<story><title>A free-as-in-freedom re-implementation of Google’s Android user space</title><url>https://microg.org/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>throwaway9d0291</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve been using a custom AOSP build with MicroG for a few months now and it actually works pretty well _if your goal is to avoid Google_.&lt;p&gt;What I mean by that is that if your goal is to use Android Pay, Chrome, Gmail, Google Maps, Google Drive, Google Fi etc. and somehow retain some level of privacy, MicroG isn&amp;#x27;t going to help. It doesn&amp;#x27;t fully implement _all_ of Play Services&amp;#x27; APIs.&lt;p&gt;The point of MicroG is to make Android usable without having Play Services installed. With neither MicroG nor Play Services, many third-party apps fail to function. For example Lyft and Uber depend on the Play Services API for maps and many other apps depend on Google&amp;#x27;s network location service. If you try to use these apps without some replacement, the apps complain and shut down. MicroG gives you a way around that.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m quite happy with my MicroG-based phone but I use:&lt;p&gt;- OSMAnd or the open-source equivalent of Maps.me for maps&lt;p&gt;- My country&amp;#x27;s public transport app for public transit directions&lt;p&gt;- FairEmail for email&lt;p&gt;- Element for messaging&lt;p&gt;- Slide for Reddit&lt;p&gt;- Firefox for web browsing&lt;p&gt;And actively avoid all of Google&amp;#x27;s apps and services (except the occasional search and YouTube).</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Throwaway1771</author><text>Created an(other) ta account to post this...&lt;p&gt;You DO NOT need the Google Play spyware, or the Uber or Lyft spyware apps, in order to use Uber&amp;#x2F;Lyft.&lt;p&gt;Most of these services, including Google Maps, have progressive webapps to be used right in a browser.&lt;p&gt;For additional security&amp;#x2F;privacy, open these apps in a separate&amp;#x2F;sand boxing browser.&lt;p&gt;For the truly careful, create a separate Android &amp;quot;profile&amp;quot; on the device for apps you don&amp;#x27;t trust even with permissions locked up (the accounts feature is an excellent sandbox for security&amp;#x2F;privacy).</text></comment>
<story><title>A free-as-in-freedom re-implementation of Google’s Android user space</title><url>https://microg.org/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>throwaway9d0291</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve been using a custom AOSP build with MicroG for a few months now and it actually works pretty well _if your goal is to avoid Google_.&lt;p&gt;What I mean by that is that if your goal is to use Android Pay, Chrome, Gmail, Google Maps, Google Drive, Google Fi etc. and somehow retain some level of privacy, MicroG isn&amp;#x27;t going to help. It doesn&amp;#x27;t fully implement _all_ of Play Services&amp;#x27; APIs.&lt;p&gt;The point of MicroG is to make Android usable without having Play Services installed. With neither MicroG nor Play Services, many third-party apps fail to function. For example Lyft and Uber depend on the Play Services API for maps and many other apps depend on Google&amp;#x27;s network location service. If you try to use these apps without some replacement, the apps complain and shut down. MicroG gives you a way around that.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m quite happy with my MicroG-based phone but I use:&lt;p&gt;- OSMAnd or the open-source equivalent of Maps.me for maps&lt;p&gt;- My country&amp;#x27;s public transport app for public transit directions&lt;p&gt;- FairEmail for email&lt;p&gt;- Element for messaging&lt;p&gt;- Slide for Reddit&lt;p&gt;- Firefox for web browsing&lt;p&gt;And actively avoid all of Google&amp;#x27;s apps and services (except the occasional search and YouTube).</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>zingplex</author><text>For YouTube I&amp;#x27;ve used NewPipe, which is absolutely fantastic (apart from occasional breakage due to API changes)</text></comment>