I de-Googled my Android 3 months ago, and the article reads as if I wrote it. I can totally relate to everything!<p>Without the Play store, I had to take long hard look at what apps are really essential to me, for which I cannot find a FOSS alternative. Turns out, except Spotify and banking, there was none! Without Google Play, I did not really feel the need to fill my phone with various apps... My primary email and SMS was all the communication I needed.<p>In the beginning, I missed my notifications. I felt almost uneasy if I did not check my phone every 30 minutes because I felt like I could be missing some urgent notification. However, after only a week, I noticed that nothing of importance was lost, but more importantly, how much focus I reclaimed!<p>I know this sounds cheesy, but de-cluttering my phone made me realize how much all the apps strived for my attention all the time.
I made a similar switch to Lineage about a year ago, and it's also been absolutely great. No regrets whatsoever. Also, AFAIK you can root your phone to fool play store checks, using something like Magisk if that's important enough.
There's also LineageOS for MicroG [1] which bakes in MicroG for you. Then there's the unfortunately named /e/ [2] which is based on the former and trying to build a usable privacy-focused mobile OS on top of that.<p>[1] <a href="https://lineage.microg.org/" rel="nofollow">https://lineage.microg.org/</a><p>[2] <a href="https://e.foundation/" rel="nofollow">https://e.foundation/</a>
I've been wondering for a while: why <i>does</i> google play require a sign-in to install apps?<p>Mozilla lets anyone download addons from anywhere, likewise I should be able to download an apk to my desktop and install on my phone.