Degoogled Android – My Experience
lilysthings.org
lilysthings.org
> My dad’s house wasn’t on the map. Neither was my mom’s house. Neither was my friend’s place. Obviously I can’t use apps based on OpenStreetMaps to get me places if the places I want to go aren’t on the map.
What do they mean by not on the map? Is it not showing up in search? Is it the housenumber wasn't there? Is it the street not existing at all? If manually zooming to the place was it showing with the correct street and number?
I'm curious since I've found OSM coverage to be pretty good for things like streets and housenumbers since they are generally based on imported data, no?
Also, you can contribute to osm if a street was missing.
The complaint about having to download the map seems unreasonable too.
It downloads the world map and then the local map and you're done. Generally the local map for an area is like 50 to 100MB from memory.
Perhaps they are in a very remote location with slow internet and no map data, but downloading the lineage ROM would be a lot slower than downloading a single map.
I'm guessing these apps did it this way for a reason, probably to support the offline usecase and not need a separate way to do it.
Great for travelling.
Also cool to check where you are on planes, on non intercontinental flights that don't have screens.
LineageOS has their own implementation of gapps, which they have built into their sandbox system. I can choose to install Google services as a sandboxed app rather than a package that I have to flash to the OS at install time, as it is to my understanding you cannot flash gapps to an install that is not clean through implementations like microG.
Really? Every installation I've seen with Lineage is to flash microG or MindTheGapps separately
I've used lineage for a few years now with only Magisk as an extra zip (no gapps) and I have not seen any google activity.
https://grapheneos.org/usage#sandboxed-google-play
I unfortunately can’t speak to what they mean by sandboxed Google Play being ‘close to fully functional’ as I haven’t used it yet.
I’ve also been trying to replace notification push servers for msg notifications as those are usually routed through Google services. This article has a short explanation of what I’m referring to: https://medium.com/@KaushalVasava/push-notification-in-andro...
Like others have mentioned, I was also referring to the connectivity checks as well. GrapheneOS maintains some servers to provide the same service which the Google equivalents do, just without actually talking to Google.
if graphene or calyx don't fit, then /e/OS is really the best option from all the remaining alternatives.
It's nice to see my old device get some patches, but I'm not sure how much I'll use it since ARMv7 is mostly being phased out.
Overall, using postmarketOS and trying to go completely without Google apps (and without microG) has been interesting. Not sure I could recommend it, but it did force me to discover some very useful (and quite nice) OSS apps.
If there is such an option then you can report it here: https://github.com/eylenburg/eylenburg.github.io/issues
Freedom isn't free and unfortunately the time wasted in trying to maintain a high standard of smartphone privacy is time I will never get back.
That and the social isolation from trying use a phone that can't keep up with the activities and communication preferences of friends makes an iPhone a necessary compromise.
For instance, I ended up in way to many text exchanges with iPhone users who didn't even knew they created multiple of them, replied multiple times directly+to a group chat, spammed status messages unreadable to others and so on.
So my point is, this view comes purely from a person in a market where iPhone is majority.
The essence of my point is that life is short and I don't value the time spent customising a smartphone in the way suggested by TFA.
I thought this was changing? I heard a lot about non Apple repositories recently
1. Apps must be FOSS and reproducibly buildable on the store's servers, like F-Droid. 2. No monetization allowed, not even donation links. 3. The store itself undergoes yearly security review by an accredited third-party firm at its own expense. 4. The store undergoes yearly compliance review for these terms at its own expense.
Would be pretty much all upsides for Apple: non of their services are used; they don't pay infrastructure or human costs for app hosting, review, or developer support; and they don't pay these costs for apps that don't make them money anyway.
I say this as someone with roughly 10 years experience of using custom roms before giving it up.
If you switch because you like the design better than the other one why not but otherwise I don't see much compromise here.
I'm aware that the solutions with better privacy aren't exactly simple yeah.
When I switched from an iPhone 3GS to Android, it seemed that the trade-off was between control and freedom. These days, the trade-off is between control + ok privacy and not-much-freedom + no privacy.
I also ran custom ROMS for years. It got to be such a pain that I switch back to vanilla Android with throw-away google accounts, and now have come full circle and gone back to an iPhone.
It's a similar story on the desktop - I can't abide where Windows has gone with ads and AI. I have run linux for years (and still do on servers), but need to use software that won't easily run on Linux. So, I have ended up with a MBP.
Apple might be far from perfect, but for me at least, right now they're they best balance between not being actively user-hostile, and not taking a ton of effort to get working.
I am still shocked at how much blue bubbles seem to affect some folk's social lives. Does it really matter that much?
Oh sorry the apk of Uber I sideloaded needs manually updating. I'll just go to apkwtfbbq.com complete some captchas and install the new apk. I've got enough signal and data for that. No problem! Oh, now I need to flash an updated zip file of the service I use to replace Google on my phone because I'm concerned about corporate surveillance. Oh, the latest version of the zip has a bug in it. Don't worry it will only be another 10 mins...
Never again.
Also, it's no longer 2013. We have OTA updates and the Aurora store now.
It doesn't integrate with Lineage's backup system though, you have to use WhatsApp's own transfer system.
This is a little unfair.
Graphene does not come with any google apps installed by default (of course android itself is a google product, whether running calx, graphene, or lineage).
It gives you the option to install google apps like the play store, but these are installed like any other app. You can restrict permissions, deny internet access etc. But they are totally optional.
Also, a nitpick, but these are all android, including lineage os.
Having started on this path, in my opinion it's a losing battle and a waste of time. Google have thousands of engineers just waiting to patch whatever hack you are using in your "de-googled" phone. Android serves the purposes of its creator.
> Graphene describes itself as “The private and secure mobile operating system with Android app compatibility”. Like yeah no shit you have Android app compatibility. YOU’RE FUCKING ANDROID.
If I remember an anecdote from the android course, to get the android logo and the right to call an android device, you have to pass the android certification. And according to the teacher, it was a real pain.
Do you have any issues with banking apps?
It's a little scandalous that using a bank is so difficult these days without a smart phone.
My issue is more oomkillers (with my 3GB ram phone, twice a week i have the android support kill) and geolocalisation is really slow (took 5 to 10 minutes after toggle)