Trying my best to follow all this, thanks again for all the help. I don’t have root access, and maybe that’s as I don’t really know what I’m doing here. I’ve removed google apps, but I haven’t removed google services, because I don’t understand how to (need root?).
Question1: I can’t get Orbot and Orweb to work, do I need root for that? Using firefox for now.
Question 2: Any recommendation for contacts to replace google?
You can disable everything google except location services if you do it in the right order.
Orbot allows access to Tor by accessing a local SOCKS or HTTP proxy.
On a rooted device, the proxying can be completely transparent i.e. the
app that accesses the network need not be aware of the proxy’s
existence; you can choose which apps go via the proxy in the settings.
If you don’t have root access, there are some apps that are designed to work closely with tor or allow proxied connections: ChatSecure, Lightning and Twidere. There is also a proxy configurator addon for Firefox called ProxyMob (not yet available from the Mozilla addon site).
Source: F-Droid
Thanks, I seem to have removed all google stuff! In fact, I can’t see them anywhere on the phone, not in idle apps or anything. If I need to enable one of them, where do I find it?
At the moment I can’t save any contacts at all. Now trying to connect to my owncloud contacts and calendar with DAVdroid. It’s telling me ‘no address book or calendars were found’. I don’t know if that’s trouble connecting to ownCloud (I can access the files just fine) or because there’s no contacts and calendar app on the phone?
If you disabled them at
Settings > Apps > All
you can reenable them at
Settings > Apps > Disabled
Then you disabled the contacts app which is not actually a google app.
I don’t think ownCloud or Davdroid can replace a contacts app, they can only be used for syncing.
Many thanks @StephanK for this cool little Apptrack. I have now disabled the Play Store. The only Google-labelled stuff I have now running on my FP2 is the Google services Framework as at least one of my vital apps won’t run without it.
Just for the sharing I am using the following alternatives:
1mobile Market, F-Droid, SlideMe and Apptrack for downloading and updating apps.
Apollo for music playing
Gcloud and CloudGallery for photo gallery and file and photo cloud backups
MyLocalContacts as a contacts account
ES File Explorer
Fast facebook as a Facebook client
Firefox
Jorte as a calendar app (syncs with my Google calendar that I update on PC)
k-9 mail as email client
OsmAnd for maps and navigation
Turbotube as a Youtube client.
I am not happy with TurboTube as it keeps crashing in the middle of the streaming. I have also wanted to try Freedi Youtube player as it looks good but it just won’t start. Please reply if you know of a good Youtube client I can use to log in to my Youtube account, this seems like the challenging one…
Try WebTube from F-Droid. It has an option to log in, but since I didn’t try yet (and since I’m not eager to do so) I can’t tell if it works.
NewPipe is another App from F-Droid which takes a different approach by parsing the YouTube website, but I don’t know if it offers login functionality.
Thanks. I had tried Newpipe before but it’s too basic - no login to own account for example. I will give Webtube a try…
If someone stumbles over the info
Couldn’t add widged.
Widget konnte nicht hinzugefügt werden.
in the recent apps panel. That is because the Google search bar is supposed to be there and you probably disabled it.
It can be fixed with GravityBox. There just go to Miscellaneous tweaks and under recent panel set Search bar visibility to Hide and keep/remove space
@Johannes sent me over here - because yes he sort of red it right between the lines that I’m mainly annoyed with google … so I read my way through … got some good suggestions and solutions for the time being but nothing permanent yet…
So now it seems all I can do is wait for Method 1 - because I’m not smart enough to use Method 2 and 3 is not really an option
So I guess a main question is - how much time should I invest feeding the phone with Data? calendar? contacts? mail? … if I’m waiting for Method 1 to become a possibility? — see I’m completely clueless about these gadgets, but where and how are the things stored - inside the app - in folder / database the app then access, then do all the apps use the same “datapool” so I could just save my handishly put in data someplace that’s not affected by installing a new OS, I’m sort of working on the assumption that removing all google stuff is not just like updating the OS but actually more like newly settign up the whole OS?
[with that I go back to cross reading my way throught the internet …]
I know Method 3 is not an ideal solution but it’s a great way to bridge the time until Method 1 is available. If you disable all GAPPS & Services you won’t feed any data to Google.
Hi everyone!
Thanks a lot for all your useful suggestions and explanations!
2 questions:
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.
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.
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
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.
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:
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).
I thought that was what Joe meant in his post on January 4th… May have misunderstood…
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.
Compiling Fairphone Open Source / Rooting