doesn't sound like much effort tbh). The relevance of ads is just a symptom of underlying cause.
rapnie 2y ago
Anecdotal, I use adblockers, and for many years I think "Huh, ads?"
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
medstrom 2y ago
What you describe sounds like the data on both of you gets stored due to your choice of messaging app, and you just don't get shown ads due to your choice of OS. Data may still be there.

akimbostrawman 2y ago

>But I’m not paranoid. I don’t think Google is out to get me, or is in league with people who are. they are a data selling company. anybody now or in the future who deems that data valuable can acquire it. worrying about such data falling into the wrong hands sooner or later is not paranoid but knowing history and learning from it. i agree that if you are serious about de-Googling that GrapehenOS is a much better fit not to mention superior security, however that is only the first step.

fsflover 2y ago
> i agree that if you are serious about de-Googling that GrapehenOS is a much better fit A GNU/Linux smartphone is an even better fit for this. GrapheneOS uses Google hardware and AOSP written by Google.
- akimbostrawman 2y ago
  i like GNU/Linux but on smartphones they are inferior to GraphenOS security which is a integral part to privacy not to mention lacking app support.
  - fsflover 2y ago
    Security depends on the threat model. I do not trust Google hardware. Also Librem 5 has a smart card and hardware kill switches.
- BadHumans 2y ago
  Too bad Linux smartphones fail at the smartphone part of it.
  - fsflover 2y ago
    They don't. I use one as a daily driver.
    - reginald78 2y ago

sulandor 2y ago

tl;dr not much but it's a start

elric 2y ago

I've given up on Lineage, mostly because updates are a pain. Switched to GrapheneOS and am pretty happy so far. I think their approach of sandboxing the Google-foo is pretty sensible, as it strikes a balance between usability and privacy. It's a shame that the mobile phone market is such a complete and utter shitshow. Can't root your device because a boatload of apps will stop working. Can't have an unlocked bootloader because other apps will stop working. You effectively have a choice between two walled gardens (and never the twain shall meet!), with varying degrees of privacy violations. How did we let it come to this? For a brief moment we had the glorious N900 and Maemo ecosystem, but that's all gone now. Open phones seem impossible now.

ductsurprise 2y ago
Maemo really was impressive, and to think how far it could be with more than a decade development and refinements had Nokia managed keep that team on it. Sailfish OS still seems to be going, and latest and installable on Sony Xperia 10 V. Though that is based on Meego which was what replaced Maemo and ended up on the Nokia N9 and was no longer Debian based IIRC. Tizen OS was the other offshoot of Meego and Samsung was working with it, but they appear be abandoning it. I never had the chance to pick up a compatible device try them out.
- elric 2y ago
  Nokia was able to keep the team, AFAIR Nokia kicked them out (and Nvidia hired a bunch of them). I tried Sailfish for a while, but it got progressively slower and I vaguely remember some weird Russian involvement?
keyringlight 2y ago
I see platforms becoming less fruitful to tinkering as a characteristic of them maturing, especially when a commercial side is linked either by whoever 'owns' the platform or companies that make use of it. Tinkerers are great for pathfinding the platform and a certain amount of evangelism among early adopters, but when the platform is established among the mass market it seems lockdown is inevitable.
2y ago

wkat4242 2y ago

> I’ve subsequently learned that hard-core de-Googlers eschew Lineage OS, because it remains too close to the stock configuration of the Android Open-Source Project (AOSP) on which it is based. This is true, LineageOS is mainly used by people that end up installing Google Play Services afterwards. They have said themselves that 90+% of people install it on top of Lineage. They are also very afraid of pissing Google off, and thus they are extremely against MicroG which is an open-source phone-side API for Google Play that is more privacy preserving. For example it replaces the location service with alternatives and supports firebase push messaging without sharing too much data. But Lineage hate it, if you so much as mention it in their IRC channel you get insta-kicked. I view Lineage not really as a privacy ROM but more as a long term support ROM for the people that want normal Android with Google but their phone has fallen out of support from the vendor. PS: There is a great fork from MicroG itself: https://lineage.microg.org/ https://lineage.microg.org/ . Of course not using Google at all is even better but the problem is that most app backends only speak to Firebase (google) for their push messaging. > I don’t like Google knowing so much about me, but I don’t believe Google’s data collection is directly harmful to me. My disapproval of Google’s activities (and I know Google is not the only culprit) is mainly one of principle. For me it's not about harmful or not. I just don't want to be spied upon, whether I receive negative effects from it or not. > I don’t want to be a source of revenue for Google, or to legitimize their behaviour by my own inaction. I don’t want Google to make the Internet more of a hellscape that it currently is. Well Google and their model of tracked advertising goes hand in hand with enshittification. They're responsible (though not single-handedly) for establishing the model of 'the user is not the customer but the product'. Kowtowing to their services will certainly make things worse.

jraph 2y ago
Of course it's better if you can find your rom on lineage.microg.org, but you can also install MicroG on Lineage using something like NanoDroid [1]. I see FairPhone has something like this too [2]. [1] https://gitlab.com/Nanolx/NanoDroid https://gitlab.com/Nanolx/NanoDroid [2] https://github.com/WeAreFairphone/flashable-zip_microG https://github.com/WeAreFairphone/flashable-zip_microG
- 2y ago

checkyoursudo 2y ago

I have been a long-time iPhone user, but my daily driver is Linux. Once, a long time ago, I had high hopes for a Linux phone. TFA mentions Lineage and Graphene. Are these the only realistic alternatives these days? Why would one choose one over the other?

