> We don't know who all rolled over for Google. The complaint and employees said they didn’t have much choice as the only way to have Google’s key apps was to use their preferred design of Android.

Still need access to the Play Store? Then use Aurora Store.

If you still need access to the rest of Google's junk then tough. This story does apply to you.

For a tiny fraction of the population this might be true, for the rest of the population it definitely isn't true. I'm part of that tiny fraction, and pissed away hours trying to find a LineageOS (or similar) build for my current handset. I don't consider the task easy

Even if it were easy, it means giving up access to a huge variety of apps that expect and test for official builds. Anything with DRM for example

Right, I was being unreasonably flippant. I was referring indirectly to the bigger problem of the monopoly the Tech Giants have over our telecommunications and the fact that in last 30 or so years that we've gone from maddening over regulation by governments to essentially no oversight whatsoever which allowed the carpetbaggers to squat on and takeover our phones (which once would have been deemed unlawful in many jurisdictions prior to deregulation due to the secrecy of communications laws—it still amazes me how this actually happened without a backlash from governments).

In my opinion, the whole matter is a damn bloody shambles.

...And you're right about LineageOS. When things go wrong finding the right (original) stock ROM can be hard enough let alone finding correct 'official' LineageOS for one's phone in the first instance. I've spent many hours looking for ROMS forked from the official LineageOS because my phone was slightly different (regional differences—modem etc.). This meant that the official version would work but not properly in every aspect. I agree, solving these issues can be very tiresome.

(My 'that's easy' comment comes from the fact that it's now easy for me to root a phone because I've done many in the last few years. It's only easy because I've learned from experience what to do and what phones to avoid. One thing I've definitely learned is that most of the internet advice on how to root phones is crap in that often a general method is stated for many phones and various model numbers are just dumped in to pad the site out—thus much of the advice is either wrong or insufficiently detailed (and often the English is essentially incomprehensible). Moreover, precious few people actually know the important intricacies of the Android OS (as they pertain to different OS versions, phones etc.) such as disk partitioning, why TWRP backup fails on some phones, etc. etc. Furthermore, even advice on the XDA site is often inadequate, or misleading or sometimes even wrong.)

:-(

You can't expect good software to exist on platforms that are broken from the get-go.

https://grapheneos.org/faq#supported-devices

I've actually managed to disable all Google apps (including the Play Store, Google Services Framework, etc.) on my KeyOne without rooting it. It's possible with adb-disable, though results seem to vary by OEM.

Hell, the only reason I went back is because I use a VoIP number, and calls weren't 100% reliable without a notification framework. The only issue is that Google's was disabled, and any alternative required root to grant it system-level permissions.

Right, that's true. This happened to me a while back with a Huawei Honor phone when I bought the phone and put it aside pending having the bootloader unlocked. Unfortunately, in the interim Huawei withdrew locking privileges so I was left with the option of either paying for a bootloader crack or disabling the Google stuff and I took the latter option (this was a secondary phone and only used for web browsing so it didn't matter much anyway).

In fact, this turned out OK, even though I couldn't disable Google Play Services I turned off all its permissions and I could disable every other Google service including Chrome (several other browsers substituted). Moreover, the phone had no SIM—so no account—as it connected to the net via WiFi to a pocket wireless modem. In essence, there was nothing to leak so Google PS had nothing to report anyway.

https://android.stackexchange.com/tags/google-play-services/...

> location functionality including geofencing (notifying apps with the appropriate permission when you've entered or left a given physical region), and activity detection (e.g. walking, driving)

Right. To consolidate location tracking (and several other juicy bits) as per this story. I ran without those permissions for about a year, before I got tired of opting out of location tracking for the billionth time and installed a non-G android

I have location services disabled on all of my devices without exception.

Apple started providing much better GPS hardware in iPhones after they got serious about Apple Maps, as the quality of their maps is directly controlled by the data they get (GPS traces from users to determine what new points of interest are, stale data bought from vendors that is then integrated into the base layer, etc)

Ctrl-F Lineage

you can even buy phones with /e/ preinstalled, which should allow the bootloader to remain locked. (i didn't verify this, but at least for some models like the fairphone it should be possible to install /e/ with a locked bootloader.)

privacy and security are not the same thing. while the article you link to recommends grapheneOS as a better alternative to protect your privacy, i am actually not sure that is the case. grapheneOS has different goals.

i already wrote about this here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26608697

i trust that /e/ will implement any security features that are necessary to protect my privacy.

You really should!

google collects data on everyone. getting data by breaking into everyones device is not possible. there are to many devices for that. so that method is only interesting if you want to target someone specific. if i am a target then my phone is just a small part of what will be targeted. given the extremely small likelyhood of someone wanting my phone specifically, it's just not worth it to even worry about that.

I hope you have no apps or ever run any JavaScript, good fellow.

A "g-free" phone can get location, but it's purposely hampered.

I've never experienced that. It usually takes a few seconds for me.