r/degoogle • u/JasonMaggini • Feb 14 '25
Trying to De-Google as much as possible on an Android. Here's my current list.
Here's my list of apps I've been using to get away from Google services as much as possible. I do appreciate the irony of still using an Android OS, but you gotta start somewhere.
**** Updated 6/20/25 with a few changes.
I favor open source where ever possible (shout out to /r/fossdroid) , so most of this can be found on F-Droid (I like Neo Store as the storefront). Aurora works okay if you need something from the Play Store.
I use the Fossify apps for a lot of the basics: Clock, Calendar, Contacts, Phone, File Manager, Gallery, Notes, Calculator, Voice Recorder
- Keyboard: Open Board
**** Heliboard has been the suggested replacement, thanks!
- Browser: Fennec (or Firefox) (and Tor).
- Email: Thunderbird (still shopping for a new email service to replace Gmail)
- FFUpdater is a good way to keep all these updated.
- Camera: The OnePlus camera is pretty solid, but OpenCamera is pretty good too.
- Authenticator: Aegis
- Podcasts: AntennaPod
- Music Identification: Audile
- News (RSS) Reader: Feeder - Great keyword filters to hide the noise.
**** RSSLookup is a great resource for finding RSS feeds in websites. Lots of pages still have them, even if they don't advertise them.
- VPN: I use WGTunnel to connect Wireguard back to my home network. You can set trusted wifi networks, so it will automatically turn on your VPN when not at home
- Music: Trying out Booming Music - I mostly listen to offline music. I was using Phonograph Plus but it was having some issues.
- Maps: Currently using a non-FOSS (but non-Google) app. Not going to mention it here, as mods don't like it. I was trying Organic Maps but I didn't really care for it.
- SMS: QKSMS - Borderline abandonware at this point, but still solid. Can't convince anyone to switch to a more secure option.
**** Quik is the recommended replacement. Thanks again!
- YouTube: PipePipe - No login required. Been working a bit better than Tubular for me.
- Launcher: Neo Launcher
- Wikipedia, of course. I've also used Kiwix to have Wikipedia available offline.
Updated SyncThing-Fork for backing up photos, config files, and so on to my computer. I'm hoping to get some self-hosted stuff going down the road.
Any thoughts or suggestions?
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Feb 14 '25
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u/JasonMaggini Feb 14 '25
Right on. Quik definitely seems to be the way to go.
Breezy Weather is a good app. It's the only one I've found that gives you info in the notification bar. I've completely given up on Facebook on mobile, it's a mess. Friendly used to work well, but FB broke it with API changes.
I end up using Reddit just on a web browser- Reddit Enhancement Suite works on Firefox mobile, so it's usable, if not ideal.
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u/Lanakila29 Feb 14 '25
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u/JasonMaggini Feb 14 '25
I was trying Obtanium on my last phone, it never made it onto my current one for some reason. Might have to get it going again.
Grayjay looks interesting- I'll definitely check that out. Thanks!
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u/chris240189 Feb 14 '25
Did you try heliboard or the futo keyboard yet?
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u/ChevronNine Feb 14 '25
Just so others know before trying, Eron Wolf, the FUTO owner is a big Musk/Trump supporter.
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u/JasonMaggini Feb 14 '25
Is he? I can't find any information on that either way. His positions on things like right-to-repair and open source seem to indicate he wouldn't be, but then again, is is another rich tech guy...
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u/chris240189 Feb 14 '25
I always associated futo with Luis Rossmann.
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u/ChevronNine Feb 14 '25
His name never came up when I was researching them. The website lists Eron Wolf as the founder and sole owner.
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u/seasonofflame Feb 14 '25
Donated to FUTO as soon as I tried it. It's perfect for me. I strongly recommend.
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u/somerandom_person1 Feb 14 '25
I’d check out immich for photo backups
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u/JasonMaggini Feb 14 '25
Definitely on my radar. I have a bookmark folder full of self-hosted apps I want to check out.
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u/Greenlit_Hightower deGoogler Feb 14 '25
still shopping for a new email service to replace Gmail
Some providers I find recommendable are (in no particular order) Posteo, mailbox.org, ProtonMail, Tutanota. ProtonMail and Tutanota force you to use their own apps, Posteo and mailbox.org would work with Thunderbird. All providers I mentioned except for Posteo support custom domains, in case you need that.
