My main Android phone is now 99% Google free | Hacker News Reader

My main Android phone is now 99% Google free

simondalvai.org

49 pointsnosky42 comments

Installing whatsapp was a "wtf" moment. Degoogle but leave meta in your life?

I know that it's driven in other people's communications modalities.

Honestly I understand OP, I also run GrapheneOS but most of my social life happens on whatsapp and I know it's stupid but I can't change dozens of people's choice to install Signal, even though most of them know the issues with Meta.

My hope is that one day or another whatsapp will enshittify so bad that people will be more prone to move to Signal in the same way that recently Windows got so bad that many users moved to Linux.

WhatsApp has replaced the PSTN in many countries. Without it, you cannot contact businesses; they simply do not answer normal phone calls. Also, booking accommodation over the internet may require WhatsApp in order to receive self-check-in information, and if you manage to communicate to the accommodation that you don’t have WhatsApp, it may simply cancel your reservation unilaterally.

Even where its not required, it can be a lot cheaper (e.g. for international calls) and has features (conference calls) not offered by consumer phones.

Whatsapp's success has partly been driven by telecoms companies over-charging.

Telecoms financed and built the communication infrastructure which made the internet (and thus, WhatsApp) possible. WhatsApp is also further subsidised because you also pay for the internet to use it.

I pay for an internet connection anyway. Even if I use a pay as you go mobile connection (on which the telco makes a profit) its still a lot cheaper to use Whatsapp than either SMS or voice calls.

There is no subsidy, its telecoms companies making a ridiculously high margin (aimed by regulators in some countries) on some services.

Telecoms received excessive returns on their investment. Effectively acting as rentiers for long distance calls.

Ok. And do you think Meta / WhatsApp is any different from any of those Telecoms? Just because WhatsApp is "free" doesn't mean it's a non-profit service from Meta!

This might be true in your country but it's absolutely incorrect in mine. Most of the telecoms here started as crown corporations, making them an arm of the government. Some of them have been privatized since then but they all received billions in subsidies to build out the networks to cover everyone and not just the most populated areas. An awful lot of Canadian taxpayer dollars have gone to build the internet in this country and we still get gouged like crazy.

The point still stands - Telecoms have been subsidised by public money. And we further subsidise WhatsApp by paying for an internet connection to use it.

There are thousands, maybe millions, of alternatives to Whatsapp for that purpose.

It's way too late for alternatives now, unless regulation is created to break the monopoly.

How many of those can my elderly mother use to talk to her sisters? By my estimation the answer is, "zero," and the alternatives will get even scarcer thanks to Bill C-22.

Signal is almost a 1:1 UI clone. If they can manage whatsapp they can manage signal...

Except my aunts are already on WhatsApp and I would have to get all of them on Signal. And then they would still need WhatsApp because of everyone else they talk to who isn't on Signal. The network effect is very real. On top of that we still don't know if Bill C-22 is going to require Signal to pull out of Canada entirely because of the metadata retention requirements. They don't keep metadata and that's something Canadian law enforcement has been pushing for for a long time.

>And then they would still need WhatsApp because of everyone else they talk to who isn't on Signal.

I don't see the issue. I do the exact same. Want to talk to me? Use this app or we can't. There never can be any network effect if nobody start doing this.

I recently made a phone call from the US to UK. I was horrified to find that my unlimited calling didn't apply to that international route. Really?!? Countries should be fighting to remove those fees. I can call Mexico or Canada without any additional cost, so it can be done. I'd originally proposed starting a business with the UK gentleman, but this is likely the first of many regulations which will tax me.

This is a case of inaction by regulators, rather than action.

They do it because they can and its not important to most people.

I feel like going with LineageOS rather than GrapheneOS for WhatsApp would be a mistake since GrapheneOS has much stronger sandboxing.

I resisted WhatsApp until we started cruising with our sailboat. So many processes require WhatsApp. In many places you can't do customs and immigration without it.

Well, maybe not 100% true. There might still be the remnant of an old paper-based process around, but since nobody uses it, it would be a recipe for spending days queuing in random offices.

