DeGoogle Yourself

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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!

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My internal fight over what device to buy (lemmy.kde.social)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Hello there! This is my problem: I'm going to buy a new smartphone, and I'd really like to degoogle myself as much as possible. The idea would be to buy a device compatible with LineageOS, but... Supported devices are usually older models, and often there are newer devices with better specs for the same price, that does not support lineageOS. Is seems a shame to buy a device with lower specs than another one just because of software compatibility. So the alternative would be to buy an unsupported device, unlock the bootloader and debloat it as much as possible, flash privileged fdroid and aurora store on it, install microg, etc... What do you suggest me to do? Is the second alternative a viable option? What other steps should I do if I decide to go that way?

Thanks in advance folks!

Edit:
Thanks to anyone for the great answers! I finally decided to buy a pixel 6 (or 6 pro if I find a good deal) and install a custom ROM on it! GrapheneOS will support it for "only" 3 more years, while other roms like lineageos or divestos will have longer support. What do you suggest? Graphene OS and when support ends switch to another one? O directly use the other one?

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

The stores I have on my GrapheneOS pixel 7a: F-Droid + droidify, Aurora store, and the Google Play store as well for some official apps I cannot do without. Between these, there isn't an app that I couldn't find or install.

I bought my pixel second hand, to not put more money in Google's pocket, and to avoid any carrier locking. Not sure how that will impact the installation, but it might. Best to investigate that matter.

I have to mention: I still cannot believe how easy that installation was. I rooted my previous phone and put lineageOS on it, which was such a tedious procedure back in the day, I really dreaded installing GrapheneOS. But that web interface, detecting everything and guiding me along was pure heaven. I hope that'll become the default for any custom installs.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Interesting. Thanks for this info.

Google Play? So you degoogled and regoogled?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

At least it's sandboxed now ;)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I too, degoogled and then regoogled.

The Google Play framework service is very sandboxed on GrapheneOS. Most stuff just works, and - as long as all went to plan, which it seems to - the invasive stuff fails silently or with a harmless error message.

It's been a better experience than I expected!

For the most part, Google has no idea what apps I'm even installing, beacuse I get free apps without login through Aurora.

For the apps that are important enough to me to purchase through Google Play, Google knows I bought and installed them. But even those are talking to GrapheneOS' sandboxes Google Services Framework. For the most part, nothing changes in how I use those apps, beacuse the sandboxes framework drops and reports 'success' on unsupported framework calls, and the vast majority of apps I have used just move on.

The exception has been anything that only supports Google's auth layer. I like Google's auth layer, but I don't use it anymore. So those apps I can't use at all. I don't expect it to work well on GrapheneOS, but I haven't honestly tried.