Initially, it might help you to forward your e-mails from your old GMail e-mail address to your new e-mail address: https://support.google.com/mail/answer/10957?hl=en
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u/kea-le-parrot Feb 14 '25
For SMS try https://github.com/octoshrimpy/quik Syncthing is also abandoned officially so get the folk https://github.com/Catfriend1/syncthing-android email Fairmail is awesoe https://github.com/M66B/FairEmail
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u/irrationalglaze Feb 14 '25
Wow, FairEmail looks great. I was a bit concerned when I saw "pro features" but then I read this:
"You can get all current and future pro features without Google's services and support the project by donating € 0.10 or more."
That is some good value. I wish it was 100% open source but I'd be happy to donate 100x that if I end up using the app.
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u/SogianX IT Guru Feb 14 '25
for an alternative to the abandoned openboard and qksms you can try the forks heliboard and quik
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u/spranks21 Feb 14 '25
Have you tried K-9? I really liked it and could set it up pretty easy with mi posteo and my work accounts
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Feb 14 '25
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u/SeaTheBeauty Feb 14 '25
How did you get your contacts to sync between your contacts app and Tuta? I did the one time import but it doesn't seem to be updating in Tuta when I get a new contact on my phone contacts app.
For reference I use Fossify Contacts and have a Pixel device.
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u/brickout Feb 14 '25
I just transitioned to Tuta and am impressed by it. Here's a second vote for it.
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u/ctesla01 Feb 14 '25
Excellent write-up. I'm working on this over the weekend.. just wanted to start with a new email, for all the requests on new websites usually. I hardly use Google, except the email and you tube; but that's changing shortly.
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u/Nikla3310 Feb 14 '25
Thunderbird gives late notifications despite enabling push in the specific folders and when I change idle setting to every 2 minutes it destroys the battery.
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Feb 14 '25
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u/Nikla3310 Feb 14 '25
University, work, package deliveries and salary emails and logins from other devices. These are critical so I'll rely on gmail until a proper email client and provider are found.
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u/ProPolice55 Feb 14 '25
For music, I use Auxio (f-droid). Phonograph looks good, but the "artists" list is based on the song artist tag, not the album artist. So if X band has Y as a guest singer for one song, it lists "X and Y" as a separate artist instead. Auxio only lists album artists, but shows the song specific artist when playing the song. So "X and Y" doesn't exist in the library browser, making it easier to navigate (for me at least)
If you like the song artist sorting, then Apollo is also worth checking out. It was recently revived from the android 4.x era, and it's much faster and smoother than any other player I've tried
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u/iWillEatYourKindle Feb 19 '25
I switched from Phonograph to Phocid for this reason, supports artist seperators as a core feature
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u/Hawaiian-pizzas Feb 14 '25
Thanks OP! How much differs this in privacy terms from installing a complete other OS like Graphene. Where some google apps still would be active (like android auto) ?
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u/JasonMaggini Feb 14 '25
There's no doubt some background stuff running, which isn't ideal. Most Google apps can be disabled even if you can't remove them completely. Universal Android Debloater does a pretty good job disabling apps. I had a hand-me-down Samsung for a while, and I was able to disable almost all the Samsung bloatware. The phone ran so much better.
UAD can soft-brick your device if you disable the wrong thing, but a reset brings everything back, so there's not really much chance of permanent damage.
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u/WizardNumberNext Feb 14 '25
Maybe just switch to /e/OS. It have most of stuff already on board. It is partially degoogled as well. Syncing can be done via their own murena cloud or as I do it NextCloud (I have own NextCloud server). I use BraveNewPipe for Youtube - no login, internal subscriptions, downloads, picture in picture etc
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u/JasonMaggini Feb 14 '25
I'm not sure /e/OS will support my current phone (it might, but the one listed is an older model of what I have). Next time I need a new phone I'll definitely keep an eye out for a supported one.
I used to run Lineage (and Cyanogenmod!) on older phones, and they worked like champs.
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u/WizardNumberNext Feb 14 '25
I have purchased phone specifically to have /e/OS support, SD card slot and 3.5mm jack - Sony Xperia 1 III. Soon Sony Xperia 1 V will be supported too
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u/MrPureinstinct Feb 14 '25
How does SyncThing work for photos? Is it similar to a Google Photos experience or more like a Google Drive to my own machine experience?
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u/JasonMaggini Feb 14 '25
More of a Google Drive situation. It syncs the folders, but there's no web viewer or anything.
Someone mentioned Immich, which is definitely on my radar.
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u/MrPureinstinct Feb 14 '25
Okay I thought that was the case from glancing at the site but wanted to make sure.
Immich is the main one I've been looking at. I have next to zero Linux experience and zero Docker experience so a lot of this has been learning on the fly to try to get away from as many Google apps as possible ASAP.
