Life without Google apps

Last updated: 2019-01-17

LineageOS with Google apps

If you install LineageOS you can also install the Google apps that you are familiar with using.

For the Essential PH-1 running LineageOS 15.1 you will need to go to OpenGapps.org and download a zip file with whatever you desire.

You will need to choose:

Platform: ARM64

Android: 8.1

Variant: nano

Until you read more on that site, stick with the nano package. You can download more apps from the Google Play Store.

LineageOS without Google apps

Before you undertake living without Google apps, look at your phone and decide if you can live without most everything published by Google. If you cannot then you need to install gapps.

My app selections for living without Google apps:

F-Droid

F-Droid (the F-Droid Store)

All items from F-Droid are free and open source. Here are my recommendations (alphabetically except location services):


 UnifiedNlp (no GAPPS)

 Deja Vu Location Service

-

 Adaway (adblocking that requires root)

 Afwall+ (firewall that requires root)

 Amaze (file manager)

 andOTP (two factor authenticator)

 AnySoftKeyboard

 Audio Recorder

 Barcode Scanner

 DAVdroid (necessary for accessing online calendars and contacts (works with Google accounts))

 DictionaryForMIDs

 DiskUsage

 Etar (calendar)

 Book Reader

 Fennec Fox (this is Firefox - be sure to install ublock origin extension)

 ICSdroid (allows syncing of shared calendars)

 KeePassDX

 LaunchTime

 LibreOffice Viewer

 Maps (for traffic info, I keep a link to Google Maps in the web browser)

 Mathdroid (calculator)

 Netguard (firewall that does not require root; also blocks ads)

 Newpipe (YouTube replacement)

 Open Camera (if not using Essential Camera app. This is better if increase jpg quality.)

 OsmAnd~ (maps)

 Sound Recorder

 Syncthing (set it to sync only on power) If you set this up with one sync for camera and another for all your other data you will always have a backup of your phone and can easily move things on and off of it.

 Termux

 Unit Converter Ultimate

 Vinyl Music Player (add .nomedia file to any directories you don't want android to scan for music, video, etc.)

 Voice (audiobook player)

 VLC (media player)

 Wifi Analyzer

 Wikipedia

 Yalp Store (allows downloading apps from Google Play Store)

Note: With Android 8.1 use the Files program to move the F-Droid apk download to Documents in order to install it

Yalp Store and Google Play Store

Yalp downloads apps from the Google Play Store. Apps may or may not work with LineageOS without the Google Play Services installed (see gapps above).

Apps I know work without Google Play Services:


 Essential Camera (block this app in the firewall; so many trackers)

 VLC (nightlies also available from videolan.org

 Signal Private Messenger (also available from signal.org)

 Whatsapp (also available from whatsapp.com)

Using DAVDroid

If you want to use DAVDroid along with a google account (calendar, contacts) this is how you set it up:

First, you must have less secure apps turned on in your Google account.
Second, when you create the setting in DAVDroid choose URL plus username and password. For the URL enter:

https://www.google.com/calendar/dav/[email protected]/events

Note: If you have shared calendars they will not show up. For that you can use ICSdroid. You can even do that for your own calendar but will only have read only access.

Using location services

UnifiedNlp (no GAPPS) is from the microg project and also requires a backend where I have chosen Deja Vu Location Service.

You can read about the other location services and choose ones that you prefer. If you want to use mapping programs with best efficiency you should install some location service. Read about setting up these apps when you install them.

Be sure to have your location services set to battery saving.

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