Android
The new home of /r/Android on Lemmy and the Fediverse!
Android news, reviews, tips, and discussions about rooting, tutorials, and apps.
🔗Universal Link: !android@lemdro.id
💡Content Philosophy:
Content which benefits the community (news, rumours, and discussions) is generally allowed and is valued over content which benefits only the individual (technical questions, help buying/selling, rants, self-promotion, etc.) which will be removed if it's in violation of the rules.
Support, technical, or app related questions belong in: !askandroid@lemdro.id
For fresh communities, lemmy apps, and instance updates: !lemdroid@lemdro.id
📰Our communities below
Rules
-
Stay on topic: All posts should be related to the Android OS or ecosystem.
-
No support questions, recommendation requests, rants, or bug reports: Posts must benefit the community rather than the individual. Please post to !askandroid@lemdro.id.
-
Describe images/videos, no memes: Please include a text description when sharing images or videos. Post memes to !androidmemes@lemdro.id.
-
No self-promotion spam: Active community members can post their apps if they answer any questions in the comments. Please do not post links to your own website, YouTube, blog content, or communities.
-
No reposts or rehosted content: Share only the original source of an article, unless it's not available in English or requires logging in (like Twitter). Avoid reposting the same topic from other sources.
-
No editorializing titles: You can add the author or website's name if helpful, but keep article titles unchanged.
-
No piracy or unverified APKs: Do not share links or direct people to pirated content or unverified APKs, which may contain malicious code.
-
No unauthorized polls, bots, or giveaways: Do not create polls, use bots, or organize giveaways without first contacting mods for approval.
-
No offensive or low-effort content: Don't post offensive or unhelpful content. Keep it civil and friendly!
-
No affiliate links: Posting affiliate links is not allowed.
Quick Links
Our Communities
- !askandroid@lemdro.id
- !androidmemes@lemdro.id
- !techkit@lemdro.id
- !google@lemdro.id
- !nothing@lemdro.id
- !googlepixel@lemdro.id
- !xiaomi@lemdro.id
- !sony@lemdro.id
- !samsung@lemdro.id
- !galaxywatch@lemdro.id
- !oneplus@lemdro.id
- !motorola@lemdro.id
- !meta@lemdro.id
- !apple@lemdro.id
- !microsoft@lemdro.id
- !chatgpt@lemdro.id
- !bing@lemdro.id
- !reddit@lemdro.id
Lemmy App List
Chat and More
view the rest of the comments
Well, if you're eschewing Play services/degoogling, you're going to find the features are very similar to the experience you're coming from. No NFC/payments, apps that won't run due to Play services requirement, no facial unlock, All pixel-specific features missing, no visual voicemail, no RCS chats, etc, etc.
I've been running degoogled GrapheneOS on my Pixel 9 for a couple years now and love it but it's not because of the features, since the experience lags years behind Googled phones. I love it because of the privacy and in spite of the barren wasteland of bells and whistles.
Technically NFC payments work. I run GrapheneOS and have working NFC payments. You just need the right provider that doesn't kowtow to Google's junk device verification.
RCS is working for me. For now, at least.
How are you using RCS on Graphene?
I was speaking for those of us running sans Google products.
I’ve been on the edge of switching for a bit, but am mildly apprehensive. I will be okay without many of the apps except astronomy. Regarding texting, I’ve tried pressing many of my text contacts to signal, but many persist in normal iOS. Perhaps this is a stupid question, but does all that normal communication just cut over okay? I know signal will. Most importantly I’ve not tied my GOS phone to the googs and am trying not to. Anyhow my ignorance is making me too chicken to transfer my eSIM away from my working phone.
Your texting conversations will just default to SMS/MMS even if the other party is capable of RCS. For me, this is no real detraction as I don't have need of any of the RCS features and SMS/MMS suit my needs fine. Backing up your texts on a phone with RCS enabled and restoring them on the graphene phone without RCS will still succeed, although I've noticed some sms apps(like Fossify Messages) won't sort them by timestamp properly, I'm assuming because it either can't read the RCS timestamp or it doesn't count it as an SMS. The content is there, it just isn't sorted by time received.
I use Signal for conversation with my family and it works seamlessly across Graphene and desktop. Just make a backup and restore it on the next phone you'lll be using signal on.
It's really not that hard to run it without Google apps/services. In my case, I lost my MTB tracking apps as all of them require Play Services and my Starbucks app does as well but everything else I need , including banking and medical work without issue. For everything else needing Play Services, I was able to find a suitable replacement(for instance, Paralino in place of Life360, as they offer a specifically degoogled APK).
Thank you for the info. It is encouraging though I did plan on using the fossify suite as well.
I try and pay attention on these threads and have been fleshing this GOS phone out, but how does one obtain a banking app without the play store? I wouldn’t think you’d find an apk for my regional CU anywhere but the play store. Am I wrong? If I log into the play store, then it “compromises” my privacy, no? Or is there some way to fence off or sandbox things? Apologies for the bother of so many questions, but do appreciate the education.
Edit: Shit, too many questions.
It works fine and everything sorts correctly once you're using the app, it's just an odd sorting quirk I noticed on install and SMS import.
I use the Aurora app store found on F-Droid. This is a private client for the Google Play Store. It allows you to download apps from Google Play without having to use or link a Google account. The app page on the Aurora store will also tell you if the app you're looking at requires the Play Services and how successful running it without the services would be.
There is an argument that Aurora Store is vulnerable to malicious apps being downloaded instead of the proper app but I've used it for years and have never had an issue.
Graphene does sandbox Play Services but if you use an account to interact with Google, Google is going to have that data on you. I see a lot of people setting up different profiles to try to further isolate Google on their phone but IMHO, it's just a lot of hassle for the perceived minimal benefit. I think everyone needs to decide whether they want to use Google services and if they do, simply use them. If not, I don't think all of the hoops you jump through to try to sandbox the services are actually doing anything beneficial privacy-wise.
If you want to use Graphene but want to use Google Services and apps that rely on them, that's completely doable, you can always reset down the road if you decide to stop using them. I will say that Graphene and Google services are not set and forget. You will likely spend a few days searching solutions on getting apps relying on Google to work properly since Graphene does try to isolate Google. Graphene is a fantastic and easy-to-use non-Google OS but requires a lot of legwork to use like a normal Google OS.
Hey, thank you for this. I do appreciate the time you took to help! Have a great day!
You can use the Aurora Store, although sandboxed Google Play may be more secure.