_heimdall 2y ago
CalyxOS is another option, though I haven't tried it personally. If you need Google services and just want an OS closer to ASOP, I'd recommend Lineage. If you want a de-Googled device and are okay with the limitations that comes with, go with Graphene. I've been using Graphene for a few years now and have always been happy with it.
- mab122 2y ago
  Honestly except occasional location service/embedded maps not working in some app that only implemented google maps APIs - I have like one app that actually doesn't work (is not usable) and I am using grapheneOS as daily driver for at least 3 years now.
  - seanw444 2y ago
    Been using it for almost 2 years myself, and I can say the same. Everything just works pretty much. For the couple Play Store things I need, I just get them via Aurora Store. So the actual Play Store app isn't even installed on my phone. On the maps topic: other than finding locations via address, OsmAnd+ is better than Google Maps in my opinion. Even tells you what lanes to be in ahead of time when driving. I'm pleasantly surprised by it. Sure, you also lose out on the traffic heatmaps, but that's an acceptable loss to me as it means my phone isn't part of a spyware botnet anymore. Plus my state runs its own traffic heatmap website. If I need to see it, I can go there.
fsflover 2y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41356567 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41356567

replete 2y ago

DivestOS is based on lineageOS and while not as good as grapheneOS, does support a number of other devices [0]. I think its the next best alternative to GrapheneOS. Monthly security updates too. [0]: https://divestos.org/pages/devices https://divestos.org/pages/devices

BadHumans 2y ago

As much as I would like an alternative, the downsides to not using Google Play Services is too great for me to seriously consider a degoogled phone. This may be a use case for PWAs but until banking apps and ride sharing apps are fully functional on the webs this isn't an option.

gspencley 2y ago
This obviously isn't 100% "de-Googled' but I use GrapheneOS with the sand-boxed Google Play Services and Aurora Store for the few proprietary apps that I use. I don't do online banking using my phone so I'm not sure how well that works (GrapheneOS' documentation has some words of warning about banking apps), but for ride sharing and other stuff that I occasionally need it has worked pretty well. The one thing that didn't work well was Location services when my wife and I travelled to Walt Disney World. The My Disney Experience app worked great for the most part, but occasionally I would get errors related Location claiming that I was outside of the country. Uber worked fine though. Fortunately we were travelling together and had her phone to fall back on when we needed it.
- jraph 2y ago
  This looks like something microG would handle (a free software reimplementation of Google Play Services, including push notifications and location services). I see GrapheneOS is unwilling to support it.
  - codethief 2y ago
    Yes, because according to the GrapheneOS devs it would weaken the security properties of the OS. Besides, GrapheneOS already supports the native Google Play Services (with additional sandboxing), so I have a hard time seeing how MicroG would help here. (I used MicroG on LineageOS for years and it certainly wasn't without bugs.) Also, regarding what GP wrote, I haven't encountered a single app in a long time that wouldn't run on GrapheneOS.
- e12e 2y ago
  I assume you give up Google pay? I'm surprised at how convenient it turned out to not have to carry a credit/debit card around - just tap with phone.

kelsey98765431 2y ago

I looked into why I was unable to use a secure encryption password on android devices about a year ago and i was shocked to find the AOSP bug that was over a decade old identifying a max 16 character encryption password, and was absolutely floored to see CyanogenFraud now called LineageOS had willingly not patched this until literally the very latest release, which was not available for my one plus device at that time. 16 character max for a decade is a juicy rainbow table for the small cost of a few petabytes, something most law enforcement is easily capable of paying for. Between the devils I know I much prefer my apple mobile devices, even with a fix applied I wonder about the intentions of a team that ignored security concerns for over a decade (both Alphabet and Lineage)

e12e 2y ago
> 16 character max for a decade is a juicy rainbow table for the small cost of a few petabytes Surely the kdf is salted and not prone to rainbow table attack? If it is, that's a flaw on its own - and much more serious than a 16 character limit? log2((2*26+10+10)^16) ~98bits of entropy - that's nothing to sneeze at?

