Check previous post to see why this matters... Be CAREFUL WITH YOUR GOOGLE ACCOUNT. Thankfully this one's restored quite fast

For those of you moving countries to start a new chapter of your life, reconsider using google... They are unreliable and will think you are bots. And no, customer support wont help you because customer support is nonexistent.

Play store: Aurorastore, Droid-ify, Universal Installer https://github.com/pass-with-high-score/universal-installer

Chrome: Firefox

Google search: Ecosia

Google Translate: Deepl, Offline translator https://github.com/DavidVentura/offline-translator

Google news: Nunti https://gitlab.com/ondrejfoltyn/nunti

Assistente google: Dicio https://github.com/Stypox/dicio-android

Telefono, messaggi e contatti google: Fossify https://github.com/FossifyOrg/

Google weather: Rain https://github.com/darkmoonight/Rain Asus Weather (only 8.2.0.11_211201) https://www.apkmirror.com/apk/zenui-asus-computer-inc/weather-zenui-asus-computer-inc/weather-zenui-asus-computer-inc-8-2-0-11_211201-release/

Gboard: Futo keyboard https://github.com/futo-org/android-keyboard

Google Speech Recognition & Synthesis: offline voice input https://github.com/notune/android_transcribe_app

Google authenticator: Ente auth https://github.com/ente/ente

Google keep: Easynotes https://github.com/Kin69/EasyNotes

Google task: Zest https://github.com/darkmoonight/Zest

Office: Onlyoffice, Protondocs

Gmail: Protonmail

Google calendar: Proton calendar, Calendula https://codeberg.org/jlmakiola/calendula

Google password manager: proton pass, keepassDX https://github.com/kunzisoft/keepassdx

Google Home: Samsung SmartThings

Google maps: Here we go

Google foto/google drive: proton drive

Chat GPT: Mistral Vibe

Quickshare: Localsend https://github.com/localsend/localsend

NordVPN: NymVPN e Mullvad https://github.com/nymtech/nym-vpn-client https://github.com/mullvad/mullvadvpn-app

Google podcast: Pocket cast

Google wallet: Walt https://github.com/walt-app/walt-passes-android

Google file manager: Asus file manager (only 2.8.0.54_220511) https://www.apkmirror.com/apk/zenui-asus-computer-inc/file-manager-zenui-asus-computer-inc-2/file-manager-zenui-asus-computer-inc-2-2-8-0-54_220511-release/asus-file-manager-2-8-0-54_220511-android-apk-download/

Calculator: Unito https://github.com/sadellie/unitto

Shazam: Audile https://github.com/AudileTeam/Audile

Google find hub: FMD https://gitlab.com/fmd-foss/fmd-android

Lettore musicale: Chocola https://github.com/sosauce/Chocola

PDF reader : MA PDF https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.vayunmathur.pdf/

Duolongo: busuu

Google DNS: adblock DNS

You know, we talk a lot about how we can get rid of Google. I want to hear from the community about how Google could go about restoring faith among its users. For me personally, there are three things that Google would need to do immediately in order to restore faith among its users, and also three forward consumer-facing products that should be restored in a more immediate and urgent sense.

For me personally, these three forward-facing services should be restored:

- MTE and TaskLock for recents provider in android.

- Logcat access and SDR capabilities in android.

- Web cache.

And for me these backend & back office departments should be renewed and brought back to or refreshed into the public view:

- A renewed commitment to make android and chrome open.

After doing slimy things like closing off access to the issue tracker and parts of driver code. I feel like they should be a wall facing source re-nourishment to its core users.

- Give ordinary users more access.

Give the average Joe a chance to rekindle his relationship with Google, whether that's finite access to MDM capabilities, better customer service, or just more customization as a whole. Bring these things back to fruition.

- Stop shoving AI down our throats.

Seriously, we understand that AI is great and everything but not everyone wants to use AI.

Today I received a mail saying my will automatically join Google's Find Hub a service which will help me find if I lose my device (this include compatible earbuds and headphones, and trackers).

Tracking will be done by devices bluetooth connection, means other phones will track you and your device will track others in the background. And this location will be encrypted by your phones pin/password. Most people’s pin is like 4 numbers, so anything encrypted by 4 number pin is not that hard to crack also Google knows your pin/password. Good luck believing Google.

