I’m quite a few years into this de-Googling thing. It’s also pretty much an extension of the de-Microsofting I started when I first tried Linux around 2005 or so. I was one of the original users of whatever Google Workspace was called back when they were still offering it free to Organizations and Families who wanted to use their own domain name with their Gmail accounts. I started de-googling in earnest around the time they first tried to take away this free-forever perk. Lately, I’ve been working hard to get ready for the era of identity verification and the pending Android lockdown. I consider large companies and surveillance-advertisers as my primary adversaries.

I’m down to my last few google dependencies and I’d appreciate your help in trying to overcome them as that lockdown date gets closer and the whole ecosystem will be thrown into chaos. I’d like to have essential services self-hosted and backups of essential APKs and such prior to that date. There are a few items not on this list that are occasional installs (and immediate uninstalls). These are usually hardware companion apps for stuff like my little wireless hotspot.

I wasn’t sure if it was safe to publicly post a spreadsheet from my machine, so please see the image for the bad stuff I have left (the red rows), mildly questionable stuff (yellow), and the good stuff I have installed (green), it’s not necessarily Google itself, but the red and sometimes yellow stuff chains me back to the Play ecosystem. I genericized any financial or health apps, except UHC because it’s super common and fuck them, I want to call out how shitty their app is and point out that their approach to attestation and verifying device integrity must be out of desperation because they themselves have no integrity.

Feel free to call anything out by name in the left column if you:

A. Have a better alternative that maintains good functionality.

B. Commiserate with my plight replacing a particular piece of software.

C. Think that I’ve mis-catagorized something as an undesirable when it’s actually good, or vice versa.

D. Anything else.

I would love to hear from you all.

  • BladeFederation@piefed.socialEnglish
    2·
    10 hours ago

    What is your plan? Are you going to stop using Play Store on lockdown day? If so, why? Just trying to Degoogle in general? Why are you worried about lockdown day? You can still install apps outside the Play Store, even on stock Android, which you don’t appear to be using. If I am inferring correctly, you’re using GrapheneOS, which is entirely unaffected.

    Alternatives (from top of list towards the bottom)

    Dr app>website (I dont see why not)

    Play Store>Aurora Store (doesn’t auto update apps in GrapheneOS though)

    aCalendar>Proton Calendar (encrypted, cloud sync)

    Obsidian>Notesnook (encrypted, cloud sync, can link notes similar to Obsidian, albeit not as advanced)

    Xplore>Fossify File Manager or Material Files (not sure why you want X specifically though)

    Google Camera is not distributed by GrapheneOS actually. They have their own app. If you disable network and download from the Play Store it might be fine? I’m OK with the GrapheneOS Camera app though, I don’t like unattural Ai filtering anyway.

    What do you use Wireguard for that isn’t covered by Mullvad? Tailscale may be an option, depending.

    Tidal>Metrolist (YouTube Music client, FOSS and free with no ads.) OR SoundCrowd (FOSS client for multiple sources including Tidal. Pretty barebones though)

    Discord>Element X (if you can convince people to move…)

    YouTube>WizeStream (YouTube, PeerTube, SoundCloud, Material Design)

    WhatsApp>Signal (if you can convince people to move…)

    SMS backup: I would recommend against doing this at all, actually

    Personally, I need Play Store for Here We Go, as CoMaps is useless in my area. It doesn’t work through Aurora. And I think I prefer it this way, having auto updates is more convenient and secure enough of a tradeoff for me with sandboxes Play Services. Google just knows someone somewhere with a burner Google account downloaded a few Play Store apps. I don’t use any more of their stuff so who cares? I also still use Tidal. They’ve massively decreased the trackers in their app over the years, and I prefer paying artists over not. Tidal pays the most in the biz except maybe Qobuz. Plus the lossless audio of course…