DeGoogle Yourself

16027 readers

352 users here now

A community for those that would like to get away from Google.

Here you may post anything related to DeGoogling, why we should do it or good software alternatives!

Rules

Be respectful even in disagreement
No advertising unless it is very relevent and justified. Do not do this excessively.
No low value posts / memes. We or you need to learn, or discuss something.

Related communities

!privacyguides@lemmy.one !privacy@lemmy.ml !privatelife@lemmy.ml !linuxphones@lemmy.ml !fossdroid@social.fossware.space !fdroid@lemmy.ml

founded 6 years ago

MODERATORS

CrypticCoffee@lemmy.ml

CrypticCoffee@lemm.ee

Byereddithellolemmy@lemmy.world

chevy9294@monero.town

Advice on degoogling (lemmy.ml)

submitted 2 days ago by eternauta@lemmy.ml to c/degoogle@lemmy.ml

19 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I'm looking into dumping googlified android with the upcoming lockdowns.

I'm a beginner-intermediate with FOSS tech: I use Ubuntu as my main machine at home, and have Lineage on a couple of old phones that I use for things at home. I use Fdroid a lot, and have things like newpipe as well on my basic Chinese handset, along with google services.

I can't really handle bleeding edge things very well, and I'm aware that even stock android isn't perfect. Just looking for options/advice.

I understand some banking apps etc will be difficult to run outside of google, and this is something that will be tough, but I'm prepping for it.

Graphene seems to be the most popular, but at this stage my understanding is it only works on Pixel phones. I'm also aware of fairphone. I know that lineage is supported on some Oneplus phones, but I don't know how safe/secure that might be.

I know that most things aren't really 'secure' in the sense that companies all snoop, but I'm thinking about things like banking or NFC payment, which I sometimes do use.

Any advice would be helpful, even if it's just confirming that the price of escaping google might be giving up a lot of this functionality right now....

Thanks in advance!

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] Auster@thebrainbin.org 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

What I do is to have an old phone just for banking and other stuff that requires Google's direct validation. Usually that solves the need of having Google Play services or MicroG installed on my phone, at most requiring Aurora Store, though that I barely used it in the past ~6 months.

Cutting freedom at the source, in development, though, is far more complex to deal with. I remember when I was in programming university I tried looking for means for making apps without Google, but they're rather manual, way too unpolished in comparison to what Google offers.

[–] eternauta@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Yeah, I kind of have the reverse now. My old but still pretty good phones with lineage at home, the cheap Google phone to carry. Unfortunately my work requires WhatsApp which is annoying.

Thinking about maybe lineage on a oneplus phone at this point...

[–] Auster@thebrainbin.org 1 points 2 days ago

From experience (also because of work), for better or worse, I can confirm at least Whatsapp works on degoogled phones.

And if Whatsapp is part of critical infraestructures for you, and now looking at your username too, I have a guess as to where you're from. And if I'm right, for banking on degoogled phones, Mercado Pago was the only one I found that works from the ones I have accounts on. Just, they pester about Google Play services missing, and not sure if camera not working for Pix QR codes is a me problem, or an "intended feature".