Trying to escape Google’s ecosystem, but past purchases keep pulling me back. #DeGoogled #GoogleLockIn #PrivacyStruggles #TechDilemma #FOSS #DigitalFreedom #AndroidAlternatives
What’s with all the hashtags? This isn’t Twitter. Searching #FOSS for example shows a whole of not this with most seemingly only containing the ‘#’ part or FOSS but no ‘#’.
I’ll keep using hashtags for my Lemmy posts. 😄
My issue is no one has developed a custom OS for my phone. Suprising considering it seems like the kind of phone FOSS users would love. A modern smart phone with an aux cord and replaceable battery still. Samsung Galaxy XCover 6 Pro for anyone interested.
It seems to go along popularity lines. I have never heard of this phone.
Its Samsung’s “rugged” phone. They certainly don’t advertise it at all. Its a shame because it is a really nice phone (poor camera though but I dont care about that). Probably cause it doesnt fit into the mainstream market of expensive (cheaper than their mainline stuff), disposable (this has a replaceable battery which prolongs its longitivity), and minimalist (still has its aux port and more than just a power and volume buttons).
Ps. They are coming out with a new one, the Xcover 7. It might have already come out actually.
Looks like it’s actually the XCover 8 that is is coming out soon.
Looked into the specs and it’s no wonder why it doesn’t sell. It’s worse than my 4-year-old device. Sucks that you have to sacrifice on performance to gain durability. I rather just buy a 2-year-old flagship and get an accidental damage coverage plan for it.
The performance differences feel like nothing. The only thing I have actually noticed is the camera quality being worse, and I don’t take many photos. I value durability and longitivity over what I see as minor hardware improvements. For the most part I use my phone as a phone. I watch youtube on it, message people, and listen to music. I’m not trying to game on it, thats what I have a computer for. So these hardware improvements they are constantly pushing (while removing valuable features) just doesnt feel worth it to me. But it is a to each their own. I just wish there was a bigger market catering to my needs rather than the whole industry striving to turn phones into all in one devices while removing quality of life features like aux cords, physical buttons, and replaceable batteries.
The thing people often dont realize is that if you do end up caving in and installing Google app services back onto your de-googled phone and logging into your old Google account - well, you’re almost back to square one. Google now ties all the identifiers of that phone/OS to your old Google account and will continue tracking it as much as possible whenever it sees those identifiers accessing anything. So I’d avoid that if your goal is de-Googling, but I understand why some need it as a stop-gap.
I thought the same initially re: sunk costs, but when I actually sat down and made a list of the apps I had on my old phone and what I used them for, I could quickly see that almost half of them were already FOSS. Then checked what alternatives are available for others and realized i could actually replace almost everything. The only premium apps I ended up “needing” were Poweramp*, and a couple others I actually forget now without finding my list. Almost everything can be replaced by using the website as a web link or web app, or using an open source alternative.
A big bonus of that process was seeing on the Aurora Store how many trackers were detected in each of the old apps while i was reviewing them and it was insane. I remember one Sudoku app I’d installed years back had like 16 trackers… Wtf. Checked FOSS options on F-Droid and found several alternatives.
*Poweramp can be bought direct from the developer, no need for Google apps, so I repurchased it via that method so I could avoid using my old account. I don’t mind buying things a second time if the devs have made the facilities available to avoid Google. I recently did the same for Symfonium.
The only ones that stung a bit to abandon was Sleep As Android which I’d paid for (I use their limited free version now and block it on the firewall to prevent ads/tracking); and Sygic (gps app) I’d paid lifetime maps for… I just use Organic Maps now, and while it’s not as fancy it navigates just fine and I use it regularly for car GPS.
Things like Shazam that there’s not really a FOSS alternative for but are free (with questionable tracking) you can install as a ‘work profile’ app via Shelter, which means it has no access to your real contacts and personal data, and can be set to auto-freeze (deletes cache and pauses app, keeps personal data). So you can use it and expose minimal data, and it can’t tie it back to a Google account to profile you as it doesn’t see one.
