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____ __ __ _ ___ __ … |
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/ __/ / /_ ___ ___ / / ___ _ ___ ( ) ___ / _ ) / / ___ ___ … |
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_\ \ / __// -_) / _ \ / _ \/ _ `/ / _ \|/ (_-< / _ | / / / _ \ / _ `… |
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/___/ \__/ \__/ / __//_//_/\_,_/ /_//_/ /___/ /____/ /_/ \___/ \_, /… |
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/_/ /___/ … |
 |
OING OFF THE GRID - PART 2 |
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existed until I stumbled upon the ssh key I use to login. And so here we |
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are. |
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First thing first, I promised to write about my ditching google. So here |
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we go: |
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|
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Getting rid of Google, for good. |
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Something that has been bothering me for a while was that it is |
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practically impossible to get rid of Google, even though you try hard. I |
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am using a lot of open source programs instead of proprietary ones. I |
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host my own Searx instance, use my own cryptpad, host my own email and |
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all of that good stuff. I run linux on my laptop and PC, so I don't have |
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any bad trackers on those. There is only one device that I can't get out |
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of Big Brother's hands. The telescreen (or smartphone in 2020). |
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I own an android phone. Not surprising, as I find phones by Apple priced |
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ridiculously. The thing with android phones is, Google is kinda baked |
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right into them. You almost can't setup a new phone without an Google |
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account. You need one in order to download apps. |
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Not that companies like Apple do this differently. You need an iCloud |
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account in order to even boot the device. Even the Kindle from Amazon |
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has an option for logging in. |
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Now I wanted to get rid of Google, but without actually breaking the |
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phone. Android has this one app that controls almost everything on my |
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phone. Things like notifications, network based location, in app maps, |
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background tasks like synchronization. It's all bundled inside this one |
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app: Google Play Services. |
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It's the only app with root access to my phone. It has to in order to |
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download and update apps from the Play Store heedlessly. And I want it, |
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along with all the other google stuff, gone. |
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So I would need to find a replacement for this. A polyfill. And luckily, |
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I wasn't the only person to think that. |
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MicroG |
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In order to replace the Google Play Services app I needed a replacement. |
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Since my phone didn't originally came with Google apps installed, I had |
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to install them manually. This allowed me to test with turning off all |
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the permissions this app had (because it was just another app), but this |
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lead to almost all of my apps breaking. Every single app I opened showed |
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me an alert: "This app needs Google Play Services to work correctly". |
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Everything was broken. So I knew that just deleting all of Google off my |
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phone wasn't enough. |
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Then I stumbled across this video from Wolfgang's channel: |
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He mentions a package called MicroG, that replaces the Google Play |
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Services with a open source app. Exactly what I needed. So that was what |
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I installed. I used the Lineage for MicroG image to make my life even |
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easier. |
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That's where I'm now. It works amazing, I can still use most apps |
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(except for the Mc Donalds app, but that is okay) and most apps get |
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tricked into believing it's actually Google Play Services. |
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COMMENTS: |
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Add a comment by mailing to [email protected] and putting [c805a] in the subject |
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|
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ther blog posts by ~steph |
|
Going off the grid - part 2 |
 |
020-03-08 - 20:03 |
|
Going off the grid |
|
020-02-14 - 11:11 |
