You might choose to use Lineage OS with Gapps. Then you will have a measure of debloating but still the Google. It is not a stupid question because these things are not intuitive to some of us at first. But it would seem to me insane to install a degoogled system then google it!
So, Is it impossible to install Google Play in /e/ ?
That’s why I thought this question may be stupid one
I hardly use any google services and I don’t like to sell my soul to Google, however only several paid apps, which were developed by third parties slow me down. It’s really direnma for me
Is there no solution for now?
But be aware that even if you get the Play Store to work for you this way, /e/OS restrictions still apply to the underlying Google services many Apps from the Play Store would expect on the phone …
Even if you install Google Apps like the Play Store (or Maps, or GMail, or else), in /e/OS the underlying Google services are still being mimicked by microG.
You could go the other way. Write to the app developer saying you are happy to pay for their app but not to do Google. Does the app require Google or is G just there to validate your payment. Perhaps there are other ways to do the job the apps do? Or keep a cheap Google phone in a shed and have an /e/ phone as your regular.
Edit, it might be worth searching this forum for the specific apps you need to see if others have worked around any issues.
I did as @noodlejetski suggested and temporarily logged in in Aurora with my old Google account. I installed several apps I bought before on another device (e.g. Davx5). Althoug I had to press a “pay” button, my credit card was never accounted (until now anyway). Aurora runs on top of Google Play Store, and the Play Store normally lets you reinstall bought apps on other devices without billing. So I am quite confident that it works out ok.
Thank you for the hint, @noodlejetski , this surely is a very good thing! I noticed it myself in the mean time (but only after I configured Davx5 on my FP4).
The OP asks to retain privacy. One can go to all the bother of degoogling your phone, then in one sign in to Google you expose your SIM, your IMEI, and a big fingerprint to Google and to unknown third parties. Now everything you do on this device is to some degree compromised.
they also asked if it’s possible to install Play Store, too. I’d argue that using Aurora Store with a Google login is a bit better than installing that.
So I see this as an entry level question before the OP commits to /e/. Full disclosure, my dislike of Google is at the extreme end of moderate. I do not really want to get into a debate about least worst!
To me it makes a difference. To occasionally log in to Play Store via Aurora is not the same as having Google services running all the time, sending MB of data to Google in the background every day…
However, if I thought of it earlier I should perhaps not have used my old Google account on my new Fairphone before installing /e/OS…
But since every action of a user in the www is trackable, and more or less sophisticated profiling probably takes place all the time, I would not like to get too paranoid on this… (the internet is not even a safe place for people who don’t use it…)
Hello. I was a bit surprised at this thread getting such a long
Yesterday I tried out microG attached with google account. Then I installed my hoping paid app, though its price was shown up instead of “install” button, it was succeeded anyways without double paid. However, after that, the app couldn’t run on my OS (by the way, at that time I had installed not /e/OS but CalyxOS ). The app probably required runtime license for running. I need to decide which one, privacy or convinience again.
