Living without Google 2.0 - A Google free FP2

[paulakreuzer]

@Linda_CH

Someone promised an official FP guide to degoogling your FP 2

Where have you read that?

There will be an alternative operating system for the FP2 which comes without Google Apps, but we don’t know a date yet.

[fp1_wo_sw_updates]

@Linda_CH

1. Someone promised an official FP guide to degoogling your FP 2 - has it appeared yet?

Degoogling does not work well, it’s best to start from scratch. But by this, you will loose the ability to use some apps from the play store. Google tries to bind programmers by offering an easy to use framework … that also sends data to google. There are ways to work around that as well. But it’s easier to use software that does not depend on Google’s framework.

A rough guideline is described here … there is no official google free image from Fairphone yet. You still need to compile the code yourself, we are not allowed to share the image, because the “bin blobs” are “protected” by a strange license.

The code complies out of the box, nobody knows the reason why they do not offer a google free image right now.

[Soprano]

@Linda_CH

1. Someone promised an official FP guide to degoogling your FP 2 - has it appeared yet?

Here are instructions to build and flash Fairphone AOSP (without Google apps):
http://code.fairphone.com/projects/fp-osos/dev/fairphone-os-build-instructions.html

[Roboe]

As long as SyncMate works with CardDAV and CalDAV, you can use DAVdroid to synchronize contacts and calendar in your Android. No need for Google. I’ve been using it for about year and a half with an ownCloud instance and is a great software.

[schept]

@Linda_CH

I need to synchronize my contacts and calendar with a Mac running OS X. I was planning to install SyncMate to do this. However, I asked and the app works only with Google Contacts and Calendar. Does anyone know another solution? I’ve tried to understand whether ownCloud would do the job but I’m still not sure… Plus, I was trying to avoid cloud solutions in general because I don’t see why my data needs to be anywhere else than on my devices - having two backup disks at home seems like enough security to me.Thank you in advance for your help - and good night!

Synchronizing implies using a cloud solution, since device B can not take dat from device A directly. (You can use USB-flash-drives, but that won’t be synchronizing, just copying.)

As a cloud you could use google, apple, microsoft or something else ‘for free’. You can also use owncloud, which means you will be hosting your own server at home. Or you could use paid-servers that promise not to give away your data and at least don’t have a business-model built around ads.

Some that I know of are:

• Kolabnow
• Mailbox.org
• Posteo.de

[paulakreuzer]

@schept

Synchronizing implies using a cloud solution, since device B can not take dat from device A directly. (You can use USB-flash-drives, but that won’t be synchronizing, just copying.)

That’s not necessarily true. Back in the days it was possible to sync everything between a Mac and an iPhone/iPod via USB and iTunes. So in theory it’s possible, I just don’t know if there is an app for that (yet).

[Linda_CH]

I thought that was what Joe meant in his post on January 4th… May have misunderstood…

[Linda_CH]

Thanks! But I’m afraid I don’t know enough about programming (I actually know nothing at all) to go that way. I’m just trying to prevent the standard OS from transmitting more information than is absolutely necessary.

[Linda_CH]

Between a Mac and an iPhone, synchronizing does work using only a USB cable. They had taken out the possibility on one update years ago but it has come back.
I think SyncMate would allow me to do the same - but it works only with the Google contacts and calendar app.
So what I am looking for is a way to synchronize by USB without using those apps.

[Sonne]

@schept

Synchronizing implies using a cloud solution, since device B can not take dat from device A directly. (You can use USB-flash-drives, but that won’t be synchronizing, just copying.)

This is simply not true. Synchronizing has nothing to do with a cloud, allthough you can of course also synchronize with a cloud.
MyPhoneExplorer would be a good example, but I don’t know if that is available for Mac.

[emmy]

Question: has anyone gotten OSMAnd to work with the location settings set to “device only”? Mine only works with high accuracy, but for that to be selected, my data has to be sent to google, which I don’t want. When I have it set to device only, OSMAnd keeps saying “Position not yet known”, pretty much no matter what I do. Even getting navigation information between two separate addresses (so not from “Current Position” but from two addresses I enter manually) results in the error “Position not yet known”. Any thoughts?

[sjjh]

@paulakreuzer

If you disable all GAPPS & Services you won’t feed any data to Google.

Are you sure (no offence intended, pure interest!)? I thought that e.g. the DNS of google is still used, thus google knows every website you access.

[Roboe]

Call me paranoid, but I think that’s not true. You can disable the mayority of Google applications, but some of them (invisible to the user, mainly service providers) cannot be disabled and may still make connections to Google. If they do or not, we cannot be sure without spoofing the network, because the Data use option (in Settings) is probably showing them merged into Android System consumption.

I’m pretty sure the service that provides push notifications through Google Cloud Messaging (that doesn’t require a Google account and it’s independent) is one of those, invisible and undisableable.

[paulakreuzer]

It’s true: I don’t know for sure if Google is fully restricted if you disable All Gapps & Services.

@sjjh

e.g. the DNS of google is still used

I had to look up what DNS means, so no idea.

@Roboe

I’m pretty sure the service [that] provides push notifications through Google Cloud Messaging (that doesn’t require a Google account and it’s independent) is one of those, invisible and undisabable.

AFAIK that is part of “Google Play Services” and those can be disabled.

[Roboe]

AFAIK that is part of "Google Play Services" and those can be disabled.

Well, I've no Google-invaded Android device right now (I'm running a self-compiled FPOS-OS on my FP2), thus I can't be _pretty sure_ as I stated. That was just a guess.

Anyone running FPOS-GMS with Google Apps disabled (and with BlankStore installed) can test GCM push notifications? (To be transparent: Push Notification Tester is open source, but Google will receive a unique identifier of your device to send back a push notification)

[TobiasF]

@sjjh

the DNS of google is still used

I don’t think Google DNS is ever used on the FP2, even with all Google services enabled. Instead, the DNS server assigned by DHCP or the network settings is taken. Unless you explicit set the Google DNS server in the network settings.
A reason why Google DNS may not be used is because you can’t access hosts in the local network by name anymore.

[sjjh]

@TobiasF

Instead, the DNS server assigned by DHCP or the network settings is taken.

I have to admit that I have no deeper knowledge about how mobile networks work.

@TobiasF

A reason why Google DNS may not be used is because you can’t access hosts in the local network by name anymore.

But I can say that I don’t own a mobile network and thus wouldn’t call it a local network. I probably share it with all the customers who bought the SIM card from the same company I bought it from. Sure, using WIFi you’re absolutely right, just wanted to point out that there is a different usage scenario as well.

And to be honest the usage of Google DNS was something I just read somewhere (and cannot find again right now). I’m no expert in Android and just wanted to question the statement from @paulakreuzer as it is a topic I’m not familiar with and I would love to learn more about.

[werner_noebauer]

Hi,

just found this article:
http://m.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/MWC-2016-Fairphone-2-Google-freies-Android-fast-fertig-Firefox-OS-Ubuntu-und-Sailfish-in-Arbeit-3116203.html

It is in german, but there is mentioned that a Google free FP2 and even other OS are prepared and will be probably available soon

Is there already an official roadmap?

[Vinni]

Does anyone here use Whatsapp and receives push notifications without Google Play and Google Services and stuff? I thought I read something about that in this forum previously but I can’t find it anymore.

[Roboe]

WhatsApp uses its own push notifications servers, independent from Google’s.