51
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 21 Nov 2023
51 points (98.1% liked)
Android
27940 readers
104 users here now
DROID DOES
Welcome to the droidymcdroidface-iest, Lemmyest (Lemmiest), test, bestest, phoniest, pluckiest, snarkiest, and spiciest Android community on Lemmy (Do not respond)! Here you can participate in amazing discussions and events relating to all things Android.
The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:
Rules
1. All posts must be relevant to Android devices/operating system.
2. Posts cannot be illegal or NSFW material.
3. No spam, self promotion, or upvote farming. Sources engaging in these behavior will be added to the Blacklist.
4. Non-whitelisted bots will be banned.
5. Engage respectfully: Harassment, flamebaiting, bad faith engagement, or agenda posting will result in your posts being removed. Excessive violations will result in temporary or permanent ban, depending on severity.
6. Memes are not allowed to be posts, but are allowed in the comments.
7. Posts from clickbait sources are heavily discouraged. Please de-clickbait titles if it needs to be submitted.
8. Submission statements of any length composed of your own thoughts inside the post text field are mandatory for any microblog posts, and are optional but recommended for article/image/video posts.
Community Resources:
We are Android girls*,
In our Lemmy.world.
The back is plastic,
It's fantastic.
*Well, not just girls: people of all gender identities are welcomed here.
Our Partner Communities:
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
One thing others haven't mentioned is SafetyNet/Play Integrity and Widevine L1. You can spoof basic integrity but not hardware attestation (AFAIK), so any apps which check for it may not work (typically banking apps and some games). You'll also lose your Widevine L1 certification, which means streaming apps will suffer - Netflix will go down to SD resolution, others services might do something similar (or even not work at all).
Naturally, without the Play Store you'll also lose access to any premium apps or apps/addons you've unlocked with IAPs, unless the app offers an alternative activation method.
Finally, there are many apps which may not even work without Google Play Services. microG or GrapheneOS' sandboxed play services could help, but YMMV - and you'd still be using Google's services in the end, which kinda defeats the whole point. So I wouldn't recommend microG/Sandboxed Play Services.
If you mainly stick to apps on F-Droid though, most of this shouldn't be an issue. So maybe before switching, ask yourself, can you live without your favourite closed source app(s), and use a FOSS alternative(s) instead?
Thank you for the extensive reply! This covers the question perfectly. Your comment made me realize that I am not ready to ditch some services at this point in my life. The good thing about privacy is that your decision is very rarely black or white. You can gradually flow towards more private solutions over time, giving up and replacing things you use little by little.
If you still want to improve your quality of life you can take the middle ground, which is to keep the stock ROM but unlock bootloader and install one that includes Magisk, which in turn will give access to root and Magisk modules that can do all kinds of interesting things.
Some examples:
Thanks! I've tried rooted stock for a while, but gave it up because the updates weren't showing up. I didn't know you could use any FOSS solutions to location services, I'll have to research it more. I'll give it a try once I finally decide to unlock the bootloader (I've relocked it afterwards, a big mistake).
The location solution is also part of MicroG, it's an apk called UnifiedNlp that takes modules that can do all kinds of cool location things. Alternative online services like Mozilla and Apple are just one example, you can also download offline maps for wifi hotspots or mobile cells, or create your own mapping as you go by using GPS (when available).