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Comment by JetSpiegel | Hacker News Reader

There's always LineageOS

There's a project now to include anbox to run Android apps http://news.softpedia.com/news/ubuntu-phones-will-soon-run-a...

is it completely de-googled though (even when play services are not installed)? Honest question. To me it seems as if that's not one of the main interests of the lineage community.

I do use lineageOS myself and am generally very content with it but I am always a bit concerned when I see that the data usage of OS components (which are thrown together as one "app" in the settings) is more than a few MB. The system must do more than just checking for updates. Unfortunately, you can't prevent system components from accessing the internet if you don't intend rooting your phone.

When play services are not installed, it's "never been googled". It's AOSP.

I use that but it's all Google based. Not sure if you can decouple it from Play Services without breaking everything.

You can with microG, which even provides preconfigured builds with microG instead of Play Services - https://lineage.microg.org/

Interesting. I wasn't aware of that. I'll give it a try.

Also the name of a vape :)

LineageOS for microG – Access Google services without closed software | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15617615

Supported devices: https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/

LineageOS runs fine without Play Services. It's actually the default mode. It just limits your app choices. My needs are simple so I don't really mind, and I appreciate the improved battery life and speed.

It turns out many apps from the Play Store don't actually have a hard dependency on Play Services. Example: Slack works, except for notifications and (IIRC) receiving calls, which is good enough if you don't need to be reachable all the time.

I should try it without installing Gapps. I just do the install routinely.

"me too"

I run LineageOS v13 now (Galaxy Nexus), and before that Cyanogenmod back to v7 (maybe v6 not sure) and have never had Gapps installed, its been F-Droid all the way. I guess that means I can't appreciate the improved battery life or speed..

Same with Discord. I don't get any notifications from Discord on my de-Googled LineageOS devices, but the application works just fine (although I had to silence its constant notifications about Play Services).

I use Yalp Store to use apps from the Play Store and even though almost all of them "require" Play Services, most work just fine and worst case scenario they have a nagging screen about requiring Play Services but work just fine.

There is also eelo https://eelo.io/ based on LineageOS and is Apple and Google free. By Mandrake Linux creator. It has a kickstarter campaign now on: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/290746744/eelo-a-mobile...

By default, LineageOS does NOT include google play services. And it works just fine if you don't expect to use apps which "require" google play services.

And if you expect to use them, try microG - the free software reimplementation of Google Play Services.

Does this still require you to essentially nerf application signing in order to spoof some google play crap? If so, that's really not a viable solution.

The newer version of signature spoofing patch (included in microG's LineageOS fork) allows you to control the spoofing and make sure that it's only used when necessary and permitted, so I'd say the answer is "no".

Interesting. I know the microG folks tried to upstream a patch to Cyanogenmod, which the devs shot down almost immediately.. So you're saying that the microG folks are now maintaining a fork of LineageOS? If it's not tracking VERY closely to upstream LineageOS, then it's probably not worth it.

https://lineage.microg.org/ - tracking very closely, just adding the spoofing patch and preinstalling microG, F-Droid etc.

IIRC all the spoofing patches required a special app permission to spoof.

IIRC the newer version requires the app to not only have the permission, but also be installed as a system app, so you can't install it accidentally.

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