favoredponchoHow Google Tracks and Scans Everything on Your Android Device
mjrDe-googled phones exist, but they’re rooted or using a custom firmware. Usually, these phones spoof Google Play Services, replacing that layer with something called MicroG.
So root and flash your phone today!
RubberElectronsGot a pixel? Check out calyxos, it’s a free system upgrade that rips out anything google but allows almost everything to work, even the play store and all your usual games and bank apps.
djdarrenIf you have a Pixel, then GrapheneOS is the sensible choice. Not least because it currently only works with Pixels anyway.
I absolutely do not want to run Google binaries on the phone, graphene doesn’t support microG and instead want you to run Google’s binaries on your phone, sheet sandboxed.
I hate that idea.
Does it mean that you basically cannot use apps then, which require Google Services? Or how does it exactly work there?
Currently trying e/Os and wanted to look into Graphene and Lineage to see the which one works the best. I just don’t want to use anything from google.
I’m not an expert by any means, I moved directly to Graphene after 15 years of iPhones without really touching Android in between, so I mostly scrabboed about, found a path that worked and stuck to it.
But the way I use it is with Aurora to install apps from the Play Store. You can use it anonymously, or you can log in to your own Google account.
In terms of other Google services, you can install then, whereby Graphene will run them in a sandbox. You have control over how much data they can have. For me it strikes a happy balance between knowing that I have some semblance of control, but also having the convenience of things like Maps. And Google’s camera app is much much better than any of the others I’ve tried. Which is annoying.
Ah thank you very much for enlighten me about Graphene OS, that so far the best description I have seen.
Used Aurora before on Android too.
I probably will wait until they find a way to not be dependent on Google services, as I want them to have no data at all, if I have the chance to do it.
Hopefully there will be more alternatives in the future. But we will see where it will go with Google trying to stop side loading.