Some years ago, I tried to use Android without using Google. While my wife was using a Fairphone One with Google services, I had a rooted Samsung Galaxy S II with open source Android 7 (AOSP) thanks to cyanogenmod / LineageOS. I could have used Google apps, play store and Google location provider etc. but that time I preferred to try the hardcore google-less way.
Cyanogen mood: my old rooted Galaxy phone is still part of my device lab.
Cyanogen mood
It's inconvenient, yet possible, to use Android phones without Google services. No assistant, no spyware, no convenient online services at all, unless you explicitly choose and install one.
I felt a bit like a yokel wearing a tinfoil hat: no popular solution worked out of the box, no way to use banking or car sharing apps (that either refused to start on a rooted phone for security reasons or didn't support location services from any other location provider except for Google), and as many popular apps are not listed in f-droid, I had to download apk files from Android Police's APK mirror and make a manual install for every update.
The lesser evil as a comfortable compromise?
When I was looking for a new job (before eventually becoming a self-employed freelancer), I chose to try the exact opposite strategy for a while, currently using a Google Pixel 4a and all of their services, including docs and calendar sync. Despite the clunky UI of Android 12, it still seemed a good user experience over all, and I was happy to get all the latest security updates and have access to my data from any device.
Android 12's Controversial Clunky UI Update
Just upgraded to Android 12 and what the fuck is this new UI?!
If this is supposed to be more accessible, then why most of the text is truncated and keeps moving like an old LED advert device in a cheap shop window?
Don't look beautiful
Google still have cute animations on their search website and I still like their artwork in the calendar app, but somehow their current motto seems to be "don't look beautiful". But wasn't that supposed to be "don't be evil" when Google appeared as a fresh new hipster startup?
When Google dropped "don't be evil" 😡
Although Google dropped their motto "don't be evil" some years ago, their services still seem to be the lesser evil or rather the only useful alternative in several cases.
Trying to use Ecosia, which makes use of Microsoft Bing as the actual search engine, for "googling" dev related knowledge, I had to resort to Google sooner or later again, which will also refuse to produce useful search results eventually.
Adding (mis)features instead of fixes
Instead of fixing their very own search algorithm and stop to deteriorate the popular Android operating system, Google tryed to use its supremacy as the most powerful Chromium maintainer to push the controversial tracking technology FLoC.
But Google's public blunders are just the tip of the iceberg.
Try and google Dr. Timnit Gebru and you may never want "to google" anymore. Dr. Gebru, founder of the Distributed AI Research Institute, was terminated as Google’s ethical AI leader in December 2020 after criticizing the company’s practices in a research paper. Quoting a DAIR mission statement:
AI is not inevitable, its harms are preventable, and when its production and deployment include diverse perspectives and deliberate processes, it can be beneficial.
This video by VICE news, AI Ethics Researcher Timnit Gebru's Firing Doesn’t Look Good For Google, is provided by YouTube, a former startup that was purchased by Google in 2006. Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google, the "big four" or "GAFA" companies are North American firms that have become a dangerously powerful oligopoly that dominates most people's digital lives.
Trying to make a list of useful alternatives
As we can see, there is a growing list of reasons to ditch Google products and services for good, but we have to find and support useful alternatives. Here are some that I already tried or that I'm willing to give a(nother) try someday:
Google as a search engine 🔎
- Ecosia
- DuckDuckGo
- Wolfram Alpha
- startpage.com (thanks @patricktingen) for suggesting!)
- MetaGer (German non-profit meta search engine)
- (Meta)Searx (thanks @vivekkj)
- Qwant (thanks @dlepenven)
- Bing by Microsoft
- using site search forms
- browsing documentation sites and man pages
Maps and Navigation 🗺️ (updated August 14, 2023)
- Treeday.net
- Open Street Map
- OsmAnd (Open Street Map Android client with offline option)
- mapy.cz (also based on Open Street Map, with a very useful Android app, especially for hiking in Europe)
- maps.me ("maps with me")
- Sygic
- bike citizens
- tomtom
- komoot (German) hiking community with navigation option
- waze is NOT a Google alternative, as it has been acquired by Google back in 2013, especially not if you're concerned about privacy, but otherwise it might still be a useful alternative to the Google maps app for car navigation.
