Bonus: Thanks for the 2 40 guys, not as good as 4 20, but it’s close enough <3
The idea of getting outside of the Google ecosystem is intriguing. I have a pixel 8. Is there a website that I can go to to learn how to switch? My battery just drops like a stone.
GrapheneOS, has easy to click webpage buttons to guide you through the flashing. It is deggogled, you can add playstore and apps, and they can be sandboxed away from default storage. Updates are frequent, battery drain is way less without all the google BS.
If you’re sandboxing Google play services, you are, by definition, still installing play services. They are still running, but are sandboxed. So I don’t see how you see any less battery drain.
I run MicroG instead of the proprietary Google play services, and while I do see a bit ofl an increase in battery life for light usage, for medium and heavy usage it’s pretty much the same. Admittedly my battery is pretty old.
By being ripped out and sandboxed the same way other apps are, Google services isn’t free to siphon battery. This means you can restrict battery use and cut the constant communication down. Thus saving battery. If you allow it, yes it is not different than if it was preloaded.
Because you can add only what you want and restrict notification and other data transfer, auto turn off when not in use, etc. It is the constant google chit chat that kills battery. My play app keeps nagging it wants more permission to function better but I just deny it. also it is just play service, no gmail, no google drive, etc. and I didn’t have it snooze power this week but only 3% play aervice use since sundays charge.
I second the people that said lineage OS. I am using it right now. I got this Nord phone because I knew they were easy to tinker with. I used it a bit and ended up with a newer galaxy. Well after I put lineage on the Nord every problem it had went away. Excellent battery life, runs smoothly, weekly security patches if I want etc. One thing that helped a lot was the “Aurora” app store. Let’s you install apps anonymously from the play store without requiring google services. Many of them won’t work due to the no google services, but a surprising amount of stuff does just fine even if it complains about it.
I’d go with CalyxOS. Install is also easy, but graphene touts allowing Google play services to be used… The very part of the picture that drew you to this comments section. You don’t have to install it in graphene, but then almost no apps work right.
CalyxOS use microG, a fully open-source spoof of Google play that is super light on battery, allows most apps to work fine (including banking), etc. Some apps like Pokemon go don’t, however.
Thank you for your full explanation, kind stranger. Ill give it a good going over!
Cheers!
Graphene sandboxes Google services heavily, and is enabled and used only at user discretion. It doesn’t get higher priority than any other user application on the device. Calyx is alright but I would recommend Graphene much more than Calyx. I don’t like either of these though unless you are a privacy nut. If you just want to get out of Google, LineageOS works plenty well although without many of the creature comforts of a stock ROM.
I wish graphene supported microG. They’ve decided running closed-source Google (user-level app or not) is the best option, and I disagree.
I’m glad there’s options though.
Check out Graphene OS, it supports the pixel lineup and is pretty easy to install if you know how to read and copy paste.
dude, people wonder why i shit on android constantly, why would you ever produce a product that can just, do shit like this, it’s awful. (to be clear, i hate IOS as much, for the same reasons)
And its only worse with manufacturer flavors of android, samsung loves shipping a bunch of useless apps that you can’t even remove.
and no, i don’t want to hear about rooting. Just call me when you guys figure out how to make an actual OS.
it seems good, until you realize it’s a nightmare process that only works on “most phones” requiring some kind of crackpot technique pulled straight from someones ass that happened to work.
only to get moderately more access to googled android and oops, it’s still mostly shit. Oh good, i can probably just install an android derivative, and oops, it’s also mostly dogshit, just less worse and more annoying.
I did not have any problems installing LineageOS on my Galaxy at all and it solves most of the issues you listed. Helps with battery life etc. It’s not just mostly degoogling.
Your negativity sucks but at least it’s not targeted at anyone. It’s just souring people’s moods.
the negativity sucks, but android is frankly, deserving of it, especially with how much better IOS is now than it used to be.
Android only implemented MDNS in android 12, OS wide (the only useful implementation of it) a literal decade after microsoft added it to windows
mounting shit like an SMB share is literally impossible, unless rooted. Because fuck you, why would you ever want to mount remote storage on a device known for having super expensive storage, or really shitty storage.
It’s customizable, if all you want to customize is the homescreen, because the lockscreen isn’t trivially customizable.
it’s also a google product, so it comes with the really cool feature of being terrible.
Oh and if you wanted to install apps on the playstore, they’re also all shit. Most of them are paid, and the rest are either ad filled, or malware. Cool, i’ll just use fdroid then. Oh wait it’s just a glorified APK installer…
not to mention androids nonsense file structure and partitioning done by default, as well as it’s wonderfully obtuse .NOMEDIA standard, that doesn’t seem to work properly, and doesn’t fucking implement anywhere.
the ram management is also fucking horrid, seeming to only unload apps entirely, but arguably that’s more of a problem with apps taking literal gigabytes of ram to load fucking text on the screen just so you can read someone making a your mom joke.
People talk constantly about how amazing the technical leap from PDP11s to iphones was, yet we seem to be regressing in the software space faster than germany during the hitler arc and it fucking baffles me how.
I think it would be a more constructive use of your time to find solutions to your problems or to just switch to a dumb phone and carry a netbook around just live a less stressful life.
Complaining and doing nothing about it doesn’t fix anything and it even makes things worse. Manufacturers love to hear a customer resign to complacency even when they’re dissatisfied. It shows them just how far they can push their users around for profit.
Generally most people at a company wants to do good in their respective roles but as a company the choice between user choice and more profit is obvious, higher-ups want to be good at their jobs too.
Whenever you see an opportunity always prove to the company why the things you care about could make them money or help them gain more users weather that’s voting with your wallet, creating better alternatives, or rallying people up to peacefully boycott and or protest.
I, too, just want Linux phones to take off already. We’re this far in the future and I still don’t really have a “computer in my pocket” so much as a “specialized commerce and consumption device that can occasionally be made to do useful things.”
Android feels like the whole OS was made to be telemetry and advertiser friendly. I just wish I could have that “It’s my device” feeling in my pocket like I do on my desk.
Your complaints about Android are valid, and I think there’s fewer people who are actually “android enthusiasts” vs "It’s what we’ve got right now"ists lol…
Whats wrong with fdroid? Glorified apk installer. Ye…es? What else should an app store do?
I had recently installed Grapheneos on my pixel, with a goal is determining what was responsible for all the senseless Google domains that a pixel normally contacts.
To my surprise disabling Network for the Google Services Framework and Play Services killed all of the nonsense. The only downside was that GSF has the push mechanism in it also, that many apps use for push notifications.
If only there were an alternate for push notifications that all apps would use.
Anyway, Grapheneos runs way cooler than Google’s Malware version.
I was very disappointed with the (default) Camera after switching to Graphene, luckily you can just download the Pixel Camera (including all the Pixel optimizations) from Play Store on Graphene OS or download it as an APK bundle from some other sites (downloading the normal APK won’t work, it has to be the bundle).
Check out microG: https://microg.org/
I get all my push notifications, apps etc without any actual Google services on my phone. Remote google servers are still used, but in a more (though not fully) anonymous manner.
With Graphene OS there is no Google services at all correct? No android auto?
They made it where you could sandbox all of the Google stuff, and Android Auto works fine too.
I use ntfy for notifications, even on my vanilla Pixel.
The less google services apps you use the less google services needs to run.
That looks nice, but apps that use GSF for push won’t use that. Or am I missing something on their website?
Correct, an app has to be built without GSF. That’s why I still use Vanilla Pixel for Google Maps and Android Auto.
