| This isn't true. There's two caveats: (a) it's a little unstable with no Google account but using a throwaway Google account fixes this, and (b) it doesn't get you away from Google because they still have a lot of ways to track you in Android without an account, but... You can disable Play services and install Aurora Store from F-Droid and have a very reasonable Android experience with no Google account. Aurora Store is a Play Store client that doesn't require a Google account, so you can get access to all the "normal" commercial apps and games that are absent on F-Droid. The developers use a central account for API access which can get rate limited and get blocked sometimes (they recommend you sign in with your own throwaway Google account to avoid this), but otherwise it's better than Play Store in many ways. Some apps will not work without Play services but I've found that in most cases it's either a matter of: - some annoying notification function of the app doesn't work but the rest of the app works fine - in some rare cases, apps with a strong reliance on Play services have alternative independent builds available as apk from their own website You can also just leave Play services enabled and simply never log into your Google account (the Aurora account login is separate, it doesn't link into the rest of the device) BUT if you do this Google will plague you with prompts to login for all eternity. |