[Kequc]

I'd be very interested in seeing a Lineageos that does not include Google's proprietary and closed source Google Play Services. I understand you can download Lineageos without Google Play Services however a hundred different things you wouldn't expect the os depends on will stop working including GPS and even notifications.

I think it should be an ambition of the project, while remaining open source, to fill those holes. There are open source workarounds in the wild but they are not so easy to use. Google works against them with seemingly every update to android, and Lineageos helps Google by refusing to support signature spoofing. The mechanism by which use of alternatives is even possible.

Lineageos says that it supports an experience free from Google Play Services but in practice use of Lineageos without it requires a custom build of the operating system. Which is too bad, I think that would be a reasonably large portion of the potential user base.

[mafuyu]

https://lineage.microg.org/

MicroG has been picking up steam. They're doing OTA updates of Lineage + MicroG now.

[dgllghr]

I use this on my Nexus 6P and it's surprisingly great! The only app that I really need that I have problems with is Lyft, but other than that everything I need works smoothly. I get as many apps as I can from F-Droid and use Yalp Store to get the rest. Preferring F-Droid apps also means I have fewer apps that expect Google Play Services.

[Kequc]

Up until now I wasn't aware microG was doing their own builds for Lineageos, when did that start? I'm quite happy to see that, it'll help a lot of people. I'd still rather see a world where custom builds aren't necessary.

[9034725985]

Not that long ago. I use it on my Nexus 6 (shamu) but I also use yalp to get apps from the play store.

Here is a relevant discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15617615

[subway]

I so desperately want to use MicroG, but keep having to go back to the official framework. The handful of apps I use that rely on Play (Lyft, Transit App, One Bus Away) all insist the Play Framework needs to be updated.

[muxator]

I am on a plain LineageOs, no play services, apps installed directly via their APKs.

GPS & maps: Google Maps and Open Street Maps both work normally.

IM: Whatsapp, Telegram, Skype work normally (but I suppose they make use of a custom notification system)

Browser: Firefox seems not to care about play services

Media: Vlc, Netflix, MX Player are all fine.

[this_user]

Lineage builds usually come per default without Google services or apps. It's your decision whether or not you install them. Of course, lots of 3rd party apps do rely on the Google services and won't work without. There is no good workaround for that short of re-implementing the Google APIs yourself or trying to use microG.

[Avamander]

> It's your decision whether or not you install them.

FYI Even without GAPPs lineageOS contacts Google with IMHO way too much information, for example when you connect to a WiFi network a request to Google is made.

[gruez]

that's for internet connectivity checking, and it's an anonymous http request (no cookies). iOS/windows does it as well (not sure about linux), and I can't see how you can implement such a feature without phoning home to some server.

[swiley]

GNU/Linux doesn't do anything like that by default unless you where to write a script to.

I honestly don't see a good reason to do it although one of my friends pointed out that using TOR is probably one of the better ways to check for this since it won't rely on a specific server.

[icebraining]

Well, GNU/Linux itself is not an OS, but Ubuntu and Fedora do enable that check in NetworkManager by default, whereas Debian doesn't (for privacy reasons).

[zaarn]

Linux doesn't include a desktop or browser by default.

Firefox will make these requests as does Google Chrome and Chromium. NetworkManager will do them too and various GUI tools for network configuration will try it.

Otherwise Captive Portals would simply break your internet without notice.

[Avamander]

No cookies but an user agent and your IP, so basically your rough location in the world.

[anchpop]

www.example.com

[darklajid]

I don't think you can ship millions of devices that randomly hit on a URL that you don't control or own.

Example.com is for examples (so that if you copy & paste my code, you don't do weird things). I am not convinced that example.com would appreciate the worlds phones to use it at a whim..

(Plus, I'm not sure that's possible without controlling the domain. Not sure if the current ways to detect a capture portal are satisfied by a random 200 OK or actually _check the content_ of the reply. Which needs you to control said content)

[Kequc]

A lot of first party apps and basic os functionality also relies on Google Play Services. As Google have been building more and more into the closed source portion of their operating system. They are attempting to create a foothold where the operating system doesn't work without it.

[firmgently]

I'm also wondering what basic OS functionality is missing?

I've been running LineageOS 14.1 on a Sony Xperia tablet for several months without Google Play Services or MicroG and am not noticing any missing basic functionality. I do tend towards open source apps and away from Google stuff but I'm by no means strict about it. I use Yalp and F-Droid to install apps.

Some of the apps I have installed (eg. SnapSeed) complain about missing Google Play Services and say they won't function but I ignore the warning and they seem to operate correctly... if there's some missing functionality I've yet to encounter it, I'm happily editing and exporting photos.

I'm certain that some apps would fail to function without Google Play Services, just that I don't happen to have fallen foul of any of them. My usage is probably not hugely standard but I use modern browsers (Chromium/FF), video/audio players (VLC/Black Player/Spotify), K9 for email, browse and edit RAW photos... and jump into Debian Stretch via Linux Deploy + Xserver XSDL where I often do web dev work with tmux/vim and proper desktop Chrome/FF including Developer Tools. I'm using a Bluetooth keyboard and speakers... can't really think what basic things I might be missing?

EDIT: (this is just the standard install of LineageOS btw - which doesn't come with Google Play Services, you have to install them separately - I just skipped that step)

[yjftsjthsd-h]

> Xserver XSDL

How's that work for you? I've tried it but it seemed a little rough.

[endemic]

Hmm, do you have any examples of this? I'm curious as I've been running LineageOS without Play Services... seems to work quite well, but maybe I'm missing something?

[nimrody]

Do you use whatsapp or any similar messenger app? If so, do you receive notifications when the app is not running (foreground or background)

Play services is responsible for connectivity with Google's servers which are used to distribute notifications to the device.

Play services is probably also responsible for backing up the App's data to Google servers (not sure about this one)

[ViViDboarder]

Those aren't first party apps.

[jraph]

The AOSP keyboard lacks functionality when compared to Google keyboard by default: there is no way to swipe on the keyboard to write words, and you cannot input emojis by writing their description.

[kiriakasis]

The main problem was (IIRC) that other services explicitally refer to google play services, and to circumvent that they would need to disable a security check, which is against the project policy (there were discussion whether it was a political or technical choice).

[culot]

I wonder if CopperheadOS would fit the bill?

[gruez]

[deleted]

[forapurpose]

Do you mean that CopperheadOS is derived from the Android Open Source Project (AOSP), which is developed by Google?

[milcron]

> Copperhead is an information security firm located in Toronto, Canada, specializing in protecting mobile data and devices through security assessments and secure endpoint deployments.