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Life After Google

So, you've just installed a non-Google Android distribution on your phone. Now what?

Life After Google
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This is part 2 in a series on getting away from Big Tech. If you haven't read it yet, I recommend reading part 1 first.

Installing Apps

Since you are not using Google anymore, you might be wondering where do you get your apps from. When you step away from the Google ecosystem, you no longer have access to the apps you used to use. In some cases, you might find the very same app elsewhere, and in some cases you might find an alternative app with the same or similar functionality. And in some cases, you still need the Google Play Store.

Thankfully the open source community once again has the answer, through two apps called F-Droid and AuroraStore.

F-Droid

https://f-droid.org/

F-Droid is a repository of open source apps, including replacements for many of the apps you might have used in the past. One of the great things about the F-Droid store is that it will tell you if an app uses services or code that might be problematic (i.e. they use a proprietary service like Facebook or Twitter, or their source code is not entirely open source).

Most of the Android distributions I listed in my previous post come with the F-Droid store pre-installed. If not, it's a simple process to download and install it on your phone. You can even do it with your existing Android phone!

As with all things open source, F-Droid can feel a little like the wild west at times. Some apps are old and haven't been updated in years, some are frequently updated but a little buggy, and some are rock solid. There are also many choices for a single service you might have used on your old phone.

Having said that, I have found a lot of really great apps in the F-Droid repositories, and they have become the main apps I use on a daily basis.

AuroraStore

https://auroraoss.com/

If there is no app that matches one of the apps you used to use, and F-Droid doesn't have any viable alternatives, the best option may be to just use the Google Play store.

The AuroraStore app (which is also available in F-Droid) is able to browse, download and install apps from the Google Play store. Have a game you still want to play? Download it through AuroraStore.

The problem with Google Maps

Google Maps is the hardest app to replace, and I haven't yet found a reliable replacement for it. Most people use Maps for getting directions from one place to another, and none of the alternate apps that I have tried have anything like it, sadly.

You have two options here, you can either install the Google Maps app via the AuroraStore app, or you can just use Google Maps in your mobile browser. I personally just use Google Maps in the browser, and I haven't really encountered any situations that make me miss the app.

Other missing features

There are never truly complete replacements for everything in a particular ecosystem, even when moving between the Google and Apple ecosystems, so it should come as no surprise that not everything can be replaced with open source and privacy-respecting alternatives.

Smart watches

One of the areas that is still lacking in the Google alternatives space is smart watches. I was given a Fossil smart watch running Android Wear as a gift, and there is currently no support for Android Wear devices in the open source community.

While I am sad that I cannot use my watch, I do have an analog watch that I use instead. And to be honest, I felt a little bit too "connected" with it, so I feel it was a better move in the long run.

Cameras

If you've gotten used to the Google Camera on the Pixel phones, you'll find the default camera that comes with Android rudimentary and underwhelming. There are some slightly better cameras in F-Droid, and I recommend trying them out, but you may end up just installing Google Camera via AuroraStore.

The downside to this is that Google Camera refuses to use the built-in gallery when viewing photos, and insists on using Google Photos. I just ignore it and open my gallery app.

If you've used the default photo gallery app on your phone, you might not miss much (if anything) with the default gallery that comes with Android. However, if you've used Google Photos, you'll probably find a few things annoying. The default gallery has no search feature, and it doesn't have Google's proprietary machine learning that examines all your photos and provides search keywords to make searching easier.

I personally haven't used this much, and tend to search based on date, which means that I've never had an issue with the default gallery app.

Other missing features

Aside from Google Maps, I personally have not really found any major missing features by largely removing myself from the Google ecosystem. I was already on the path to replace Google with privacy-respecting alternatives, and I'll cover some alternatives to things like Google Drive and GMail in a subsequent article.

Suggested replacement apps

By now you may be wanting to know if there are any recommended replacements for Google apps, so I've listed a number of alternatives below, with links to their entries in F-Droid.

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