This is not very detailed, but hopefully it will help people to protect their privacy completely.
- Use UAD to debloat your phone, don’t forget to download ADB and keep in the same folder as UAD and enable USB debugging in your Android phone, make backups of your important files before you use UAD and as extra advice, download a separate reliable launcher and keyboard, why? you ask, because most OEM keyboards and launchers contain spyware, so UAD may remove them and if no replacement was available when UAD does that then your phone will be trapped in boot mode, because there is no launcher. If any needed app got removed by USD, remember that you can restore it. And disconnect from any OEM accounts on your phone.
- After you debloat your phone, make sure you disable Google Play Store( you can replace it with F-Droid, Huawei app gallery, UpToDown or ApkPure) and install Sunup from F-Droid to get notifications. After that you can disable Google Play Services( some apps need it, so you need to check if your apps does work without Google play services).
- Use a DNS service that block Google: you can use Custom Next DNS or Adguard DNS(Require registration) with No-Google list from it’s filter settings or if you want an account free option, you can use Decloudus DNS, but the free service suffer from down time frequently.
My biggest concern with debloating would be that my banking app stops to work because some kind of critical system app is missing.
I’ve got GrapheneOS. It sandboxes the Google Play so it can’t call home, but can still show notifications.
Also I use the Aurora store with an anonymous profile to get apps that I need that aren’t libre.
It’s sandboxed as a user app, the goal being that you can plug it’s inputs so the outputs are less talkative to Google’s servers, it will still call home until you remove its network permissions, but then notifications don’t work.
Those notifictations still go via google servers tho
Aurora is a thing of beauty when you really need a specific app on the Play Store.
I do notice however that a local public transport app is malfunctioning since a few weeks, I suspect because of a Play Store update enforcing some dependency or integrity check, causing some apps to fail. For now, it’s just one or two, but I’m anxiously bracing for the next app to fail.
If all you need from the public transport apps is routing and directions, maybe Transportr or Öffi could be the replacement you need.
I use Osmand for regular navigation and Yandex Maps in the browser for live public transport locations and more accurate business info.
I’ve found that of you tap/hold on the app and stopbit in the settings, then reopen it, it works.
Aurora store still connect to Google servers to give you the apps you want.
Yes, but anonymously.
I just remembered this site which I have previously used to download the latest apk directly from Play Store for sideloading purposes.
https://apps.evozi.com/apk-downloader/
I’ll probably keep on using it for quickly obtaining the latest apk from Play Store in situations where the anonymous Aurora accounts are being rate limited or something like that, if the app is urgently needed.
