Living without Google 2.0 - A Google free FP2

:fr: Resalut Mimi,

ça reste un forum de la communauté. Même si les gens veulent bien aider, personne n’aura le temps de traduire tout un fil… Si tu vois quelque chose d’important (là je parle de un ou deux posts), tu pourras toujours demander mais un fil de plus de 100 posts…

Courage

:gb: Just pointing out the fact that this is a community forum and that nobody will have the time to translate a whole thread of more than 100 posts…

But somebody could add a translation to the first post, or more than one. It’s a wiki. :slightly_smiling:

I’ll have a look at it later but right now, I unfortunately do not have the time.

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Hi, I want to life without google, so I deleted or deactivated the most Google programms.
With this also the Google Camera. But as a result I can’t use the camera button. And the display say me that the “ProgrammableButton” was ended. I’d like to assign a new camera programm to the button. But I don’t now how and where I can find this into the settings.
Maybe some of you might know what I mean.
Thank you in advance!!

For me it was enough to disable google camera, install a different camera app (open camera) and after starting the app the first time pressing the programmable button opened open camera.

What camera apps did you install?

I’m not sure whether I understand your problem correctly, but you may just need to install a camera app.

Edit: @paulakreuzer was faster and probably more helpful. :wink:

You could try to activate the Google camera again. When pressing the button then you will be asked which app you want to use, and you can choose your favorite. After that, deactivate the Google thing again.
This is how it worked for me with the Google search bar / google app button.

I’ve install HD camera, which I found in Google play store.
And when I pressing the programmable button the first time I couldn’t choose bewtween the camera programms.

And cause of the hint from freibadschwimmer I also activate again Google camera, but there was also no possibility to choose my favourite.

Try to install one more camera app, like open camera. If then the button simply opens open camera you’ll know that your app is not supported by the button, but if you’re lucky you’ll get the prompt to choose then.

Hi all, I hope I’m in the right thread for this question.

As I continue to get to know my FP2, I’m discovering more and more features/settings. While I’ve deactivated a lot of Google stuff, I didn’t disable everything (yet?) and was just looking through Google Settings, mostly to reduce the amount of stuff Google has access to. But I noticed here the “Allow remote lock and erase”, which is meant as a security feature in case of loss or theft and seems quite useful. It requires enabling the Android Device Manager, which allows Google Play to erase all data without warning, change the screen-unlock password and control how/when the screen locks. Reading those permissions makes me instantly hit cancel and shudder…

So the question for all of you: is there an open-source/free/non-Google/F-Droid app out there that would allow me to remotely lock/erase my FP2 in case of loss or theft, but that doesn’t allow Google to randomly lock me out of my phone without any warning?? My initial search on F-Droid wasn’t too successful, but I’ve found that you often only find the right apps if you know their name ahead of time…

1 Like

I don’t know of such an app on F-Droid and I guess - if there is one - you’d rather find it on XDA / Xposed. But anyways such an app would definitely need root privileges.

Hi @emmy. I only stumbled upon Prey, which is open-source, but not available in F-Droid (only in the PlayStore). However, this will only monitor the location and seems not to be able to lock your data.

To “lock your data” you could also just encrypt your phone. And for the unlikely case someone picks your phone out of your hands while it’s unlocked there is plucklock. :wink:

I will do this as well, but I always wonder whether this helps. As long as the phone is not turned off, it doesn’t matter whether it’s encrypted or not.

Interesting app. :grinning: But as far as I understand the description, it refers to locking the screen and not the data (as from data encryption), right?

2 Likes

I never tried encryption but I always thought you could set it so everything is encrypted even when the phone is just locked. Indeed if it’s only encrypted when the phone is turned off then plucklock is no use.

No, that’s not the way full-disk (or full-partition) encryption works, see this post.

Well, at least plucklock locks the screen. You could hope that this hurdle is big enough for the random thief stealing your phone. :slightly_smiling:

1 Like

Now we just need another app that powers down the phone if the wrong PIN is entered a few times.

Thanks for the info, guys, even if there’s no readily available complete solution yet. I guess I’ll just try not to lose/have my FP2 stolen for now :wink:

Next question: I’ve been using K-9 Mail, but I can’t get it to push/poll and notify me when I have new messages. What works is opening the app and refreshing, then it also shows a little notification, but of course I’d like to be notified BEFORE I open the app that there is a new message. I’ve played around with the settings (push/poll) various times, but I can’t seem to get it to work. I have a posteo account, in case that matters.

Has anyone gotten this to work reliably and could let me know what settings you have?

Thanks!

In “Fetching Mail” I have the following settings (I believe they are standard as I don’t remember changing them):

  • Fetch messages up to 32kb
  • Folder poll frequency: Every 15 minutes
  • Poll folders: Only 1st class folders
  • Push folders: Only 1st class folders
  • Advanced:
  • Poll when connectiong for push :ballot_box_with_check:
  • Refresh IDLE connection: Every 24 minutes

Nice idea, but then you could also just have an app like plucklock which immediately shuts down instead of locking the screen. :wink: Btw, I think it will then need root access or be a system app (if it’s not already needed for just locking).