Weather
- Weather Underground
- Alternative Weather Providers for LineageOS and LineageOS Based ROMs
- weather.gov (thanks @webbureaucrat)
- WarnWetter app by German met office Deutscher Wetterdienst with location-based warnings, forecasts, and animated rain radar maps.
Web Browser 🕸️🌏 (updated August 9, 2023)
There are many web browsers, but only a few browser engines.
- Chromium (like Chrome, without Google extras)
- Vivaldi (based on Chromium, maintained by ex-Opera staff?)
- Firefox open source evergreen by the Mozilla foundation
- Gnome Web also known as WebkitGTK or Epiphany, the successor to Galeon, is another open source classic and probably the closest to Safari on a Linux system (see Fix Apple Bugs using a "Secret" Linux Browser)
- Safari if you're an Apple user and don't care that Safari is the new Internet Explorer
- Edge the Chromium-based browser that made Microsoft abandon Internet Explorer
- Opera
- Brave (thanks @tqbit)
Android System and Android App Stores 🛒
- f-droid
- apkmirror (app store mirror server by androidpolice)
- LineageOS (formerly known as Cyanogen Mod)
- TeamWin TWRP
- What about Sailfish, Ubuntu Phone, and Firefox OS? Is this still a thing?
Smartphones and Computers 🖥️🐧
- Fairphone
- Tuxedo or any other Laptop preinstalled with Linux
- Apple and Microsoft (if you're doing native app development or you just don't like Linux)
- Sailfish OS
Calendar, Contact Sync, Documents 📅 (updated)
- owncloud
- Nextcloud (thanks @vivekkj)
- WEchange.de
- cal.com (formerly known as Calendso)
- Mega.NZ (thanks @webbureaucrat)
- skiff.org
- Disroot.org
- Proton mail / calendar
Ads and Analytics
Google Analytics was recently declared illegal in the EU as Austria's data regulator has found that the use of Google Analytics is a breach of GDPR. And Google Ads, like any other "behavioral" advertising, is not only unethical and a waste of bandwidth and usability that can deteriorate your website's web vitals ranking, but as Jeremy Keith pointed out, it does not even work.
Google Analytics
- Matomo (formerly known as Piwik)
- OWA (open web analytics) (thanks @thumbone)
- Plausible (thanks @climbing_dev)
- GoatCounter (thanks @ryanfiller)
Google Ads
- any other commercial ad provider: not really an alternative
- hosting selected ads on your local server, that match your content
- getting a sponsor
Finish my work in progress
Acknowledging the tendency to release thoughts and concepts instead of striving for perfection, I have just written down what came into my mind without making any effort to add any up-to-date research myself. DEV is not StackOverflow, and you can't downvote, so please do my homework and help me complete this list. At least I did add some external links.
In the end, we might all benefit from a community effort, so please leave your suggestions in the comments!
Oldest comments (29)
For a while now I am using startpage.com/ as search page. It is essentially a shell around google, thus giving you the google results (albeit non-personalised) while not giving away data to Google. You might want to give it a try
Thanks @patricktingen ! I should probably also add metaGer which combines results from more than one search engine.
Does anyone have a source where DuckDuckGo fetch their results? Meta or just Google as well?
According to wiki:
And yet, primary results are Bing. On the shopping tab you may even find ads now. I was like ... the hell? and worked that feedback button.
But most annoyingly, you can't do precise searches, even when quoting things, it always tries to think for you and assume you mean something else as well, and then doesn't actually find the thing you are looking for and even puts in results (and lots of them) where your words aren't even on the page, the source or even the backend code if you could read it.
The only one that - aside from privacy - really did a good job providing relevant results and had it's own index, was Cliqz, which unfortunately had to fold due to changing priorities.
There's also Qwant, but again, Bing powered and I gave up using it, because performance was abysmal. Perhaps that has changed.
For searching and maps there is also Qwant , it seems to use some Microsoft services for some results and ads.
For doc sync etc.
Calendar:
ProtonCalendar
For weather I use mobile.weather.gov. I always prefer web apps to native apps because web apps generally run with lower permissions.
eOS ships fairphones
You might want to give Brave Browser a shot as well
Good to mention brave, but personally I'm happy with Vivaldi at the moment.