So far I’ve never needed a Google account on this phone, which means it’s been a clean break from Google entirely. 3 years now and very happy with the results.
I’m very interested in this info; thanks. What OS and phone are you using? Graphene/Pixel? I desperately want to be off of Google. Apple is not an option.
I am going to transition to Infomaniak for cloud (dumping Proton, wtf Proton), but mobile is still a big question for me
Using a Pixel 5 on Calyx OS. I was attracted to CalyxOS and Graphene as they both use a locked bootloader allowing OTA updates and keeping the boot process secure. I’d say either are good choices. I’ve been very happy with CalyxOS, only a few minor issues in the few years I’ve been on it (a tile button not working in one update, that kind of minor stuff).
This phone model is EOL now and only getting security patches, so im on the lookout for a Pixel 8 to move to (going second hand for costs). I’m planning to give GrapheneOS a try for a few weeks when I upgrade as I’ve read good things about it and will have a good yardstick to compare it to now with my time on CalyxOS.
P. S. I think the Proton CEO thing is overstated - he praised an anti-big-tech pick for the (iirc) Assistant Antitrust Attorney General (that is objectively good), and then backed it up saying he is very hopeful this person with a proven track record litigating against big tech will take on their monopolies that have been hindering players like Proton heavily over the years. His statements were always going to be taken poorly though (any Trump action being praised - even if the action was good, is a red flag because Trump is a disaster for a thousand other reasons and people are understandably on edge), and the follow-up comments should never have been done from the official Proton social media account - which is something Proton also stated, and said wouldn’t happen again. Me: OK that’s strike one. I’m not throwing them out after 9 years of very positive work for one failure, I think there’s a tendency in the privacy community to ‘let perfect be the enemy of good’ and for me at least this is an example of that.
GrapheneOS runs Google play services in a sandbox (rather than as a system level app) and randomizes the advertiser ID, IIRC.
I’m keen to give GrapheneOS a try when I upgrade to my next phone, it’s got some privacy enhancements that CalyxOS doesn’t (my current OS). The sandboxing is cool and every bit of obfuscation helps.
However unless your phone is on an always-on VPN with an IP isolated from your other devices, or you’re in a bulding full of other users to obfuscate your traffic somewhat, then just accessing your Google Play account via the phone will give them your public IP address and they’ll be able to tie that heuristically to your other data/accounts.
Eg scenario: you have a laptop at home, it browses and has a bunch of cookies saved, it uses your public IP. Google is all over the web, inescapable while browsing, and through browser fingerprinting has an advertising profile saved for your device even if you’re not logged into an account, this is often called a ‘shadow profile’. If it sees another device (your phone) on the same network (same internet IP) regularly accessing the same sites - those devices are likely linked in their database as ‘likely same user’, with frequency they will be merged permanently as same user. If you then log into your old Google Play account on the phone - boom, all history for that account is now linked in their database to any other profile identifiers for the shadow profile eg cookies, browser fingerprints etc. They don’t need you to log in multiple times, once is enough to confirm owership of that device & account. Opsec is a cat and mouse game and Google (and the other surveillance capitalism giants) are literally the most valuable businesses in the world because they’re good at tracking users to create personal profiles for them.
Its called a walled garden for a reason. Good luck dude. What’s your plan?
Well, you don’t need to worry too much now as Android has gone (or is going) close source which may affect rom devs, making a private phone even more difficult unless linux becomes mainstream as an alternative.
Hmm, I think that based on your comment, I should try to reconsider using a Linux-based phone.
I totally wish I could install an actual Linux based (I don’t consider android Linux) distro on my current phone and also be able to install something like Waydroid with some sort of sandbox for it. Though I’m pretty sure my budget Samsung would fry itself if I tried doing that considering I can’t even unlock the bootloader without it freezing up indefinitely.
There’s not really a whole lot of options unless you like Manjaro mobile, Fedora mobile, Arch mobile, or Ubuntu Touch that I’m aware of.
