This list is for people (like me) who want to degoogle but can’t or don’t want to buy a new phone that is supported by a custom ROM, can’t or don’t want to root the phone they have, and can’t or don’t want to use Android Debug Bridge. So this is about degoogling with built-in settings only.
I’ve struggled with this for the past few days and found solutions for all my issues on a Gigaset GX290, for which no custom ROM or root method seems to be available. I wouldn’t call it a guide, but maybe it helps someone.
So here’s what I did:
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Install F-Droid directly from https://f-droid.org
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Install Aurora Store from within F-Droid (it still works fine despite warning you that the built-in anonymous account is rate-limited)
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Install alternatives for your Google apps from F-Droid. This is where you will have to do some research
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Simple Mobile Tools are a great suite of apps for your launcher, dialler, sms app, camera, contacts, calendar, notes, sound recorder, file manager, notes, clock, …
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Anysoft Keyboard offers swipe typing and multiple languages, which I can’t live without. Sadly, it hasn’t been updated in 2 years. OpenBoard is an alternative with a lot of options, Simple Keyboard is literally just keys with no autocorrect
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Organic maps is a great map app that loads a lot faster than OSMand
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Replace all apps that rely on Google Play Services, which is most non-free apps that get push messages
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A lot of apps I used are basically just web sites. I replaced those by opening the corresponding web page in Fennec (ungoogled and free Firefox fork), clicking on the three-dots-menu and then on “add to home screen”
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Removed my Google account from the phone and deleted it (be sure to download all data you want to keep first)
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Go to settings -> apps and deactivate all Google apps that can be deactivated (which on a modern android is all non-system Google apps including Google Play Services). Deactivating means they aren’t launched at any time and just sit on your phone’s storage unused (I’ve tested this)
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Click on “show system apps”. There may be some more Google apps here.
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For apps I couldn’t disable because the button is greyed out, I removed all their permissions
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Installed NetGuard. Used it to block internet access for all Google apps (including system apps) I couldn’t deactivate. Or go one step further and block all apps except for the ones you use, but I haven’t personally tested this (Edit: Just tested it, all my apps, phone, SMS, WiFi still work)
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Now, the issues that showed up for me were mostly related to Google Play Services. Because they handle text-to-speech, location service and push messages for the whole system. But they are also the most intrusive Google app, with complete control over the entire phone
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My banking apps complained that they need them, I thought that navigation won’t work without them and that I wouldn’t receive push messages from my messaging apps
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It turned out, Whatsapp, Signal, Threema and Telegram all work fine without Google Play Services. The trick is that you first need to disable Play Services, then reinstall the messaging apps (be sure to backup the message history first). If the apps can’t find Play Services during the installation, they will warn you, then set themselves up to always run in the background so they can still receive push messages
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Same thing with Organic Maps, it can find your location just fine with Android’s built in location service. Spoken directions don’t work. There is a way to install speech with OSMand, but it’s really not good and OSMand is too slow for me. I can navigate without it
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Finally when I opened my banking apps (from DKB) they only showed a message that tells me to activate Play Services, but if I then just clicked the back button, they worked fine without them.
Your mileage may vary, but these steps have worked for me on every phone I’ve bought so far.
I used Universal Android Debloater which uninstalls or freezes packages for the user, including many that you can’t see as installed apps (happy to hear from anyone who knows how effective this is)
This is my degoogle without root process:
- full reset
- set up the phone without connecting to the internet
- enable Developer options and USB debugging
- install basic apps (F-Droid, a keyboard, launcher, and file manager apks from F-Droid) over adb
- run Universal Android Debloater
- reboot to make sure it boots :)
- use adb to list installed packages and remove as needed (I still had to remove some Netflix, Facebook, Amazon and Google packages, as well as plenty from the manufacturer)
- reboot and test, then install apps as needed from F-Droid
Be careful when uninstalling, as some critical packages could soft brick your phone. If the phone boots you can reinstall a package over adb
Please send a message to DKB saying that they shall get rid of the google dependency. The more of us, the likelier they’ll dk something about it.
Without adb you’re limited. Not all of the google apps can be deactivated from app settings.
if i can use adb, anybody can use adb 🙃
I know. And when I have some more free time, I’ll hook it up to my PC. I just tend to go overboard with it ;)
Have you noticed a battery life difference with those apps having to run in the background to poll for notifications?
No, I haven’t. But I’ve replaced almost all other apps with free versions that don’t constantly try to phone home, so that may have made up for it.
Also, my phone has 6200mAh capacity, so battery life is not a concern of mine. Battery lasts more than a week if I only use the phone for messaging and occasionally looking up important stuff.
Rhvoice from fdroid for map tts
or eSpeak
rhvoice connects to their website and downlads voices. It doesn’t work offline.
You only need internet to download the voices once. Then they are stored locally.
Uh, i use it daily since i am a screen reader user and it works when im offline.
Thank you. Just noticed it works in Organic Maps, too. I love this app, it completely replaced OSMand for me which I had been using for years. It’s like a version of OSMand cut down to exactly what I need.
Strangely the settings for TTS crashed after installing Rhvoice. They worked again when I installed espeak, and then let me choose RHVoice as speech provider. Then I uninstalled espeak again and the settings keep working. Degoogling is weird.
FYI FlorisBoard is good and is actively developed last I checked. Supports swiping and all that jazz.
Just checked, Anysoft is also actively developed on their Github. And Florisboard hadn’t had a new relased version in 13 months as well.
Thank you for the suggestion, though.
Dunno why it works well when anysoft swipe barely worked for me, but https://github.com/erkserkserks/openboard is a version of open board with swiping
Also, anysoft requires Google play store to download recent binaries…
Osmand is better for me, because there are custom maps generated with openaddresses data. I live in the us and the default osm data doesn’t contain addresses. I use these for osmand: https://github.com/pnoll1/osmand_map_creation/releases
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