Once we're back in Europe, it will be a happy moment when I can finally uninstall the app.

Using Android, when the goal is to be Google-free, always strikes me as an odd choice. Kind of like using Brave instead of Chrome.

Ultimately, still using the Google developed and backed platform gives them more power and control over the market as a whole. If de-googling became mainstream, they would almost certainly fight back, as it undermines the entire business model behind developing these things and giving them away for free.

So what do you propose? Buy an iPhone?

What other choices does a regular person have? Buying an iPhone just moves the target. Linux phones are not pervasive enough and typically come at a premium.

PSA: somebody put together a detailed table[1] comparing security and privacy features of most common Android-based OSes. Yes, GrapheneOS looks amazing but requires a Pixel phone, at least until the new Motorola devices come out.

1 - https://eylenburg.github.io/android_comparison.htm

LineageOS is not 99% Google free just watch traffic logs and you will see plenty of google connections. Maybe around 70%, GrapheneOS is 99% Google free with no direct google connections.

also try out twent[.]xyz which is an Agentic SuperApp for android. you bring your own keys or use local models, so you've got full control. side note: it's UI automation is way too fast.

What about banking apps?

use a bank that provides a website?

website says to authenticate with app, now what?

In the case of HSBC I said the app would not work on my phone and they send me a security widget.

Lots of HN readers located in countries outside of the US would find your answer infeasible (even the bank website requires their app for authentication, and this is the case for every bank).

To expand on what the posters mentioned: HN is an international community, and the USA is an outlier in having an ample choice of banks. Many countries only have 3–5 usable banks, and all of them require a phone app for 2FA authentication in order to log into their website. Moreover, it happens that banks remove certain functionality from their websites, so it can only be done through the app.

And beyond that, in some countries the strong authentication for logging into government services has been implemented through banks, and so one cannot visit one’s local tax-authority or healthcare portal without a phone that runs the bank app.

Even in countries where you have a wide choice of banks (the UK, for example) more and more banks are pushing people to use mobile apps. We have the problem of the government and other businesses and organisations pushing people to use apps.

One example is my local bus company only selling certain tickets (monthly ones, for example) on the app. If you do not want to use an app you pay per trip which can be a LOT more expensive (several times as much for a daily commute).

Sounds like discrimination, no consumer's rights associations to take them to court?

This seems to be mainly brought up by people concerned they'd lose banking apps than people who actually have issues. It's rooted phones that often get blocked, whereas those that run LineageOS/microG without rooting are largely fine.

Yes, there are certainly banks that block more aggressively, but if you look at e.g. iodéOS's forums most of them work fine: https://community.iode.tech/t/banking-finance-and-insurance-...

Anecdotally, I've also seen a lot of stories of people reaching out to support about overblocking actually seeing success. Apparently there are often enterprise reasons for the block and it literally just needs a customer to complain for engineering to be able to act.

My primary banks apps, and websites, work fine on Graphene, with the exception of anything NFC payment related. I do miss that convenience, but I still have a debit card and cash as needed.

I’ve heard banking apps with built in NFC payments should work but I can’t get it to go.

There are real problems with banking apps on graphene. Chase app won’t launch at all the us bank app nags every 15seconds that it needs some play services privilege that’s not even in the list. Maybe they’ll work once I tear play services back out.

I don't know about LineageOS, but there is crowd-sourced list of banks that work with GrapheneOS: https://github.com/PrivSec-dev/banking-apps-compat-report

More info here: https://grapheneos.org/usage#banking-apps

My credit union wasn't on the list, but it works.

Many do require passing Play Integrity at the basic level and/or having a locked bootloader, etc. In these cases, it works well with GrapheneOS, but not necessarily with LineageOS. If you end up using microG to do it, you just gave Google privileged access to your phone (by microG downloading/using DroidGuard).

"Before explaining my setup in more detail, I want to clarify, that I still use a second phone. It is an older stock Android phone, with all Google stuff on it. I need still need to use banking and other apps, that don't work on custom roms."

Cool story bro

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