z3c0 2y ago

I've used both Lineage and Graphene extensively, and contrary to a lot of what I see even here in this thread, I find Lineage (without MicroG) to be a more Google-free experience, at least on the surface. Graphene's sandboxed GApps can still learn information about your usage patterns if you log into the services, albeit far less than they would on a standard Android device. However, it's for the sandboxed GApps that I consider Graphene to be more usable for the average smartphone user. I'll admit to not really understanding what about the AOSP is inherently bad other than being maintained by Google. To my understanding, it's only the GApps binary that remains shrouded in sinister mystery, and obviously that's not present in Lineage.

oaththrowaway 2y ago

I've moved from Lineage+MicroG to /e/OS. Overall it's fine. I don't feel like I'm missing anything from a full Google experience

motohagiography 2y ago

the way to do mobile privacy well would be to run an android image with a VoIP phone number in a cloud container and then actuate the image using another handheld via wireguard. I don't know that market well, but it seems like you should be able to run a virtual cloud android devices as a digital twin. secure hardware is a honeypot. disposable hardware with keys you manage is the best possible.

aesh2Xa1 2y ago
I don't think secure hardware is unimportant, let alone a honeypot. For example, what happens when someone just takes your disposable handheld in your model of private Android?

Springtime 2y ago

One caution about changing the captive portal as described in various de-Googling guides is you can shoot yourself in the foot, as ime the entire cellular (and even Wi-Fi) connection can fail to work if the captive portal domain doesn't return the correct 204 status code (which can happen when some independent servers randomly fail or their HTTPS cert isn't renewed), which becomes frustrating to troubleshoot as the issue can be intermittent. Additionally the guide I've seen referenced the most (from Reddit, which a popular Youtube video is directly based upon and which this article covers the main points of) suggests an outdated HTTPS URL which no longer works. I'd imagine many are just blindly copying adb settings and encountering problems (the burden of which often falls onto LineageOS community support as people spend time trying to identify an issue).

rty32 2y ago

> I just keep it disabled, and live with the disadvantage of longer GPS start-up times. The reality is that it is extremely painful to spend minutes locating satellites -- it is a battery drain and very difficult to deal with, almost in every case you need to use GPS (location, navigation etc). It is a dealbreaker for me personally and probably most of people.

wkat4242 2y ago
Yes but MicroG does allow to use AGPS and cellular location through services other than Google. Unfortunately Mozilla was the biggest one and they just shut theirs down. But there's a plugin for apple's and you can also use one that automatically caches cells wherever you have been, which works really great if you end up in the same places a lot.

ndr 2y ago

My Pixel 6 Pro just started making a sound anytime I take a screenshot. There's no way to turn it off[0]. I don't care about the de-Googling as much but I'm considering wiping to something freer, maybe Lineage OS. How destructive is that going to be? [0] It doesn't do it when I take a picture with the camera (mCameraSoundForced=false) and I'm in a country where that would be unnecessary anyway.

dotBen 2y ago
That's your reason to use something 'freer'? To avoid a screenshot sound? I mean, you do you but that's kind a extreme.
- ndr 2y ago
  It's maddening that I tell my phone to stay quiet and it disobeys. All that code and settings live in a protected partition. If I have to root my phone for this at least I'd like it to be nicer to hack on.
- foresto 2y ago
  They're talking about agency. Having control of the hardware they bought. The screenshot sound is just a convenient example.
noman-land 2y ago
If you have a Pixel, use Graphene instead. It's incredibly easy to install and is better by every metric.

Eavolution 2y ago

I really want to use Lineage, I really do. I have a device thats supported and can easily unlock the bootloader, but I'd need my bank apps all to work, and I know that they don't. Even if they did, I don't want the uncertainty of them not working when a few don't have a internet banking without an app, and others require an app for 2fa, otherwise I'd use Lineage in a heartbeat. This feels like an issue for the EU to step in on, a functional duopoly created by apps for essential services that almost everyone needs requiring one of 2 platforms to work.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
burnerthrow008 2y ago
> This feels like an issue for the EU to step in on, a functional duopoly created by apps for essential services that almost everyone needs requiring one of 2 platforms to work. Never going to happen, for the same reason the EU forced Apple to open the NFC chip: They're working for European businesses, not European people. European banks depend on a having a trustable platform for their apps. They are going to lobby hard against such rules because they don't want to be overrun by fraud. Maybe Apple will help you out if you're lucky. They seem to hold a grudge, and maybe they will lobby the EC for such a rule just to fuck over the banks who forced them to open up the NFC chip.
- wkat4242 2y ago
  > They are going to lobby hard against such rules because they don't want to be overrun by fraud. The vast majority who run a degoogled phone knows what they're doing. And it's such a niche phenomenon anyway. They're not going to be overrun by anything.
Fire-Dragon-DoL 2y ago
Same. The hardware attestation made it so no open source os can run with full functionality. Not grapheneos, not lineageos. I'm stuck on normal android, and probably stuck on a pixel because I want updates and Samsung keeps delivering horrible uis and phones that break on my wife

_rdvw 2y ago

Please see https://eylenburg.github.io/android_comparison.htm https://eylenburg.github.io/android_comparison.htm