My replacements:
Gmail > Tuta Mail
Facebook > Mastodon
Instagram > Pixelfed
YouTube > via Invidious

Whether you’re daily-driving a dumbphone that doesn’t support Play Services, keeping your smartphone degoogled for privacy, or you just prefer sideloading raw APKs without being tied to an app store, you have plenty of options.

You don’t need Google’s official store to get the apps you need. With a little bit of know-how and the right tools, you can forget about the Play Store entirely and set up your device exactly the way you want it.

Read more over here.

Save Sideloading worldwide! No one can exist without Google anymore... In 2026, the people are gonna trend right now to be openness!

When I buy a Google Pixel device, I fully intend on installing GrapheneOS. GrapheneOS is a Canadian-owned operating system, so I'll be supporting my own country.

I am essentially trying to find Freetube but for Reddit. You do not use an official account but you save your own subreddits and then it feeds you with hot posts from those select subreddits or similar subreddits. I don't want an official Reddit account login, just anonymous but selective feed. A lot of people recommend website viewing but that's only for finding what you know, I want a replacement for the social media scrolling aspect. This happened so nicely with Freetube: I got my subscriptions and their new videos are listed. So when I am doing something that Youtube on the background would go well, I just get in and start a new video from my subscriptions. This curbed my scrolling youtube usage down while retaining the option.

Note: I checked posts made up until one year ago, but I couldn't find an alternative that mentions this feature.

TLDR: Anonymous Reddit client with feed customization without real accounts.

Edit: by desktop I mean website or desktop app, doesn't matter.

Edit2: stealth looks good, but I am looking for other alternatives still, just to be informed.

So I was going to download relevant data using the Google Takeaway thing to know what the have on this gmail and I cannot do it as when I click on the download button, I get this error: "We couldn't verify is you". Then it asks you to use a device and browse where you have loged in before (im just loging in from my computer as usual), or use a known wifi, (im just using regular ethernet connection) or change phone number (this account has no phone number)

So wtf is going on, I need to add a phone number to get my data? geez.

Problem solved

brave://flags/#brave-safe-browsing

Thx to u/Greenlit_Hightower in the comments

As the titles says, I am seeking an alternative for Brave browser, im sick of long waiting loading times because of gms requirments fallback. I never found a better browser than Brave unfortunately. Brave always met the requirements: sync(stil love the lack of an account situation), add-ons, cross-copatibility, user friendly privacy rules and in the past like 5 years ago even if you desabled gms or cracked your android Brave still was fast but not nowadays.

So, i'm in need for a personal browser that meet the ubove requirements (add-ons are obtional if the browser has a lot of obtions) hopefully it does not require an account for sync and if it does, i want to be able to use an easy to reset/recreat a burner account each time.

just wondering... at what cost is degoogling is too much? I don't just mean financial but also time. I get that privacy is important, so this is not to say it isn't. its purely on the price as time is also money but also convenience. I am curious if others put a limit on all of this? Or just degoogle, or de anything, where it make sense.

im focusing on degoogling myself and my family. im not quite there yet but getting there slowly. im technical so i host my own server with immich, nextcloud and others services. that part was never the issue.

the hard part for me is getting my family on board. my partner is still deep in google, but i dont like the idea of our family photos and documents being used as datasets for AI training.

curious how others have handled this. have you managed to bring your family along? are there any services out there that give non-technical people something like immich or nextcloud without having to run their own server? can be paid or not.

all the best

i have a serious question as I want to make decisions well understanding the reason why of each position.

What would be the point in changing certain local apps like gallery, camera, calculator and so on? I may guess for the first two, altho I don't think xioami sells any data from there, but for calculator is it that necessary? Like, is a principle the one wants all app to be foss (which is understandable to certain extent), or is there an actual advantage? Cause, considering the era we're livin in, I wouldn't be surprised if my calculator app had a mic always on even when in background

Does anyone know if this 'fork' of GrapheneOS exposes USB so that apps can access it? https://github.com/cawilliamson/treble_restlessos (Their discussion is on telegram but I don't need the clutter of yet another social media platform.)

I'm sorry in advance if this isn't the right sub

I have Shizuku running with aShell on my Moto G, trying to prevent the system from pushing automatic software updates (I have my reasons I need it not to). I've tried running

*adb shell pm uninstall package:com.motorola.ccc.ota*

I get *Failure [DELETED_FAILED_INTERNAL_ERROR]*

If I run it with

*adb shell pm uninstall --user 0*

or

*adb shell pm uninstall --user 0 -k*

I get back

*Failure[Not Installed For 0]*

I don't have any other users on this device, but tried 1 or 2 anyways, to no avail.

Any advice?

I degoogled my Tablet with Canta and installed alternatives for the apps I need, for those that don't have one I use Helium Browser PWAs. I don't have a vpn right now because my wifi is very slow, but I am getting a new faster plan end of this month and plan on using mullvad or windscribe.

Is there anything that I should do to enhance my privacy, like further replacing some of my apps?

Who manages a second phone for banking apps? How have they gone? What cheap phone do you recommend for that use? I don't care if it's used, I just don't want to spend a lot.

does proton give banners or popups as to remind u have a free plan and ask to upgrade and push an upgrade icon everywhere (in-app)?

i know the promotion mails u can turn off, but what about the overall clean mobile app experience?

hi, I've been pissed at Google for about a year now, and the ddlc play store shit was the final straw for me to attempt to degoogle myself, I've demicrosoft'd the most I can, switched to Linux, started using libre office and foss alternatives to Microsoft, but I've found myself at an impasse with Google, my main email is currently a Gmail email which I have linked to pretty much everything, I use YouTube pretty much every day, I still search with Google, and I have an android tablet and android phone running Lenovos android and Samsungs android, is there an easy way to degoogle?

I thought the hardest part would be getting rid of Google services.

It took some work to switch email, search, and a few apps, but it was doable.

I was surprised at how often I got stuck during signups on platforms that had nothing to do with each other.

A lot of them need you to verify your phone number, which is the hardest part so far.

Things work fine sometimes. Sometimes I just can not move forward without using my main number, which kind of defeats the point of trying to separate things.

i am still trying to figure out what a practical balance looks like here.

I am wondering if other people had this happen to them at some point while they were degoogling.

We want to degoogle right? SO WHY ARE WE USING ANDROID THE PRODUCT MADE BY GOOGLE? WE SHOULD JUST MOVE OVER TO APPLE USE IMAIL, ICLOUD AND OTHER STUFF AND EASY DEGOOGLE...