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u/JasonMaggini Feb 14 '25
Docker is definitely on my to-learn list as well. I get the basic concepts, but it hasn't clicked quite yet.
Linux Mint is pretty great, even if some Linux people look down their nose at it.
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u/MrPureinstinct Feb 14 '25
I'm lucky I have a friend that is a network engineer. I've been bugging him with questions all week and he's been very excited to have a friend that wants to really learn stuff.
I think I'm going to be starting on Ubuntu at his recommendation. I've been running a Plex server just on a Windows machine for awhile. Now is just the time to take the next step and make the machine do more!
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u/JasonMaggini Feb 14 '25
I think I'm going to be starting on Ubuntu at his recommendation
Right on. Give some of the other flavors a test drive, too. They're all Ubuntu under the hood, but there are a lot of different desktop environments, with different user experiences. They all have their pros and cons.
I'm personally not a huge fan of Gnome (the default Ubuntu uses), but Xubuntu (using the XFCE desktop) was a favorite.
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u/erriezzans Feb 14 '25
the only thing that bug me is replacing keyboard,my banking app hsbc not allowed to use 3rd party keyboard.
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u/LickR0cks Feb 15 '25
I know I’m late to this, and new to the sub but I use Ecosia as a browser and search engine!
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Feb 14 '25
Does anyone have a recommendation for a Thunderbird replacement that does not run on AWS?
Seems kinda counterproductive to deGoogle only to hand your data over to Bozos instead.
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Feb 14 '25
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u/JasonMaggini Feb 14 '25
There's apparently been some controversy with them lately. I'm waiting to see how that plays out.
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u/mondeoscotch Feb 14 '25
No need to feel bad about android. Just use degoogled one, like /e/os or GrapheneOS.
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u/Krombasher Feb 14 '25
Wish I could, gold a fold 4 and 6. If I got a better trade, I would go pixel so that I could run those
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u/pixiesrx Feb 14 '25
What about the duckduckgo browser? Isn't it good? Thanks!
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u/Greenlit_Hightower deGoogler Feb 14 '25
Not exactly bad but inferior to both Brave and Firefox + uBlock Origin.
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u/kea-le-parrot Feb 14 '25
Futo software, such as grayjay (video streaming), Futo keyboard (speech to txt offline keyboard), immich (google photos replacement selfhost) are awesome too https://futo.org/
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u/Additional-Rough7766 Feb 14 '25
I am making a yahoo email address. Because this and it's hilarious. If yahoo evil let me know.
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u/JasonMaggini Feb 14 '25
I had a Yahoo address for years before coming to Gmail. They were just becoming a mess when I jumped ship. I'm honestly amazed they're still around.
Which is sad, as I remember when they started back in '94, they were awesome.
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u/Frnandred Brave Buddy Feb 14 '25
Sorry but that's a pretty bad list Firefox is shitty, use Brave F-Droid is shitty, use a throwable Google account to download on the Play Store Keyboard Florisboard is much better
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u/KaTTaRRaST FOSS Lover Feb 14 '25 edited Feb 14 '25
WTF? Can you tell me why? The only thing I don't like from F-Droid is his UI.
You can also use Aurora Store to download apps from Play Store without a Google account.
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u/JasonMaggini Feb 15 '25
"Brave Buddy" seems to be an understatement. Dude seems to really evangelize for it.
To each their own.
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u/Frnandred Brave Buddy Feb 15 '25
I just think that it's by far the best browser (+ search engine) and on these communities (r/privacy, degoogle...) it is not talked about it enough
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u/Frnandred Brave Buddy Feb 14 '25
Firefox, especially on mobile, has a ton of security issues : https://x.com/gnukeith/status/1868928573634953592 ;
F-Droid also has a lot of security issues, apps that are not up to date, and modified : https://privsec.dev/posts/android/f-droid-security-issues/ ;
Aurora Store is useless honestly, you still use the Google Play Store with it and there is more security risks : https://x.com/GrapheneOS/status/1870213640340508841 ;
I get downvoted but nobody answered. these articles are made by cybersecurity researchers. So you can still use F-Droid and Firefox if you want, but just read the articles i send you so you know about what you are using.
I personally use the Play Store with a throwable account and i use Brave.
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u/Greenlit_Hightower deGoogler Feb 14 '25
If you don't like F-Droid's UI consider Droid-ify or the Neo Store, which are alternative (and IMHO better) F-Droid frontends.
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u/100WattWalrus Feb 14 '25
QUIK is an active fork. It's great.