I hate the invasive features that seems to only increase with every Android update. So now I am getting an iPhone for the first time in years.
> And this year’s Pixel will take advantage of the phone’s always-on microphones to listen for music (not just the phrase “OK Google”) and display what you’re listening to on the screen, even if it’s something on the radio.
Like.. wtf? No! I don't want that. Sure it "only listens for music". I don't want Google to save my passwords in apps. I don't want anything of that. Get out of my life google.
In the process of removing Google out of my life as much as possible. This is my progress:
Completed:
- Using DDG for search
- Using bing maps or OSM for maps
- Only using Firefox / Vivaldi for browsing.
TODO:
- Move email provider completely, now I am only partly using my gmail.
- Move to iPhone (will soon be done)
- Youtube (unfortunately I think this is hard to avoid)
Don't really use any other Google service than that. I urge people to do the same.
I am just fine with my Google service thank you. If I don't like something I disable it. Most of it I can and I appreciate the convenience of some of the stuff.
The iphone without any of the doodads feels like a dumb phone. This is a great way though to discourage constant phone use though.
On my phone at least, Google spams me for data input whenever I use maps and it seems at least to do that even if I simply have location on without actually using any app.
Ï cannot disable this, it also sends me ads from built in apps (not really Google here) that I cannot disable.
I am done with all of that. For years I have been an android enthusiast, thinking it was so much better than iPhone. How times change.
Don't know how you feel about ad blockers, but I installed an off-market app called BlockThis (Google it) to get rid of ads on my browser, and it had the added benefit of disabling ads within apps. Many Android apps are very obstructive with their ads (not androids fault) so now I just always have BlockThis enabled.
I installed CopperheadOS on my Nexus 5X, it has been a blessing. I use OsmAnd~ maps and navigation, Startpage for search and Firefox (and Firefox Klar) as my browser.
I chose Mailbox.org as my mail/calendar/contacts provider. DAVdroid syncs my calendar with the default Copperhead OS calendar app (Etar) and the Contacts app. I use the K-9 mail app.
For YouTube I use NewPipe. It suits me a lot better than the YouTube app. I can even download video/audio for offline use.
All the apps I mentioned above are free and open source and available via the F-Droid app “store” that comes pre-installed with Copperhead.
For the first time I feel that I own my phone (not the other way around).
I don't want to have to change the OS on my phone to get an acceptable experience. I rather do something else with my time.
But I use fastmail for mail and calendar. It works great for me. I still have like 10 years worth of data in Google Mail. So it will take some time before I can completely release that.
> And this year’s Pixel will take advantage of the phone’s always-on microphones to listen for music (not just the phrase “OK Google”) and display what you’re listening to on the screen, even if it’s something on the radio.
Like.. wtf? No! I don't want that. Sure it "only listens for music". I don't want Google to save my passwords in apps. I don't want anything of that. Get out of my life google.
In the process of removing Google out of my life as much as possible. This is my progress:
Completed:
- Using DDG for search
- Using bing maps or OSM for maps
- Only using Firefox / Vivaldi for browsing.
TODO:
- Move email provider completely, now I am only partly using my gmail.
- Move to iPhone (will soon be done)
- Youtube (unfortunately I think this is hard to avoid)
Don't really use any other Google service than that. I urge people to do the same.