It feel like we’re losing to Google, day by day. They aren’t killing AOSP directly, but they are making it useless step by step.
Now it’s Google Play Services, Play Integrity checks, installation source checks… more and more apps just refuse to run without GMS. Banking apps? Most of them don’t work. And it’s only getting worse. I run vanilla AOSP on my main profile, no Play Services. I keep GMS only in my work profile for the apps that absolutely need it. But now even some regular apps that don’t need any play services won’t work on my main profile anymore. They simply block your from running , like le chat.
Maps is google’s most important app there is no way to run without play services. Sure we can use webview or gmaps wv, but they don’t provide turn-by-turn directions. Earlier maps used to work without play services, but two years ago, an update stopped it from working. Now that old version is out of date and no longer works.
Google is slowly making GMS very important to run. The problem with GMS is they require to run as system app and has to have all the permissions by default.
Hope EU puts pressure to make google allow apps to run independently without GMS or atleast install them as user apps(like graphene os sandboxed play services).
If we keep going on like this, AOSP can only run fdroid apps in the future.
ITT: no one has any idea.
hint: class war
I keep my old smartphone precisely so I can install banking apps and other annoyances.
Feel free to track the burner phone that stays on the same location, turns on once a week, is got tape on the cameras and never uses the browser.
For banking, I use the website instead of the application. I have very few non-open-source applications left on my phone.
in my country they won’t let you do that without at least their proprietary 2fa on your phone. and that of course needs play integrity in 90% of cases.
Mainline linux on mobile is solving this problem as we speak: https://postmarketos.org/
I expect a full collapse of the Google Android behemoth about the same time we get Half Life 3.
Real question is
Why can’t a rooted android fake play services?
Maps?
Use OsmAnd and MagicEarth? I’ve been doping it for years now. Works fine.
Comaps has been awesome for me
Also Theres comaps
I enjoy Organic Maps.
Of the largest android sellers, only samsung requires gplay. Xiaomi, vivo, oppo, realme, honor, are all chinese companies that require non-bundled google play for their domestic (and maybe other countries?) releases. Google can’t alienate these sellers, and if they did, all of these companies would create their own AOSP fork (or just switch to HarmonyOS)
I recently bought a xiaomi android tablet that doesn’t have google play services luckily.
Maybe postmarketOS?
Hope EU puts pressure to make google allow apps to run independently without GMS or atleast install them as user apps(like graphene os sandboxed play services).
I doubt they will put any pressure. EU decided to rely on GMS for their upcoming Digital ID app. While they claim they want to switch to open source alternatives of big tech services, they designed their app so that it forces EU citizens to either comply with Google’s ToS, or Apple’s.
Related discussion: https://github.com/eu-digital-identity-wallet/av-doc-technical-specification/issues/18
Yeah, this is a problem. I attempted to switch to GrapheneOS just a month ago and had to roll back to stock Android. One of my banking apps worked, but 3 others didn’t. My 2FA app didn’t work. I stopped receiving important texts as they were previously RCS and that refused to validate no matter what I did.
Google has made it extremely hard to degoogle.
With respect to 2FA, if you want to be more ready for any future next time, you could migrate to an open-source TOTP app. E.g. andOTP. I use this one, it’s fine. The underlying standards don’t change in decades, so you can choose any compatible client and be without trouble for years and years. And it may be good to do in any case, googlified phone or not. Good apps also tend to provide password-protected backups.
I have no knowledge about RCS though, never used it so can’t tell. Otherwise GrapheneOS user for ~2 years, before that LineageOS, before that CopperheadOS for another few years.
Your absolutely right and I will be moving to an open source TOTP solution going forward, it just sucks that great services keep getting enshitified and we have to keep moving to better pastures. LastPass to Bitwarden, now Authy to something else.
EU won’t be too friendly either given the nature of their recent identification app. You should still write to your legislators, but they’re a mostly tech-illiterate bunch, so expect it to be a low ROI activity.
Really do consider donating to projects like GrapheneOS. The GrapheneOS team are a very passionate and clever group, and I’d like to think that they can at least give us something to work with, even if Google completely cuts the cord. Hopefully they can also secure an additional revenue stream once they release their own phone.
If it really does all fall through and there’s no deGoogled way to run Android apps, I’ll keep a separate phone, preferably with a removable battery, with regular Android just to host the proprietary apps. Treat it as a work phone, i.e. power off when not needed, don’t connect to my main home network, don’t do anything that doesn’t need to be done on it. Proprietary apps only make up a small fraction of my mobile workflow, so everything else stays on another phone that respects my privacy.
You can stop using Google and Apple… It’s that simple. But it seems that you, like many other, want their cake and eat it too…
how is that even possible?
How it’s possible to stop using google or apple? By doing it…
sure, am i supposed to live without a smartphone? at some point chasing privacy for the sake of itself just means i’ll have a worse life.
It’s different for every one, but for me it would mean, I can’t use Microsoft authenticator, so I can’t do my job anymore, as it is required to access my mail, teams, files, logging worked hours, etc etc.
I can’t use any of my bank apps anymore, I can’t use my phone anymore for paying in a store or checking in public transportation.
And many more apps that would stop working.
Sure but what’s a viable alternative for normies? It would be simple if a viable alternative existed. For normies, I reiterate.
It’s to do the grass root movement, and get enough to demand it, for a provider to feel the need to expand their customer base that way…
Normies don’t care about that. They care about WhatsApp, Instagram and tiktoks.
