What hasn’t gotten worse with Google? I have been slowly leaving Google and now it’s just YouTube and Google maps. Youtube I am not overly worried about as I can still block all the commercials.
Try Insular which lets you install Play Store inside an island that is essentially a bare android system. If the apps access anything on the operating system like contacts, etc. they just get empty data (unless you populate that islands Contacts with what you need for an application). You can make multiple islands if you need to isolate other applications from each other, or you can just install all untrusted apps inside of one island and let them feed off each other. I’ve also seen people poison the data those applications get with bullshit data in the things they are accessing inside the island and sending back.
I’ve used this very successfully with GrapheneOS, it’ll run my bank app for instance, so I don’t have to keep Play Services on my mainland profile. You can also move apps from mainland to island, or island to island inside the Insular manager.
A doubt arised, does both profile need to have same app version or signatures.
I want to use a single app in both profile, but one is modded version in work profile. Because a message appears when installing that sort of says, “another user has installed the same app but its different”.
Thanks, for the app. I had used Island for a while, but didn’t thought this way.
I’m playing for while but sorry I was not able to find multiple island feature which you were talking about; I wanted to ask here first before searching myself.
My bad, it must have been another one that I could make multiple profiles with, you are right, I don’t see that on my Insular install currently.
FLOSS is Free Libre Open Source Software. IMO, the only software you can rely on having any control over has to be opensource. Nothing else is worth investing time into, because it’ll eventually enshittify.
Microg may work. I am a little surprised it doesnt work if you havent disabled play services. I generally avoid mainstream apps and use mostly apps from f-droid to not run into issues. Lord only knows what data the ChatGPT and other apps like it are collecting without you knowing.
Even I use f-droid and use mainstream ones in browser if possible. Along with ChatGPT I saw two other apps that showed same message but dont remember them.
Now the real question, how do microG works like all I have to install it as I dont know where to start the tutorials. Since i dont want to root my phone
Their official is very annoying,they use google service for DRM purpose and also if u have root it will not work either.As alternative u can try chagpt wrapper f-droid.org/uk/…/org.woheller69.gptassist/
Depends from application,some apps like whatsapp or viber will tell that they wanna google play service but u can skip this pop up and keep using application but some apps like official chatgpt app will not work at all.
I would first approach this problem by first trying to convert as many apps that you have into a Foss alternative ( you could use this site to find the alternatives: alternativeto.net).
Then if I was comfortable enough I would later on try flashing a custom rom like lineageOS (I would recommend doing this with a second phone if you have one, like a older phone to get used to the OS since it is a bit different and if something happens you have the original phone as a backup).
Then I guess the final step would be to isolate your work apps that aren’t Foss like WhatsApp into a separate environment with an app like shelter.
Edit: Also try to not rely on google services as much as possible by using alternatives like protonmail/tutamail for email and other search engines like startpage, duckduckgo and searX (or searXNG, I do prefer more this one) (searX/XNG instances being the best search engines out there)
Why just Google? Search has gone into the gutter across the board. Certain search constraints like excluding keywords or sites no longer work. Amazon doesn’t even care what you type in - they just show you what they want you to buy.
github.com/FossifyOrg/Keyboard It’s there in the org, not sure when it gets released to F-droid, but I think they’re just going 1 by 1, so hopefully shouldn’t be long.
I’m transitioning to self-hosting via Immich and someone created an importer called immich-go that allows you to bulk upload your takeout files w/ the Google Photos feel (complete w/ previously created albums, tags, etc).
There’s an additional step if you exported via .tar files but it’s pretty straightforward ime.
I run a shield for Plex and have never logged into my google account on it. I’ve disabled play store and most google services. Also I keep the android on the stock version.
So it’s possible to run it without signing up. Thats good news. All the reviews seem to say it’s a requirement for the initial set up
Are there any special steps to get your set up? I imagine you need to side load your apps because the play store won’t work, but is there anything else?
I side load Plex from the direct download links in the forum (Plex pass is required for this I think but there are def other ways to get the apk). I do not run the shield as a sever as I have a dedicated box for that.
Nothing special about the setup at all, I just prefer a minimalist approach to software so I disabled everything on the shield that wasn’t necessary to run Plex.
I’m not sure about using it without a Google account, but you can definitely minimize their involvement. I installed flauncher, then disabled the default “leanback” launcher. Plex is installed from the play store but I side loaded an ad-blocking YouTube app. On a normal day I don’t see anything from or about google on my screen. I’m not sophisticated or, to be honest, concerned enough to know if there’s tracking or other telemetry going on. I mostly just want to avoid ads and moronic suggestions from them.
It looks like there’s a Lineage OS build for the shield, so if you want to eradicate google, there’s an option. It loses a fair bit of what makes the shield great though, since some of the audio and video playback stuff on the shield is proprietary to Nvidia.
SmartTubeNext (STN) is the Android TV equivalent of Revanced.
I did end up making a Google account just to get mine set up and for syncing subscriptions between STN and Revanced on my phone. I don’t use it for anything else.
As others have said, replacing the launcher with something like Sideload Channel Launcher 4 is a good option.
Other useful apps are Button Mapper (for killing the netflix remote button and for mapping the home button to your new launcher) and Send Files To TV to easily sideload apps without a ton of setup.
I suppose I could use someone else’s account for initial set up. I’ve had a look and it seems nextdns allows different profiles per device, so I’ll just block as many google domains as I can that way
Newpipe is my Android based YouTube player. I don’t have a Shield, but there are ways to run Android without a Google account. With a phone it’s honestly not worth it because you’re constantly messing around with side loading and stuff, but it may be doable with a TV box.
That said, I have an ancient NUC and run Fedora. It was a bit of a pain, but it’s been years and years and it’s still doing the job, and I’m told that it’s gotten easier with the later releases.
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