Holy shit, this article is garbage… the base premise that Play Services can access anything is true, but so many bad claims.
Google Play Services is a system app on phones that ship with Google services, and is the case on the author’s phone too, since he could only disable the app, not delete it. System apps can still be updated separately from the system, if their signature matches the updated version’s signature.
Also, I don’t think they dedicate enough time to describe just how much data Google gets through your device, like how it logs your location for Google Maps’ business popular times indicators and traffic metrics, or how they use all of your data to give you hyper-targeted advertising.
As for microG, it also runs with elevated permissions on most custom ROMs, and for some features (eg. integrity checks) it downloads & runs Google-made programs (eg. DroidGuard) with strong privileges. DivestOS (now discontinued) used to run microG in a sandbox.
There are ways to run Play Services as a normal app if the custom ROM has a compatibility layer for it, like GrapheneOS, where you can selectively enable permissions for Play Services. Of course, if you refuse some permissions, some features will break (eg. refuse SMS/call access and RCS will break), but it’s a mostly usable situation.
easiest way to stop that ☞
pm uninstall --user 0 com.google.android.gsf pm uninstall --user 0 com.google.android.ims pm uninstall --user 0 com.android.vendingDoing this Bricked my phone.
Skill issue
Nope
- By forcing you to use a non-anonymous Google Account.
- Then tying it with Google Play Services on that device.
- Google Play Services are like a combo of arteries and nerves of Android OS.
That’s how.
me laughing in de googled phone. my phone as never had had my gmail address typed in it.
How do you read your email?
there’s email providers other than gmail
De-googled phones exist, but they’re rooted or using a custom firmware. Usually, these phones spoof Google Play Services, replacing that layer with something called MicroG.
So root and flash your phone today!
Got a pixel? Check out calyxos, it’s a free system upgrade that rips out anything google but allows almost everything to work, even the play store and all your usual games and bank apps.
E: nevermind. It was great while it lasted.
What moron is willingly still purchasing pixels? Might as well put a livefeed camera for Google HQ in your home lol
If you have a Pixel, then GrapheneOS is the sensible choice. Not least because it currently only works with Pixels anyway.
I absolutely do not want to run Google binaries on the phone, graphene doesn’t support microG and instead want you to run Google’s binaries on your phone, just sandboxed.
I hate that idea.
You don’t have to run any Google stuff at all, if you don’t want to.
Does it mean that you basically cannot use apps then, which require Google Services? Or how does it exactly work there?
Currently trying e/Os and wanted to look into Graphene and Lineage to see the which one works the best. I just don’t want to use anything from google.
I’m not an expert by any means, I moved directly to Graphene after 15 years of iPhones without really touching Android in between, so I mostly scrabboed about, found a path that worked and stuck to it.
But the way I use it is with Aurora to install apps from the Play Store. You can use it anonymously, or you can log in to your own Google account.
In terms of other Google services, you can install then, whereby Graphene will run them in a sandbox. You have control over how much data they can have. For me it strikes a happy balance between knowing that I have some semblance of control, but also having the convenience of things like Maps. And Google’s camera app is much much better than any of the others I’ve tried. Which is annoying.
Ah thank you very much for enlighten me about Graphene OS, that so far the best description I have seen.
Used Aurora before on Android too.
I probably will wait until they find a way to not be dependent on Google services, as I want them to have no data at all, if I have the chance to do it.
Hopefully there will be more alternatives in the future. But we will see where it will go with Google trying to stop side loading.
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I’d say that depends on exactly what you’re trying to protect. They’re both large American companies with control over your data and your data and metadata will end up in their respective clouds. Push notifications will be handled by Google services if you use Android, but there’s an equivalent mechanism for iOS just that it uses their servers. They handle some details differently, but I don’t think any of those options deserve the word privacy.