Yeah it’s the DRM shit. You own a music CD? You can listen it to car, computer, home, friend’s house whatever. You own digital music, movies, games, apps on platforms, well good luck.
I deleted my Google account some weeks ago. I gonna miss mini Metro and KGWT when i transition to LinageOS. Overall it went smooth, but some apps don’t work (chatGPT for example, Deepseek is more smart offers apk without play store). My bank app is working though.
But i am not sure what happens with safety. Currently the phone uses phone protect and Knox from Samsung. But in LineageOS i must find out how the safety works.
As a side note, you can actually buy music online and it’s DRM free (Qobuz, HDTracks, 7 Digital, Bandcamp).
Use Accrescent / Aurora?
Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.
Find the least used paid service and look for an alternative. Start with replacing google drive.Only services I paid for were games.
Amateurs. Why did you buy all this proprietary software in the first place? Get rid of it. Setup your own cloud services, all with FOSS tools and you’re fine.
Setup your own cloud services, all with FOSS tools and you’re fine.
“Just have tons of time, expertise, and money, you idiot, what’s wrong with you?!” is how I read this as someone with two jobs most of the year. I technically have at least the base of the expertise and used to do selfhosting, but there is no way I have the time nor money to keep up with that these days, let alone energy.
Everyone has been there, including you and me. How is our community supposed to grow if they constantly get chastised for mistakes of the past? If we value freedom in computing, shouldn’t we help others get there as well, instead of being purists about it?
Because it is not that cheap to fully FOSS-ify myself here. 😅 I can’t buy my own servers.
You don’t need servers to have freedom in your computing, just do things locally on your computer. Even phones are surprisingly capable. For a great starting point, I’d recommend F-Droid (AppStore) in GrapheneOS (Android minus the Google viruses), Super easy to set up, and it gets you everything you need. Well, at least for me. There is also a good website called alternativeto.net, If you’re searching for software on a normal computer.
Edit: Plus, if you use Aurora (google play store access programme) with your Google ID, you have access to every paid program on your phone. Also, if you’re an EU citizen, they can’t ban you because they have been ruled a gatekeeper thanks to the DSA and DMA. MicroG, as far as I’ve read about it, since I don’t use it, is only needed for Google Apps, so if you don’t use them, why bother?
But what do you actually need in the first place? I mean it, all the stuff you mentioned I’ve never touched on a phone, how much worse would your life be without them?
You definitely don’t need any programming learning apps to learn programming, I know that because I’ve personally done it. AI chats serve what purpose? Can’t you chat with real people? Art generators for what? What did you do before you were able to generate art? Audio and video editing on a phone means you can’t be doing this professionally, what are you actually editing? Why not do it on an older laptop with larger screen that actually has access to open source apps that do this properly and almost as good as professional proprietary software?
You phrased it a bit too harshly to be constructive, but that’s basically the way.
OP you don’t have to ditch it all at once. Just make yourself familiar with FOSS alternatives to these apps and once you’re content using those it will be easier to ditch the proprietary ones.
microG has several options regarding paid apps, about licensing, billing and stuff. When logging in into Aurora using your Google account, you should be able to use paid apps.
I mean in the end you are for sure breaking ToS so the chance of your account getting banned is non-zero, but it should be possible. Let me know if you need more information on that.
Wow, using microG and Aurora to restore my Google Play purchases? But it’s against Google’s ToS, you said. However, I think I don’t want to risk my Google account being banned by using microG and Aurora. Maybe I have another approach: one phone with Google and one phone without Google.
Getting banned from Google solves your problem though…
I’ve been using microG for years for getting a patched YouTube client and had no problems. Dunno about aurora.