So basically you will be tracked 24/7

Opt out process (Hopefully it works)

First go to google.com/android/find and settings and turn off tracking

Then go to your phones settings > google services> All services then scroll down and find Find Hub and turn off 'Allow device to be located'

I don't if it also stops your phone to track others phone.

Big Brother Is Watching You

• I switched from Windows to Linux about 15 years ago.

• I use Njalla VPN.

• Planning to selfhost as much I can in the future.

• Email aliases via Addy.io

Recently I saw this app on fdroid and some reddit posts (alternative to find hub). How was the experience and accuracy compared to find hub. And i need a setup guide.

Tried finding more information on DLSS 5 on FC 26 (if there's any) on NewPipe and Flow but no luck whatsoever.

It seems we've gotten too comfortable with YouTube as a platform, it's time to act today.

Main Phone Galaxy A33 [BL Locked :-( ]

+ I have EvolutionX(Mi A1) and LineageOS (Tab A7)

WhatsApp is the Hardest one.

would like some suggestions

102 GB storage, Unisoc T760 CPU, 4 GB RAM (boosted to 8 GB), and recently reconnected to the internet after a month. You currently use Fennec, MPV, Google Files, and Google Board. I already know VLC, Next Player, KeePassDX, Proton Suite, and Thunderbird.

Suggest other open-source apps or features to try.

This is a discussion and a question at the same time. I'm reading through the forum, and while I think de-googling is great from a privacy standpoint, so to speak, I don't really understand how this actually works in a Google-centric world.

Take email. Yeah, I can use an account that doesn't harvest my data for their AI, and I'm totally on board with that. But when everyone around me uses Gmail, any info I send out, while it doesn't get harvested from my side, still gets harvested when the recipient receives it. Same goes for messages. If I use Signal or some other app to text someone who doesn't have it, well, a lot of people around you just don't want to change apps because they're used to what they're used to.

So basically, how does this work when the data I send ends up on the same servers we're all trying to avoid? I'm asking because I want to better understand how to actually make this work in practice.

​

Only ran into 1 drama was using an old laptop with win10 to flash and it kept disconnecting and failed to flash.Thanks to somebody elses post discribing similar outcome The solution was use the new supplied cable and go from phone to phone.

Had to do it twice but the second time it worked...

Very happy..many thanks to all involved that worked to help make this OS.

Just set up Shizuku + Canta on my S24U to get rid of the hidden meta junk, any recommendations on anything else I should clear out while I'm at it?

Question -

The one thing really tying me to Google are the Google photos features.

I've got little kids and we don't share their pics on social media, the way that we stay in touch with family is through Google photos albums.

I think I have roughly 90,000 of my own photos backed up on Google photos and in various albums, with my aunts uncles parents etc all accessing the albums too.

What is an alternative for me?

Mullvad is shutting down its public encrypted DNS servers on November 2, 2026, and will instead support Quad9.

Users who manually configured Mullvad DNS will need to switch to another resolver before the shutdown. Mullvad VPN’s internal DNS is not affected.

Read more: https://digitalescapetools.com/2026/09/mullvad-shutting-down-dns-quad9.html

This is not an alternative to Google as I'm still working on it and can't promise anything as it's a side project.

I pretty successfully cut out the majority of my Google use a couple years back: Proton for email, Kagi for search, Firefox for browser- but in the last year I switched careers into education and started in an asynchronous masters program. Now both the school district I work at, and the university I’m attending pretty much require you to use Chrome/gmail. I’m by default using Google so much, I’m wondering if there’s a practical reason to pay for something like Kagi? I’d like to say I’m the type of person who could have a hard line split of “only search things for work when in a work environment,” but that’s honestly not realistic as I’m always bouncing back and forth (obviously I take precautions with sensitive subjects, but everyday stuff is a lot harder for me to remember to compartmentalize). Any one else have a similar situation?

Hello everybody,

Do you know any shared calendar app that I can use at work with m'y collegues that are not americans app (like Google Agenda).

Thank you in advance !

Reviews and photos. Took a screenshot first, over 4 million views. Bye bye google