Until they don’t… and please don’t call then normies, when they really are manipulated…
Normie is not an insult or derogatory. It just means “normal person”, who is usually not very tech savy.
Most Normies don’t care about privacy. They know, accept and are ok with their data being collected and sold in “free” services.
I don’t agree. Most people I know, just don’t know how it should be different…
Linux phones won’t go anywhere, so you should probably donate to GrapheneOS and hope they have enough in the bank to fork android by the time it’s completely discontinued.
What will it take to make a phone that comes with GrapheneOS directly? I have access to some good connections in China, what phone spec could we prototype to have a phone coming with GrapheneOS? I am ready to throw my savings at starting this business. Or should I reach out to GrapheneOS people directly? (Lineage works also)
GrapheneOs is currently discussing some stuff with OEMs but more help wouldn’t hurt I bet.
As per my 30min research, GrapheneOS depends heavily on pixel internals, but I will highjack one of the mastodon posts maybe somebody will spoonfeed me the definitive answer.
I live in a very low cost area, hopefully I will manage to get a nameless phone to run GrapheneOS or LineageOS at low cost, forward most of the income to the open source projects.
It might be too naive but I am giving it a shot.
GrapheneOS is talking to OEMs to create a phone. Up to this point, they’ve only supported Pixels because they’ve had the best security. But with Android 16, Google stopped sharing important files that make it more difficult to continue supporting Pixels. Hence the desire to create their own device.
Thank you! GrapheneOS isn’t an option then, I will wait for their phone.
I guess I could still shoot my shot with LineageOS.
I’m not sure what the point of the post is? Is it to share frustration? Searching for a solution? Sorry, I may be not good at inferring this, but I don’t get it.
IF you are in solution-finding mode, then there are a few things that you can do.
- You can use those banks that work without google. I’ve found 2 in the Netherlands, for example. One of them stopped working a while ago, I’ve wrote about that to their support and had to discontinue, withdrawing all my funds using a Dutch procedure for full withdrawal from a bank. After half a year or so I’ve noticed they’ve fixed it and work without google again. I’ve returned as well (it’s convenient for me to have 2 banks). I’m sure as hell banks watch for their usage statistics and wouldn’t like seeing people leave their bank if it can be fixed with a simple reversal of whatever the dev team did lately.
- You could try Linux phones such as PinePhone to see which use cases can it already cover. 30%? 70%? 90%? You’ll know what to even wait for in the Linux landscape to be able to switch. You’ll get a bit of power or mental control if you acquire this knowledge.
- Funnily, you can expect some good news coming from all those fights between US and China, because that makes a LOT of devices ship without google services. And some people in your county (I assume it’s not China, otherwise you wouldn’t have these problems) may have phones bought there, so you won’t be alone when pushing for such changes.
point 3 is is also some leverage google has over chinese export phones, if the scales tip their direction. play ball or get dropped by everyone automatically.
Can you elaborate which banks those were? Or you if there is a curated list of banks that work on custom ROMs?
Dutch banks working without google are: BUNQ and ASN Bank (EDIT: and Triodos).
BUNQ has the built-in QR scanning functionality broken (the one for iDEAL, if you’re living in NL you know), but that’s acceptable because it works to scan the QR in Binary Eye, which in turn opens the bunq app and the payment can be made easily.
ASN just works, all features that I’ve tried I think. (This one is only in Dutch though.)
Banks that I’ve tried few years ago and they didn’t work: ING, ABN AMRO, Rabonbank, Tridos, possibly few others that I forgot.
Also, lately I’ve started using some of those “international” ones, not so focused on NL. I’ve found that Wise (pure web, haven’t even tried their app) and Revolut (app) seem to work well on my de-googlified phone. Hope that helps!
EDIT: re-worded the first line of my message to be indexable by search engines, because that may be useful for future readers.
Hi, I can add that Triodos works like a charm for me on a completely ungoogled /e/os And shoutout to @vas for actually telling banks and presumably other institutions that they need to be platform neutral or lose their custom. That’s my preferred way out of this mess. Goog luck ungoogling, everyone
Good to know! I was really eyeing Triodos back in the day, due to what looked like a good ethical stance, but it didn’t work out at the time. Nice that they’ve fixed it! (I’ve updated my message above as well to include the bank.)
Thanks! I’m on ING now and every time i look it up for ING i get conflicting answers, Probably because it differs for each country they operate in (and people don’t always specify). I’ll look into the other ones.
(And noteworthy that ING has a million of different apps)
I’ve re-tried ING now, the app starts fine and the first steps to create an account are fine (I went up to the phone number and email). However, IIRC they used to break on further steps such as ABN AMRO breaking when wanting to scan my ID card for verification. But then again, you may not need it if you already passed that verification. Anyway, just letting you know if you’re curios; I’m aborting here.
Thanks for the useful feedback.
Wise requires me to use the app as 2FA in order to log into their web interface. How do you log in without the app?
You can use andOTP if you want a FOSS app on Android. If you’re a hardcore no-Android-at-all user (or considering), you can use KeePassXC on the desktop. This kind of defeats the purpose of 2FA, but on the other hand people with KeePassXC tend to have strong passwords due to ease of their maintenance, so you don’t need 2FA as much to begin with.
TL&DR; use andOTP on Android or KeePassXC on Linux Desktop.
