Living without Google 2.0 - A Google free FP2

Louncher, Edge Swipe, Animated Clock Widget, Contacts Widget, Apps Widget, Notifications App, Updater App, …

In the Google free version? I guess no?!

@paulakreuzer, that’s how I would have imagined as well. But please reread @keesj’s post: [quote="keesj]
On FP1 the pure AOSP release caused quite a few calls to Customer support for people “loosing” their google services. The plan is to keep the Fairphone specific apps in the build e.g. this version will not be a pure AOSP Android release
[/quote]
That’s what got me confused. If people complained that their Google stuff was missing after installing the img and Fairphone wants to prevent the complaining, they’ll include them. Right? I mean, fair enough. Just not what I personally would want. :slight_smile:

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Yeah his post is a bit confusing. Let me clear it up.
On the FP1 there are 3 “OS lines”:

  • Fairphone OS w/o Google Apps - preinstalled
  • Fairphone OS with Google Apps - by installing Google Apps through the Updater App
  • Stock Android w/o Google Apps - also installed through the Updater App

I guess Fairphone only has the license to provide Fairphone OS with Google Apps. Many people installed Stock Android by mistake, others without knowing that it’s google free.

For the FP2 it will simply be the other way around

  • FP OS with GAPPS - preinstalled
  • FP OS w/o GAPPS - how? we’ll know more soon I hope
  • Stock Android - not announced yet, maybe just as a community build?
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Thanks for the clarification @paulakreuzer, so if I got it right the list expanded to FP specific Apps would look like that:

FP1:

  • Fairphone OS w/o Google Apps, with FP specific apps - preinstalled
  • Fairphone OS with Google Apps, with FP specific apps - by installing Google Apps through the Updater App
  • Stock Android w/o Google Apps, w/o FP specific apps - also installed through the Updater App

FP2:

  • FP OS with GAPPS, with FP specific apps - preinstalled
  • FP OS w/o GAPPS, with FP specific apps - how? we’ll know more soon I hope (speculation by @sjjh (that’s me): following the build instructions on code.fairphone.com will give you that-- anybody here to verify/falsify?)
  • Stock Android, w/o FP specific apps - not announced yet, maybe just as a community build?
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Yes. Fairphone OS = with Fairphone specific Apps
Stock Android = without.

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Thanks for the insights.

With regards to having a google free version: Before Christmas we
released the source code, blobs and instructions that allow to build
such a google services free version on http://code.fairphone.com/2
. The next step is to release a version that can be installed by end
users. This does require us to do some additional quality assurance and
make sure nobody accidentally installs the GMS free version. On FP1 the
pure AOSP release caused quite a few calls to Customer support for
people “loosing” their google services. The plan is to keep the
Fairphone specific apps in the build e.g. this version will not be a
pure AOSP Android release (this exercise is left to the reader).

Maybe I am a bit naive but if you already released the code to compile AOSP Android, I suppose you already built such an image. Wouldn’t it be possible to provide this img-file to buyers of the FP2, so that non-dev people who would just like to get rid of GMS etc could do so until the GMS-free FP version is available?
Since it seems that compiling the code - + enabling root - is not as straight-forward even for devs judging by the entries in different threads on the forum as compiling fairphone open source and FP2 root or not root? how?, I suppose other people like me would appreciate it.

Concerning people accidentally installing the GMS-free version: Wouldn’t it be enough to call it “GMS-free (NO google services) FP OS”?

Thanks in advance and happy new year to come :smile:

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Thanks for looking into it. Of course I know it is a holiday season, I just prefer to post my questions while I think of them :wink:

Happy New Year to all of you!

I’ve tried following this post (and all posts regarding a rooted FP2) and cannot quite follow. I have only ever owned iPhones (pleeease no comments… I finally got there myself and bought a FP2) so I am new to the GAPPS and Androids systems.
As soon as FP release the root-Infos - I will have total access to my phone an can install apps w/o GAPPs. But will GAPPS still be possible - just in case I don’t figure out how to install anything w/o GAPPS? Or will the phone never ever have GAPPS again?

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You can install apps without Google Play Store even without root:

Go to Menu > Settings > Security > and check “Unknown Sources”
to allow your phone to install apps from sources other than the Google
Play Store.

Source: Android Pit

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I just installed Kingroot and used it to root my FP2 and remove all GAPPS. No problems so far!

