Ha! That’s one of the reasons I switched to a degoogled android phone. The extra battery life is quite noticeable.
Makes me consider doing that again.
Years ago I had a Samsung Galaxy Alpha and ran LineageOS on it but that just completely fucked the battery optimisation. Did this get better? Better than Google even?
My last phone with standard Google Android had a 5000 mAh battery while the new degoogled has one with a bit more than 6000 mAh I think. Even then I feel the overall increase in battery life cannot be explained with hardware only. Without watching videos or playing games, I only have to charge my new phone every 3-4 days. And I’ve background apps like syncthing running all the time. I’ve just checked there’s actually a few other open source forks of android other than LineageOS. If you’re disappointed with it.
If you use chrome or any chromium based browser, googles still executing any code they won’t on your device at will.
Even if you don’t have chrome, but an app uses a chromium based web view.
googles still executing any code they won’t on your device at will.
Source?
Degoogled as in “no code from google present” would require Ubuntu touch etc., but as in “no closed source stuff and no telemetry” is quite easy, using either Degoogled Android or another specific distro.
Degoogled as in “no code from google present” would require Ubuntu touch etc.
I know what I said :3
I had recently installed Grapheneos on my pixel, with a goal is determining what was responsible for all the senseless Google domains that a pixel normally contacts.
To my surprise disabling Network for the Google Services Framework and Play Services killed all of the nonsense. The only downside was that GSF has the push mechanism in it also, that many apps use for push notifications.
If only there were an alternate for push notifications that all apps would use.
Anyway, Grapheneos runs way cooler than Google’s Malware version.
I use ntfy for notifications, even on my vanilla Pixel.
The less google services apps you use the less google services needs to run.
That looks nice, but apps that use GSF for push won’t use that. Or am I missing something on their website?
Correct, an app has to be built without GSF. That’s why I still use Vanilla Pixel for Google Maps and Android Auto.
Check out microG: https://microg.org/
I get all my push notifications, apps etc without any actual Google services on my phone. Remote google servers are still used, but in a more (though not fully) anonymous manner.
With Graphene OS there is no Google services at all correct? No android auto?
They made it where you could sandbox all of the Google stuff, and Android Auto works fine too.
I was very disappointed with the (default) Camera after switching to Graphene, luckily you can just download the Pixel Camera (including all the Pixel optimizations) from Play Store on Graphene OS or download it as an APK bundle from some other sites (downloading the normal APK won’t work, it has to be the bundle).
The idea of getting outside of the Google ecosystem is intriguing. I have a pixel 8. Is there a website that I can go to to learn how to switch? My battery just drops like a stone.
I’d go with CalyxOS. Install is also easy, but graphene touts allowing Google play services to be used… The very part of the picture that drew you to this comments section. You don’t have to install it in graphene, but then almost no apps work right.
CalyxOS use microG, a fully open-source spoof of Google play that is super light on battery, allows most apps to work fine (including banking), etc. Some apps like Pokemon go don’t, however.
Graphene sandboxes Google services heavily, and is enabled and used only at user discretion. It doesn’t get higher priority than any other user application on the device. Calyx is alright but I would recommend Graphene much more than Calyx. I don’t like either of these though unless you are a privacy nut. If you just want to get out of Google, LineageOS works plenty well although without many of the creature comforts of a stock ROM.
I wish graphene supported microG. They’ve decided running closed-source Google (user-level app or not) is the best option, and I disagree.
I’m glad there’s options though.
Thank you for your full explanation, kind stranger. Ill give it a good going over!
Cheers!
Check out Graphene OS, it supports the pixel lineup and is pretty easy to install if you know how to read and copy paste.
GrapheneOS, has easy to click webpage buttons to guide you through the flashing. It is deggogled, you can add playstore and apps, and they can be sandboxed away from default storage. Updates are frequent, battery drain is way less without all the google BS.
If you’re sandboxing Google play services, you are, by definition, still installing play services. They are still running, but are sandboxed. So I don’t see how you see any less battery drain.
I run MicroG instead of the proprietary Google play services, and while I do see a bit ofl an increase in battery life for light usage, for medium and heavy usage it’s pretty much the same. Admittedly my battery is pretty old.
Because you can add only what you want and restrict notification and other data transfer, auto turn off when not in use, etc. It is the constant google chit chat that kills battery. My play app keeps nagging it wants more permission to function better but I just deny it. also it is just play service, no gmail, no google drive, etc. and I didn’t have it snooze power this week but only 3% play aervice use since sundays charge.
By being ripped out and sandboxed the same way other apps are, Google services isn’t free to siphon battery. This means you can restrict battery use and cut the constant communication down. Thus saving battery. If you allow it, yes it is not different than if it was preloaded.
I second the people that said lineage OS. I am using it right now. I got this Nord phone because I knew they were easy to tinker with. I used it a bit and ended up with a newer galaxy. Well after I put lineage on the Nord every problem it had went away. Excellent battery life, runs smoothly, weekly security patches if I want etc. One thing that helped a lot was the “Aurora” app store. Let’s you install apps anonymously from the play store without requiring google services. Many of them won’t work due to the no google services, but a surprising amount of stuff does just fine even if it complains about it.
My phone likes to gaslight me and not even show the battery that my system services are taking
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