In the case of Seymour v. Colorado, Denver police executed a search warrant that required Google to provide the IP addresses of anyone who had searched for...
There are alternatives for every service they offer.
I used to believe that, but what’s the alternative for a phone keyboard with swipe typing and speech recognition that actually works?
Or a phone that gets reliable push messages and also works for banking?
Cause I hate Google, but these are things I actually need in my life.
First, I use GrapheneOS, so I can continue using Gboard and a few other Google products that do not warrant or require an internet connection, with network access disabled.
Alternatively, the next best keyboard is grammarly (also with network access dsiabled) and you can also use https://voiceinput.futo.org with that one.
Understanding that you probably paraphrased for brevity, it’s hard to respond with anything helpful because only you know where the goalposts of, “actually works,” are – same thing with, “reliable push messages,” and, “works for banking.” I’ve used swipe input on the native Samsung keyboard and SwiftKey and found that they work just fine, but not as good as GBoard. If you’re going from a Google-invested product to pretty much anything else, it’s likely going to be a worse user experience, so you just have to set your expectations appropriately and keep in mind that what you’re getting in return for that is intangible but important.
What have you tried so far, and how have they failed you with respect to the metrics you’ve stated?
Swiftkey isn’t a real option for me, it just sends my data to another one of the big 3 tech megacorporations.
What I’ve tried:
Degoogled my phone with UAD and used apps that can run in the background instead of relying on Google Play Services for push. But I kept missing important messages cause push didn’t work reliably. It lead to a wild goose chase of which system apps can be disabled and which permissions revoked without losing core functions, none of which is documented properly anywhere. Location only worked outside sometimes and took 3 minutes for a fix. And it still may not even do anything for privacy because the underlying system is made by Google and could just ignore all of my settings.
Installed LineageOS. This solved the problems above. But my banking app refused to even launch on it.
Gave up, again used a debloated Android but kept Google Play Services and its dependencies intact and just used no Google account or Google apps. Now banking works, push works, location works. But Google still has unlimited root access to my device, contacts, calls, SMS, location, so really what’s the point?
How feasible is it to interact with your bank or other necessary services in a browser vs using the play store app? I can see LineageOS being viable if you can make such a transition.
Impossible. I either need a phone or buy a TAN generator for 2FA.
I’m currently thinking about that, or just leaving a spare phone at home with no data on it and location disabled. But the banking app is also used to verify bigger credit card payments. And without having it on me, I would have been unable to pay for plane or train tickets while traveling more than once.
honestly, having a spare phone that sits at home is a great solution. Your main phone can be a native pixel/grapheneos (not lineage, graphene has no issues with feature comparability). And the spare phone at run all the apps for, idk, your robot vaccum, smart home, etc. At home you have more control of data and connectivity.
we all have old phones that can be used as spares. My 8 yr old phone is the “remote control” for my house. Using accounts that don’t tie to me, on it’s own vlan, pi-holed, etc
Sounds like you’re on Android but there are still options. I am no subject matter expert but there are many who are and they are just a quick duckduckgo search away. Good luck!
for speech recognition there is “futo voice” which not only works better than Google’s speech talk-to-type by allowing the user to fluently speak, but it also works offline and doesn’t upload voice recordings anywhere. You won’t be able to use it with gboard because google will not allow the use of another talk-to-speech engine with gboard, you’ll have to download another keyboard first.
mobile banking is an unnecessary luxary. Moving money around/paying CC biils often takes days to go through anyway so the urgency of “doing it now” mobily can wait until you’re at your desktop.
Push notifications, I’ll give you. Without any services some apps cannot recieve push notifications. As the other user suggested, using a pixel with grapheneos, you can install sandboxes google services or microG and then have full functionality.
On grapheneOS you can choose which apps have access to internet/data much more fine-grained that what google allows you.
It’s actually because the Tensor chip is the most secure one available, and because Google promises several years of software updates, with a solid history to back it up.
You mean the Tensor chips that don’t appear until 6th gen, even though the project supports 5th and 4th gen?