EDIT: Just a little time later the phone froze and I had to do a factory reset. So: Don’t try that!

If you want GAAPS, here you are: http://opengapps.org/

I prefer the “Nano” package w/o the Calendar Sync (you can taylor each package to your needs) as I rely on GCM for Threema, K9 and Signal. Hope for a reliable open source push service provider in the future to go completely Google-free… :wink:

Maybe I am a bit naive but if you already released the code to compile
AOSP Android, I suppose you already built such an image. Wouldn’t it be
possible to provide this img-file to buyers of the FP2, so that non-dev
people who would just like to get rid of GMS etc could do so until the
GMS-free FP version is available?

Well, if you read my little monologue here:

https://forum.fairphone.com/t/create-a-pre-rooted-system/11538/6

you can see that I have compiled the system. As it seems it is Gapps free. If there is anyone hosting an ftp or sftp server / cloud service etc… I could upload the img files (about 450MB). I am just not quite sure if I should recommend this. The compiler said “Complilation successfull”, but if anything went wrong unseen… So, a prior backup is mandatory!

Well, if anyone wants to try…

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Is a nandroid backup possible with stock recovery?

The TWRP guys seem to be happy to adapt their recovery if one would send them a FP2. I’d be happy to participate in donating a phone to facilitate development…

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No idea, I don’t have my phone, yet.

The TWRP guys would do that? :grinning:

Joe, would you guys be so cool to get in contact with them (if you didn’t do it already)?

https://twrp.me/contactus/

TWRP would definitely value up the Fairphone quite a lot!!!

Thanks in advance,

Nick

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At least this is what I understood when I read their FAQ: “We can’t afford to buy every device made and many times certain devices are only available in other countries.”

On the other hand - TWRP is open source. So maybe some brilliant FP2 user could compile TWRP for FP2?

I’m happy to compile stuff for myself - unless the system asks weird questions and throws errors. And I don’t want to brick that FP2 (don’t even have one yet… :wink: ).

While it probably technically isn’t to hard using dropbox/googledirve/onedrive/icloud (or your own owncloud) to distribute such build, I’m not sure if you’re legally allowed to distribute the *.img if you have included the binary blobs from wget http://code.fairphone.com/downloads/FP2/blobs/fp2-sibon-2.0.0-blobs.tgz as their special license agreements – to which you in that case have agreed! – states:

\2. Fairphone grants you a free of charge, non-exclusive, non-sublicensable,
non-transferable, limited copyright license to download, install and use the
Software for non commercial purposes only on a Fairphone 2 device in
machine-readable (i.e., object code) environment. You are not allowed to use
the Software in any other way. You are also not allowed to remove portions of
the Software, alter or otherwise modify it, or translate, reproduce, copy,
reverse engineer, reverse compile, disassemble or transfer the Software.

(emphasises by me)
Especially as any person downloading it would not have to agree to the terms themselves.

Note: I’m not a lawyer, so this is only a naive, personal opinion of me.

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Thanks for the proposition. I downloaded the sources yesterday and tried to compile them today according to the build instructions provided by fairphone but as for some others this resulted in a failed build after not even 3 min and unfortunately I am far from experienced in compiling source code and don’t really know which kind of errors to blame and how to amend those.

Regarding your proposition of sharing the img, my server is just overflowing at the moment, I’d have to make some space first, but could PM you later with a link. However, my main problem is that I don’t know if I am courageous enough to flash it right now since @lklaus also compiled succesfully without being able to boot succesfully after flashing…

Plus, perhaps @sjjh is right about the legal stuff. I’ll probably wait for the team’s answer on Monday on when they think to provide the official img or guide etc.

In the meantime, I sadly can’t do much with my new phone and test its different features since I don’t want to connect it to the internet or put any SIM in and personal data on it while GSM is still installed… I’ll continue playing some frozen bubble instead :wink:

I would also like to know how to remove the Google Apps.

I try to install as much as possible via fdroid to stick with open source apps. Not all is possible though (Titanium Backup e.g. in case of disaster).

Hi all,

I’m working to get an answer on the Google-free version. Hope to reply in the next few days.

Cheers,
Joe

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I would like to get rid of the Google apps, but keep access to the Play store and push messaging, so this looks very interesting.

Is the Fairphone 2 an ARM or ARM64 platform?

@anon90052001 Thank you, less Google integration would be much appreciated!