This post is going to be a bit personal (and maybe a little bit out of context, it’s not just Google software I want to remove) but I’m tired of not knowing what to do about it. I want and have wanted to get rid of a bunch of proprietary software in my life, including but not limited to Google’s software, for quite a while now, and I even got a Pixel 7A with hopes of installing GrapheneOS. But there are a few problems. First, my parents are understandably concerned and need me to use Google Maps’ location sharing whenever I go to school. All my classmates use Instagram and we have that as our only messaging platform. I currently use DFInstagram, but I feel that it is not free from spyware. Finally, I also own a DJI Mini 3 Pro, and the associated DJI Fly app just refuses to work under GrapheneOS (I tested). Is there anything I can do to replace or limit the access of these aforementioned proprietary apps?
If your using GrapheneOS you don’t need 2 devices, you can setup diferent profiles/users in the settings that are containerized and don’t interact with each other. Your main profile will be completely foss and degoogled and in the second one you can install the play services from the GrapheneOS app updater (if you already have them in main i recommended you to backup and factory reset to make a clean install). There you can have Google Maps and all the spyware you need, you can even set it up so you recive notification from the second profile in the main one.
One idea is perhaps to have more than one device? A tablet at home could be used in some scenarios, the rooted phone for some others. Maybe you have an old device laying around?
You can offer your friends the option to use Signal for messaging. It’s not a big deal to use several apps for messaging different people.
I don’t know how old you are or were you live, but it just sounds crazy to me your parents want to know your location at all time, it seems paranoid. Maybe there are other “location sharing” apps out there, but they are by definition not very privacy oriented, not sure if I would trust another app more than Google-Maps…
OwnTracks is good for location sharing/logging and is open source. Ideally requires you to run your own MQTT server though.
If not using your own server, you can use payload encryption to protect your location data from being snooped by other users. (But ideally you should just run your own server, it’s pretty easy.)
Agreed. Actually some people are crazy about Signal for the Stickers https://signalstickers.org and I’ll admit that I find the Signal Stickers fun as well. Stickers could be the decisive argument to have them use Signal :)
Hmmmm. I actually disagree with this comment.
I think that signal is a useful alternative for people that are privacy oriented or that do not have an existing chat, but to make the transition from Instagram to signal is going to feel like a step back for the vast majority of normal users especially teenagers/preteens.
On a related note, because we do not know the age of the original poster, it is a non-starter to say that his parents should not be tracking his whereabouts until we have more information. For all we know, this could be a 13 year old. I’m more useful alternative would be to suggest privacy-friendly location apps
I’m relatively young, but my parents weren’t always aware of my whereabouts when I was thirteen. Heck as young as 8 years old they let me bike the 5km to school. I think that trust and autonomy was good for me, especially as a preteen/teen.
Contrast with my younger brother, who our father still tracks via Snapchat in his early twenties. I can say the constant feeling of surveillance has definitely had an impact on his mental health.
Yeah, no, it’s a group chat of my entire class. Making all of them switch is not an option, it’s too many people who don’t care so much about digital privacy and aren’t interested in tech
Feels crazy no one has mentioned it yet, but Beeper finally got released a couple days ago. Check it up, I’d recommend you to use the “OLD” client tho, new one feels like a beta version.
It’s just a preconfigured matrix server with (proprietary) clients and easy to use bridges, it allows you to use multiple messaging networks in one app, so you could use signal or matrix chats with most people and keep only essential exceptios like the instagram class group.
Really stupid easy to set up, and if you feel more concerned about privacy you can always search for a matrix homeserver with bridges or self-host your own (pretty complicated, wouldn’t recommend too much).
Isn’t the point of deGoogling removing the majority of the proprietary apps on an Android Phone, though?
Have you looked at these threads for the DJI app issue?
https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/904-grapheneos-pixel-6-dji-fly-app-compatibility
https://github.com/GrapheneOS/os-issue-tracker/issues/2527
As for Instagram…ugh. Absolutely insane to use Instagram for private communications, but I get it, you can’t change your whole social circle. What you can do is isolate Instagram and similarly untrustworthy apps into a second user profile in Android, so at least it won’t have access to your real photos, contacts, etc. I use Shelter for this purpose, but there are other options as well.
Looking at this from my own personal perspective. I like to DeGoogle as much as possible because I strongly dislike the idea of others tracking me and creating profiles and making money from that, but at the same time many years ago people already could be tracked when carrying “dumb phones” on you so I figure some compromises will likely have to be made (Some people I know got rid of using phones altogether but not everyone is able to do so).At least at home for your desktop computer or laptop you can look into https://pi-hole.net and VPN and Tor. Use LibreWolf instead of Firefox (Firefox is quite full of Google by default).
I agree with this general sentiment. I think the important thing to remember is that there are very few of us that are completely off the grid and with good reason. You have to pick and choose the battles in this frontier. There are people that have completely removed Google from their life, but still message relatives on Facebook or people that are running graphene OS but still talk to chatGPT on a daily basis.
What’s important is to find the balance that works for you and accept the trade-offs while still living a fruitful life
