I’m enjoying my FP2 Open OS completely Google-free but lately I am missing the possibility of using some taxi apps, which “won’t run without Google Play Services”, as it appears after installing them!
So, I’m just wondering whether there is any way to work this around (without or even with the minimum google services possible)!
Thanks for your wisdom, community!!
If you really want those Apps to work right now, you could install Open GApps in the TWRP recovery of Fairphone Open OS … select “ARM”, “6.0” and “pico” for the minimum amount of Google to run the Play Store (and Play services with it) … if that isn’t enough, try the larger packages.
If you want those Apps to work, and you are prepared to tinker around a bit to get them to work Google-free, you could try microG, which tries to mimick Google without being Google. There are some topics here in the forum about microG, too.
If you want a real Google-free solution, and you have time, and you are prepared for possible failure … you could contact the App vendors and try to get them to build their Apps without depending on Google services.
Thank you very much, @AnotherElk!
Between Open GApps and microG, which one would you say is the least challenging/demanding one from a technical point of view (to install), for an average user as I am?
Thanks again for any hint!!
It is Google though, so proceed with caution:
You shouldn’t need to provide a Google account for Apps to use the installed basic Google services.
But even with Open GApps pico (which I use myself) if you whyever provide a Google account, you’ll have to deactivate syncing stuff to this account quickly in the settings, else your contacts and perhaps other stuff will end up at Google’s .
I agree for FPOpenOS, it’s a little more tricky to set-up microG compared to OpenGApps.
However for LineageOS, microG can be as easy as “already installed and configured” with the fork including microG
That’s right, of course, but microG can’t guarantee 100% Google functionality so that any given Google-depending App would work anyway, so even with an easy install method for microG you’ll be probably in for some tinkering .