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by 18dhaFijHH728 1428 days ago
I recently migrated to a degoogled ROM and since many apps use google for push notifications, I've just been going without. And JTS honestly been quite freeing. If someone needs a quick response they can reach me on signal.
2 comments

That's just not truth, i use phones without gapps for 5-8 years and hardly missing any notifications, both Whatsapp and Signal can push them, same with various email clients for instance Aquamail I use Business calendar pro and various other app, though I disable most of those to not be bothered. It's actually quite difficult for me to find app which could not push notifications on my no gapps phones.
Calendars and emails usually don’t need push to show notifications. Email clients usually use imap streaming (if supported) or just poll your inbox every x minutes.

We are specifically talking about push via GCM / Apple here. Afaik signal opens a websocket in the background if GCM push is not supported. Or at least that’s how it worked a few years ago.

Google Cloud Messaging features (push) only work when you have gapps installed or use an alternative implementation like microg.

I assume that whatsapp also has some kind of fallback strategy built in.

Which rom are you using?
This has been my experience as well using a degoogled ROM for the first time. I feel I got so much time back. Now I'm really using my phone and not the other way around.

I prefer Session for messaging and for family I ask them to reach me on Telegram FOSS.