Re: not using Google Play I'm not using GrapheneOS (I am unwilling to give Google money directly), but I did recently move to my second Android phone after hav

Re: not using Google Play I'm not using GrapheneOS (I am unwilling to give Google money directly), but I did recently move to my second Android phone after having been a decade-plus iPhone user. When I got my first Android phone I decided to "sideload" all non-stock software on the phone. I never have setup a Google Play account. I kept all the APKs for the software I loaded over the three years I used the old phone. When I got the new phone I loaded all the software I use day-to-day and imported my SMS, contacts, and call logs using a nice FOSS app[0]. It felt remarkably like moving to a new PC does. It was nice. You definitely don't need Google Play to get a lot of functionality. I have run into a number of apps that I can't get to "sideload" (basically any xapk-packaged apps) but I don't need any of the badly enough to care. I am really sad Google is ending this moving forward. Jackasses. [0] https://github.com/tmo1/sms-ie https://github.com/tmo1/sms-ie