They also literally state:
Devices need to be meeting the standards of the project in order to be considered as potential targets. In addition to support for installing other operating systems…
And
Devices with support for alternative operating systems as an afterthought will not be considered.
This pretty much rules out 99% of smartphones. I would argue this even rules out non-Pixel favourites such as the OnePlus lineup, even though I’m writing this on a Lineage-loaded OnePlus 7T. Support for other ROMs is there but it’s quite fucky. Add in what you said about firmware support and yeah, only the Pixel lineup would apply.
I used to believe that, but what’s the alternative for a phone keyboard with swipe typing and speech recognition that actually works?
Or a phone that gets reliable push messages and also works for banking?
Cause I hate Google, but these are things I actually need in my life.
So, I have a few solutions for this.
First, I use GrapheneOS, so I can continue using Gboard and a few other Google products that do not warrant or require an internet connection, with network access disabled.
Alternatively, the next best keyboard is grammarly (also with network access dsiabled) and you can also use https://voiceinput.futo.org with that one.
Understanding that you probably paraphrased for brevity, it’s hard to respond with anything helpful because only you know where the goalposts of, “actually works,” are – same thing with, “reliable push messages,” and, “works for banking.” I’ve used swipe input on the native Samsung keyboard and SwiftKey and found that they work just fine, but not as good as GBoard. If you’re going from a Google-invested product to pretty much anything else, it’s likely going to be a worse user experience, so you just have to set your expectations appropriately and keep in mind that what you’re getting in return for that is intangible but important.
What have you tried so far, and how have they failed you with respect to the metrics you’ve stated?
Swiftkey isn’t a real option for me, it just sends my data to another one of the big 3 tech megacorporations.
What I’ve tried:
How feasible is it to interact with your bank or other necessary services in a browser vs using the play store app? I can see LineageOS being viable if you can make such a transition.
Impossible. I either need a phone or buy a TAN generator for 2FA.
I’m currently thinking about that, or just leaving a spare phone at home with no data on it and location disabled. But the banking app is also used to verify bigger credit card payments. And without having it on me, I would have been unable to pay for plane or train tickets while traveling more than once.
honestly, having a spare phone that sits at home is a great solution. Your main phone can be a native pixel/grapheneos (not lineage, graphene has no issues with feature comparability). And the spare phone at run all the apps for, idk, your robot vaccum, smart home, etc. At home you have more control of data and connectivity.
we all have old phones that can be used as spares. My 8 yr old phone is the “remote control” for my house. Using accounts that don’t tie to me, on it’s own vlan, pi-holed, etc
Sounds like you’re on Android but there are still options. I am no subject matter expert but there are many who are and they are just a quick duckduckgo search away. Good luck!
for speech recognition there is “futo voice” which not only works better than Google’s speech talk-to-type by allowing the user to fluently speak, but it also works offline and doesn’t upload voice recordings anywhere. You won’t be able to use it with gboard because google will not allow the use of another talk-to-speech engine with gboard, you’ll have to download another keyboard first.
mobile banking is an unnecessary luxary. Moving money around/paying CC biils often takes days to go through anyway so the urgency of “doing it now” mobily can wait until you’re at your desktop.
Push notifications, I’ll give you. Without any services some apps cannot recieve push notifications. As the other user suggested, using a pixel with grapheneos, you can install sandboxes google services or microG and then have full functionality.
On grapheneOS you can choose which apps have access to internet/data much more fine-grained that what google allows you.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
futo voice
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
deleted by creator
Which only supports Google phones
Only because those are the phones most consistently open to modification
It’s actually because the Tensor chip is the most secure one available, and because Google promises several years of software updates, with a solid history to back it up.
https://grapheneos.org/faq#future-devices
You mean the Tensor chips that don’t appear until 6th gen, even though the project supports 5th and 4th gen?
They also literally state:
And
This pretty much rules out 99% of smartphones. I would argue this even rules out non-Pixel favourites such as the OnePlus lineup, even though I’m writing this on a Lineage-loaded OnePlus 7T. Support for other ROMs is there but it’s quite fucky. Add in what you said about firmware support and yeah, only the Pixel lineup would apply.
Yes, thank you for pointing that out