Hello I use GOS have for almost a year and finally removed sandboxed play services in my main profile and only use Aurora for my bank app and Apple Music in my main profile still have Google Voice in private space but seperated from my main profile all my apps are only FOSS other than the 2 apps from aurora and it feels so good to finally say that. I just wanted to share my big news with you and hope you can all ditch Google apps/services as I have its amazing how my spam calls/texts have stopped or become less the more I degoogled.
I hope everyone has a great Degoogle/privacy enchancing experience
Any better replacements for Google Voice welcome in the comments if there is any.
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I have significantly reduced my usage of Google and Apple services for a couple of years now. Sometimes I wonder if I should go back, but then I see the enshitification of it all and it reminds me why I did so in the first place.
For which services are you sometimes wanting to go back for?
I guess it’s less the services and more the updated hardware that tempts me. I don’t do anything that requires a lot of computing power, so I get tempted to get something with Samsung Dex or Motorola Ready For to use it as both mobile and laptop/desktop.
I do use the Librem 5 with convergence, but storage is becoming an issue. I have a few things I can try to maximize storage before seriously considering something else.
Recently I too have made a huge change in move towards degoogling and replaced Gboard with Heliboard. I never thought I’d be able to replace Gboard because I use gesture typing a lot. Heliboard doesn’t come inbuilt with gesture typing but you have to import from closed source(?) data which is just a one time import (would like to know more on this one from someone more knowledgeable). So far, it has been great!
Unfortunately I can’t access my banking app without a “certified virtual keyboard”. I have to flip back to gboard whenever I want to check my bank balance
That sucks my bank app doesn’t seem to rely on it for anything other than notifications and I can live without those.
To be fair, android custom keyboards are ridiciously insecure. They have access to effectively everything on the screen and what you’re typing while also having access to make external requests.
The solution is for Android to allow you to select keyboards per app
Yup
I learnt to just use my PC for all banking. Double check my balance before leaving the house for groceries.
I’m an idiot for not thinking of that. Fuck I’m so dependent on my phone
Man can you tell me how to import the gesture typing Library?
It is explained in their github.
In the app, you go Advanced > Load gesture typing library > Select your downloaded library.
Thanks man
I wish all
privacy advocates
a very pleasant
degoogling
Ty! ^^ been thinking about deleting my final remaining gmail account but unfortunately there may be unexpected consequences so I’m second guessing still.
Since deleting my Google account early this year (having used it as a primary account for e-mail for about 15 years), I have only stumbled upon two problems. The first one was that an old account I had with my current ISP had tied my phone number and my old e-mail account. This was solved with a call to customer service that severed that link and allowed me to make a new account with my phone number. The second was that I missed an invitation to an alumni party from a previous job… so yeah…
Note, I did spend a significant time overlapping my new primary mail account with the Gmail-account to ensure I had resolved as good as all of these issues. Since moving to Proton, I think I spent 2 years before actually deleting my Google account. That included a fairly thorough cleanup of old accounts that took quite some time and energy (boy, do some of these services give you a hard time deleting old accounts…)
I KNOWWW right?? (Response to that last part)
Yeah, I’m not doing that either yet, I’m using it for a few things and can’t really replace it
Check out jmp.chat as a gv replacement. Its $5/mo tho
Best part with JMP is SMS is piped into XMPP/JABBER. So you’re no longer tied to a phone/Sim card for sms.
Thank you will look into $5 isn’t alot so will probably switch to it.
$5 isn’t a *lot
Good job. You can start off the new year with a breath of fresh air.
I finished my house privacy finally this week with the FLIRC TV remote to get rid of the OEM remote that had a microphone built in. It’s programmable on Linux too which is awesome
Uh, neat tip. Thank you!
Congrats! It can be a difficult choice for some, because of the inconveniences it brings, but it’s well worth it. We all need to ditch the big corporations and be free.
Congrats. I’ve moved away from using Google other than for school/work (I have no choice there). Although I still haven’t deleted my personal account yet.
I have a work gmail as well with works apps with Google Play but it’s in a work profile so separate from. Main so I understand that.
Ummm, why were you using Google, Boimler? Why didn’t you just use the systems Star Fleet provided on the Cerritos?
Because I am trapped here and have to use current tech and you know I dont do off the grid! 🖖
Congrats! Do you use Android Auto? If so, how does it work for you without Google play?
I’m on CalyxOS with microG, and as far as I know, Android Auto does not work here. I understand this is a deal-breaker for a lot of people, but I have personally never seen Android Auto to be of particular interest, so I am completely fine with it.
Sadly, I can’t ditch WhatsApp since everyone I know uses it + work and without sandboxed play services, WhatsApp eats my battery like crazy
Hopefully one day they’ll all use Signal
While it would be an improvement, it seems to me that going to another platform would be repeating the same mistake. Protocols are more sustainable longterm solution.
You can fork signal’s protocol
If we’re talking about the encryption - yeah, people have done so. If we’re talking about the whole service - from what I understand, it is not practical to selfhost. And even if it was, you cannot communicate with people using other servers…
For the lng run there needs to be a solution for the WhatsApp Monopoly we all live on. I mean, this argument is several years old and what can we do to change that? You could start by trying to convince some og your contacts to switch zo signal. In terms of co convinience their app is the closest to WhatsApp.
Saying “Signal is more secure and private”? No one gives a shit apparently
You can still use Google Push notifications with microG.
I had it but I don’t know how to connect the 2 together
You could use Beeper, which connects with Whatsapp without needing the app installed.
Is Automattic a good company tho? Heard some not so good stories about them recently.
They use open source solutions for this, so you can spin up your own version if you want. It’s just Matrix with bridges.
They went crying about WPEngine having found a good business model around Wordpress support, and started sabotaging for them.
https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/2/24260158/automattic-demand-wp-engine-revenue-wordpress-battle
Looks like they lost in court a few days ago!
https://www.theverge.com/2024/12/10/24318350/automattic-restore-wp-engine-access-wordpress
I personally have no notifications (aside from SMS, calls and calendar). Not like I would be checking the phone when I suddenly hear a notification anyway, only when already deciding to check it.
Simplex apparently does a similar thing in terms of draining battery for its notifications, I just didn’t allow it to run in the background in the settings. Maybe this could work for Whatsapp if you’re willing to ditch notifications?
I need it for work so no? I can’t
That’s weird. I use WhatsApp daily without Google play services and it doesn’t do that. I have a pixel 7a
I have installed WhatsApp without GServices and got delayed/no notifications and ~50% of my battery was WhatsApp in background. Brand new battery (?) on a refurbished Pixel 8. With minimum use, I used to get around 2PM with ~30% battery while now, I can get to 15% to 9PM with roughly more usage than before.
No idea why