[johnea]

Android is first and foremost a data harvesting platform, just like gmail. It's not conformant to other linux distributions because goggle wanted to control what was run there. This is even more apparent in studying the evolution of the "app store". apps are now required to conform to the most recent versions of spytware API in order to be distributed.

Don't worry, you can't escape. Your generation can't get married, or even laid, without an account at a multi-billion dollar corporation.

Best of luck with that...

[the_third_wave]

You're thinking about the 'GAPPS' or Google apps, not Android. Those who run AOSP-derived distributions usually have to consciously install those 'GAPPS' - which includes the Google Services Framework (GSF) which some apps insist they can not run without but which often work just fine after dismissing the annoying popup. If you do not install this package you do not get access to those Google services and Google does not get access to your data - the choice is yours.

I have never installed GAPPS on any of my Android devices. I do have microG installed on one device to see whether it does make those apps which do not work without the GSF useable - it mostly does - but I do not use it on my daily devices because even microG does leak some data to Google by connecting to their services.

Banking apps work on my Google-free phone. The Swedish electronic ID service ('BankID') also works. What am I missing?

[j0hnyl]

I believe AOSP is pretty de-googled.