nothing_enrich326

  • 14 days ago
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  • In Nothing OS Without Google – Pure Nothing Experience?
  • In Nothing OS Without Google – Pure Nothing Experience?
  • In Nothing OS Without Google – Pure Nothing Experience?

    Ok, it would have been nice to have such a greatly designed phone with no bloatware and open-source, but the costs will have been a lot higher. Cheap things comes with tradeoffs, but this is a fairly good way not to trade off your data.

    What do you mean by saying that you cannot replace Google Play Services? Why would you need to replace them in the first place?

    Again, the goal is to have them disabled for everyday use and activate them only when you need to install an app. Assuming that you don’t install apps everyday, I think this is a very good tradeoff.

    Also, you might get some issues with some notifications, but this might be a good thing for your personal digital wellbeeing. That way you will get a more intentional use of your phone, thing that I advocate to as achieving digital maturity.

    Sepparately, before de-google-ing your phone, make sure you can live without Google.

    Do you still use Google Contacts, Calendar, Photos, Drive, Mail, etc? If so, maybe you should stick to your stock setup and accept Google as part of your life.

    If you are able to delete your (typo fix) Google account without losing important data (as in not keeping important data on Google), then you might try this setup.

    Bottom line, you don’t need to replace Google Play and Services, but prevent them to be constantly monitoring phone activity and only activate them when you need them.

    Am I missing something regarding your statement?
    Google play and play services are most difficult to replace

  • In Nothing OS Without Google – Pure Nothing Experience?

    I managed to successfully debloat my unrooted Nothing 2a and now I run no google services. I removed all com.google.* packages from my phone that I could and replaced them with alternatives.

    I say almost all, because:

    1. Google play store and Google Play Services are still installed, but disabled. If you uninstall Google Play Services, the phone will get stuck in a boot loop.
    2. Some other packages that provide local phone functionality or packages that would break the phone were not uninstalled. These packages are managed via Netguard.

    I use Universal Android Debloater to remove the apps.

    I use Netguard with traffic filtering to block internet access for certain apps. One thing I find very helpful during setup is to receive internet access notifications in order to be aware of all apps that connect to internet and block the ones I don’t want them to.

    Also disabling background activity and background data usage for indiviudal apps is a good practice, leaving these options on for only a few apps that I use and expect notifications from or content updates.

    I know is not perfect, but it works just fine.

    Keep in mind that the goal of doing this is to avoid everyday data collection, not to completely anonymise activity with the phone. The first rule in avoiding data collection is not to keep your data online and this setup allows you to have a phone that use less cloud and more local.

    Login with a google account, download all your apps (like banking and other specific apps) and then remove the acoount from the phone, disable Google Play Store and Google Play Services. Again, don’t uninstall Google Play Services as you will break the phone (boot loop).

    Some apps will throw a notification that they won’t work unless you use Google Play Services, but you can just block the notification channel from app notification settings (blocking the channel allows you to receive other notifications from the app) and the app will run just fine.

    List of uninstalled packages:

    com.android.bluetoothmidiservice

    1. com.android.calllogbackup
    2. com.android.chrome
    3. com.android.egg
    4. com.android.hotwordenrollment.okgoogle
    5. com.android.hotwordenrollment.xgoogle
    6. com.android.providers.partnerbookmarks
    7. com.android.tracer
    8. com.google.android.apps.docs
    9. com.google.android.apps.maps
    10. com.google.android.apps.messaging
    11. com.google.android.apps.nbu.files
    12. com.google.android.apps.photos
    13. com.google.android.apps.restore
    14. com.google.android.apps.safetyhub
    15. com.google.android.apps.tachyon
    16. com.google.android.apps.turbo
    17. com.google.android.apps.wellbeing
    18. com.google.android.apps.youtube.music
    19. com.google.android.as.oss
    20. com.google.android.calculator
    21. com.google.android.calendar
    22. com.google.android.configupdater
    23. com.google.android.contacts
    24. com.google.android.deskclock
    25. com.google.android.dialer
    26. com.google.android.ext.shared
    27. com.google.android.feedback
    28. com.google.android.gm
    29. com.google.android.gms.location.history
    30. com.google.android.googlequicksearchbox
    31. com.google.android.gsf
    32. com.google.android.inputmethod.latin
    33. com.google.android.keep
    34. com.google.android.marvin.talkback
    35. com.google.android.onetimeinitializer
    36. com.google.android.partnersetup
    37. com.google.android.printservice.recommendation
    38. com.google.android.setupwizard
    39. com.google.android.tag
    40. com.google.android.tts
    41. com.google.android.videos
    42. com.google.android.youtube
    43. com.google.ar.core
    44. com.mediatek.atmwifimeta
    45. com.mediatek.mdmconfig
    46. com.mediatek.mdmlsample
    47. com.nothing.smartcenter

    List of disabled packages:

    1. com.android.devicelockcontroller
    2. com.android.vending
    3. com.google.android.gms
    4. com.google.android.gms.supervision
    5. com.tools.datacheck

    Maybe I missed something, but Netguard shows no traffic to Google Servers, and I also manage system apps, so I consider this experiment a success.

    As for the default apps, I replaced Phone, Keyboard (Gboard), File manager, Gallery etc with FOSS apps from F-Droid (free apps with no internet access).

    Perks: Using a phone app other than the default one might cause problems with calling Emergency Services (that’s why I keep a “stock” profile on my phone and I can always login to that profile to use the default apps). Sometimes you will have to unlock (fingerprint) in order to receive a call (but that’s manageable).

    I took the time writing this as I hope this will help others eliberate and still use the beautiful Nothing phone / OS.

    I also hope that if you find ways to improve this setup, you will take the time replying this thread.

    Kudos!