You can always use public instances of searx or whoogle instead of google search. They will use google and other search engines, and strip ads and trackers to enhance privacy.
Both can be selfhosted privately if you don't want to use a public instance.
Better browsers for android are iceraven or Mull. Both are hardened Firefox forks.
For desktop Firefox with hardening from arkenfox's user.js will do.
Puzzles me to see ownclowd on a list without nextcloud. Which forked from owncloud (over openness issues) and as far as I know has grown bigger and more popular than owncloud and I generally find ahead of owncloud on lists.
I'd also add OWA to the Google Analytics replacements.
openwebanalytics.com/
Thanks for alternates list :) I need to keep my android phone for work purposes, but when I get a new one plan to change the OS. Can't stand Android 12's UI :/
Bookmarking for future reference.
1).It's very hard to escape Google on an Android. @theimpulson can back me up on this. (he works for /e/ OS btw).
If you have developed an Android App, push notifications, safetynet, & lot of stuff need GMS. The only alternative to GMS is microG.
2.)Developing an Android app without using Google libraries for android is very difficult. You can see lot of F-Droid apps use Google SDKs and they are marked "using non-free libraries".
Also since late 2021, Developers have to upload apps in aab format on Play Store. It will be a hassle for developers to make APKs since aab's are also signed by google. They cause signature conflicts.
PinePhone is the only half decent open source option. But it's not a functional phone, rather an enthusiast device.
Happy to help add to the list - if I overlooked or missed something and list a duplicate below...well...whoops
Browser: Firefox - I have had a great experience with them for the most part. Their most recent UI update makes it less boxy with the harsh edges, which makes me happy.
Calendar, Email: Protonmail - they are my secondary email provider. Solid.
That being said, I still use Google as my primary tool for most of everything and will probably continue to do so. However I do use Ecosia when I can, as I really love their mission.
I switched to Protonmail as my primary two years ago. Today, I just noticed that ProtonMail has a small indicator in the header section of each email message indicating the number of trackers that were intercepted and where the trackers were coming from!
It's possible to make non-google services as your primary, you just to have to build up familiarity and proficiency with the alternatives. The only one that requires multiple apps to replace it is Google Maps and still can leave you wanting for something more feature full than the current alternatives.
Fundamentally, we have to decide whether we are willing to sacrifice some of the convenience funded by massive amounts of venture capital and revenue from advertising or not.
It's confirmed and well known already that ProtonMail is a huge honeypot, mostly de-anonymizing users and collecting data. Also it provides fake security which looks good but does noting. Do a little research, won't take long. I liked Proton services a lot at the beginning.
Thanks. I haven't done any research on the deeper encryption questions. I'm mostly shopping for applications and services that are partially or fully open source and which aren't supported by selling user information to advertisers. So, even if ProtonMail did cooperate closely with governments, it is at least claiming to have a business model paid by user subscriptions instead of paid by advertising.
Plausible is recently a popular Google Analytics alternative. It's an open source project.
Google is so popular that, unfortunately, there are no alternatives.
There is a German word, alternativlos, meaning without alternative, used by former chancellor Angela Merkel. She ruled Germany for 16 years and used to describe a new legislations as being without alternative. If I remember correctly, her quote was criticized even by linguists(?) philosophers(?) being nonsense as the notion of no-alternative contradicts the essential meaning of "alternative".
(Unfortunately I don't have a link to that discussion anymore.)
What does popularity have to do with anything? That could apply to Whatsapp, LinkedIn, Facebook. But not to Google services as they have no real footing in communities.
1 minute silence for Google Plus.
some suggestions:
Browser: Firefox
Cloud: Nextcloud
Analytics: Plausible
Search engine: Searx
Anyways, nice post :)
I like goatcounter as a free (you can pay if you want, I do) analytics alternative.
I actually switched Google for Apple on the phone. Since there's really no other provider, it may as well look and work better. Though, I miss the Android back button sometimes. Pure nostalgia, though. Don't really need it.
Plus, I have Safari limited to only Apple support, so even apps trying to use it (I look at you n26), will get a prompt to "allow this site". This is because, I can't install uBlock Origin on iOS, so I'm not allowing a browser.
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