MicroG and privacy

[fab]

Thanks @GaelDuval for giving your point of view. I think you do well!
And @pjmbraet you could use /e/ without MiccoG by switching off everything in the “microG” folder in the settings. Would this be good enough for you?

[PNJ88_Beast]

(…) it’s a reasonably correct smoke screen between the user and Google services. It prevents Google to track you personally.

And to add to this, there are many other ways that Google and others can track your activity online. And those efforts are mostly up to the user, not even the manufacturer of the phone or the developers. This is just another piece of the puzzle, so I find it a perfectly acceptable tradeoff.

[trefix]

Hello.

That’s why I asked in my thread (french) about “how-to config” /e/, because most users realy don’t know where they can improve privacy in settings and then by using safely there /e/phone.

I think users need a “full-upgrade”

[b3pio]

@Guenter

necessary to log-in with a Google-account

No you dont need to log in with a Goolag account at all for microg to function.

[b3pio]

yes, If you need it for the apps push notification that are using google push…

[0x7C0]

@b3pio

yes, If you need it for the apps push notification that are using google push

I don’t have much experience with microG but are you sure that push notifications do work without a google account. How do you get an FCM registration ID without a corresponding account?

[b3pio]

@0x7C0

How do you get an FCM registration ID without a corresponding account?

You do not need to log in, just enable the settings before installing any apps that require it, any apps you have installed before enabling you have to re-install after enabling. Then once something is pushed it will appear in the list of cloud messaging apps in microg settings.

[pjmbraet]

@GaelDuval

t’s an odyssey

An odyssey it will be, not only for /e/, but for all of us. When government- and financial public institutions make themselves reliant on the services of big data companies, and demand the mandatory use of these services by the public to install their apps, there is still a long journey ahead before a privacy-friendly mobile operating system becomes even possible, unless we deny using these apps. What means making small payments by phone or logging in easily to public services remains impossible, in my country even without the use of Google services. So I don’t have a need to use a smartphone anymore.
About MicroG: though it was all set as disabled, set to “Off” and after that disabled in Settings and even set to “Force stop” it turned itself on spontaneously and installed UnifiedNlp (no GAPPS) without asking permission when I tried to install Payconic from the Aurora Store. Now it is impossible to uninstall UnifiedNlp. That is why I’ll use /e/ when it becomes available for tablets without the phone function and certainly without MicroG. Or that malicious app MicroG should be removable.
For now I’m waiting for the delivery next week of another model of SIM card, and I’ll return to the “dumbphone” phonecalls and SMS only. I stop using the smartphone totally.

[pjmbraet]

I did. It turned itself on spontaneously.

[mash]

@GaelDuval

So, yes, we microG is the “best bad solution” for apps. It’s still a dependency to Google services, but it makes Android apps work, have push notifications etc. It also provide some nice features such as the geolocation API that we can plug to something else than Google.

well – the map view component in microG is horrible buggy and brakes in fact the usability of many apps in practice.

[0x7C0]

Thanks @b3pio . You were right. I assumed I needed to use an account since microG FCM always failed on my previous device and it worked when adding a google account. However based on your info I found Google Cloud Messaging doesn't seem to work and that indeed allowed FCM to work without an account. Don’t know if you already got it working @Guenter but following the instructions in the link (dialing that number) fixed it for me. Thanks again!

[andrelam]

Reminder: this topic is about MicroG and privacy …

[kalman]

You can use e on a tablet already, there are unofficial builds for lenovo yoga.

[pjmbraet]

I’m waiting for espressowifi ( Samsung Galaxy tab 2 ). I’ll try to build it myself when I find some time for it. Without MicroG, Apps (without MicroG the /e/ app store is really a G00gl attack) and off course without Phone and SMS apps because this tablet doesn’t support it.