The reason why I am degoogling all my phones is that Google holds
an unhealthy monopoly on the mobile phone operating system market,
Google also doesn't respect user's privacy and collects a lot of
sensitive information about our daily lives. They collect information about
your search history, movement, health, apps which you use and they can even hear
you. They mostly collect your data for advertising purposes but it is still a huge
breach of personal privacy.
Some time ago I have requested my data from Google and I was shocked by
how much they know about me. The thing that has surprised me the most
is that the Google Assistant "ok Google" or "hey Google" activation
pharses get recorded and then saved on the Google servers.
Leaving the Google side can be uncomfortable because you might lack some
proprietary applications, remember that you can install your needed applications
from apk mirror websites or aurora store on F-Droid.
Foreigners like me have no privacy rights whatsoever. Yet we keep using U.S.-based services all the time, making us a legal target for gathering and storing our private information. Other countries do surveillance as well. But nobody has the global visibility that United States does.
~ Mikko Hypponen
The benefits of degoogling
The benefits of degoogling your phone are that you get a lot better
privacy, better battery life and you can get less addicted on the social
media and other crap.
With degoogled phone you can achieve more control of your own device and you won't be
limited by the phone manufacturer's Android ROM. With degoogled phone you can get
smoother performance of your device as there are no trackers nor spyware running in the
background.
The issues of degoogling
The issues with degoogling phone are that your camera might not work
properly on the custom ROM, you could fix that with flashing some packages
that would allow, but not every phone is lucky...
The second problem is that if you need banking applications then it might be
harder to use them as some banking applications require locked bootloader and
not having rooted phone. You could fix that by rooting your phone with Magisk
and hiding the banking applications from the root.
Applications that I use
Even though I could use applications such as Discord or Messanger on my phone, I don't. I am trying to live as much FOSS as I can, I also don't want to get addicted on the social media and phone games again as that would only kill my productivity and creativity.
Utility
| Name | Description | Link |
|---|---|---|
| Compass | Compass application | F-Droid |
| Simple Calendar | Calendar application | F-Droid |
| Simple Messages | SMS application | F-Droid |
| Simple Contacts | Contacts application | F-Droid |
| Simple Calculator | Calculator application | F-Droid |
| Fennec | [!] Firefox based browser | F-Droid |
| Termux | Android terminal emulator | F-Droid |
| Organic Maps | OSM map application | F-Droid |
| QR Scanner | QR code and barcode scanner | F-Droid |
Media managment
| Name | Description | Link |
|---|---|---|
| Simple Gallery | Gallery application | F-Droid |
| Simple Music | Music application | F-Droid |
| Simple Recorder | Voice recorder application | F-Droid |
| Syncthing | Application used to sync files between devices | F-Droid |
| Librera | Epub & PDF reader | F-Droid |
| Feeder | RSS feed | F-Droid |
| Obscura Cam | Privacy photo editor | F-Droid |
| Imagepipe | Tool that removes exif data | F-Droid |
Social
| Name | Description | Link |
|---|---|---|
| Cheogram | XMPP Client | F-Droid |
| Element | Matrix Client | F-Droid |
| Tusky | Mastodon Client | F-Droid |
| PixelDroid | Pixelfed Client | F-Droid |
| Briar | Private messaging app | F-Droid |
| Telegram | [!!!] Telegram Client | F-Droid |
Security
| Name | Description | Link |
|---|---|---|
| KeePassDX | Password database | F-Droid |
| Aegis | 2fa manager | F-Droid |
| Netguard | Network access manager | F-Droid |
| OpenKeychain | PGP manager | F-Droid |