There is absolutely NOTHING I purchased on the play store that I need. Forget about replacing, i’m genuinely better off without it
GrapheneOS is great for privacy. But the need for banking apps, working notifications, etc get in the way of me using it for a main device. Plus, there’s the dilemma that in order to fully avoid being tracked by Google, you need to setup a separate user profile on your device for anything that uses Google services (ie if you want to use the playstore even with fake google services). I just switched to using an iphone and use decentralized apps for the most part. But my secondary device has graphene
Not sure what are you talking about. I’m using GraphaneOS as a daily driver and my banking apps work perfectly. The only ‘banking’ app that didn’t work is Revolut but I easily found an alternative and switched. The apps for two actual banks I use work without issues. Notifications work fine, no issues at all. I don’t have separate user profile, I have a work profile created with Shelter app. Everything just works. Work profile apps can’t access contacts or files from main profile. Google services are only available in work profile.
Unfortunately some really just don’t work, you got lucky. There’s a whole list of reports on GitHub about which ones work and don’t work, and unfortunately, the two I use the most didn’t, which is Navy Federal and PayPal. I tried both but they crashed everytime, and I couldn’t get past login.
Annoyingly, I just got a discover credit card, and Discover’s app works just fine, even though I don’t plan to use it nearly as much 🙄
But yeah some apps do not like how we don’t have safety net, hell, you can’t use Google Wallet and tap to pay which is a downer…
the two I use the most didn’t, which is Navy Federal and PayPal
Have you tried Exploit protection compatibility mode?
I did have issues with notifications in the past when using graphene, but my experience may have not been universal. But I was far from the only one experiencing this. Maybe they’ve improved it since my last time using it on a main device. It does seem that things have improved based on what you say though, so thats good.
Banking apps do require some level of google services. With work profiles, you’re putting faith in your apps being isolated in the hands of a third party, which is okay if you can trust it. But you also can’t control when apps in a work profile stop running, thus google services may still be running in the background of the work profile. Doing the really inconvenient method where you have separate user profiles seems more reliable for privacy.
This video speaks well about the privacy differences between user and work profiles: https://youtu.be/20C0FD7mGDY
Edit: typos
Yeah, ideally you would just use a dumb phone or some Linux phone.
Worst thing you can do is to use stock Android with Google account connected to everything (gmail, contacts, gpay, maps, calendar, play store).
Work profile is a great compromise, a lot better then using an iPhone.
I’d definitely jump for a Linux phone once they get their formula down. I was hyped for the Pinephone but realized they still need a bit of work.
No phone is truly private these days, but Graphene is the best we have. If we’re talking stock os, ios is slightly better. But I use it keeping in mind my data is still up for grabs.
Oh, getting your life tracked by Apple is better? Also didn’t know decentralised apps exist in Apple ecosystem
Stock ios is more private than stock android. I just have accepted that I prefer convenience over maximizing privacy because I’m lazy. And yes, there’s access to decentralized apps. If I was less lazy I could also figure out how to install third party apps too but it seems I’m not the only one who struggles with that
Don’t hesitate for a second to buy a Pixel for the purposes of GrapheneOS. By all means avoid all other ways of giving Google money, but this is a clearly reasonable exception.
I’ve heard pixels have out of band chips in them acting as hardware backdoors
That’s easy to prove, so unless a researcher has shown it to be true, I would take it as misinformation.
I’ve heard there’s nanomachines in 5G vaccines
People don’t use GrapheneOS to avoid giving Google their money. They do it to protect their privacy.
No shit.
Your other post really makes it sound like you think people use GrapheneOS to hurt Google’s business model.
Stop with the hashtags, this isn’t Twitter
iirc hashtags work for people using mastodon which lemmy.world federates with https://lemmy.world/instances
(could be wrong though)this isn’t Twitter
But this is Mastodon (for some of us).
Lemmy and Mastodon share content, now.
This new nerd Internet is weird, but it’s weird in cool ways.
Damn, you’re right, my bad!
Don’t feel bad, this place is weird. It’s a good weird. But weird.
Not sure I understand. What do you buy from Google? If you want to degoogle, purchasing other stuff, or through channels other than the Play store is probably the simplest part.
