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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
As soon as you start up a new Android phone, you get prompted to sign in with your Google account—but what if you don't want to do that? Maybe you want to take advantage of Android but limit what Google knows about you, or maybe you just prefer the alternative apps; whatever the case, here's how to live a Google-free Android life.
Right from the start we'll be honest and say it's not easy using Android without Google—but it is possible. If you want a more convenient life, then you need to sign right in when prompted. The big miss if you don't is the Google Play Store, but here we'll show you how to get around that and various other obstacles along the way.
We're assuming you're starting with a brand new Android phone fresh from the factory. You can de-Google-ify an existing Android handset, but you'll need to reset it first through the Settings app, to get back to the original setup screen. That means all your existing apps and data get wiped, so you'll need backups of all your important stuff somewhere.
Welcome to your new (or factory reset) Android phone! The prompt to sign in with Google arrives about five screens in, after you've chosen your language and connected up to wifi. When you're prompted to sign in, hit Skip instead, then hit Skip again to confirm that yes, you really do want to use Android without a Google account.
A couple of screens later, Google very kindly asks if you want to opt in to some extra Google services: Location tracking and system diagnostic reports. If you're not happy with either or both of these options, turn the relevant toggle switches off, then hit Agree to continue (you can't use a phone with regular Google-provided Android on it without agreeing to some basic terms and conditions).
And... you should then be in. Don't worry if you see a few Google apps, because they won't be connected to anything—Google Photos, for example, can work as a local image library manager without actually connecting to the cloud or a Google account. If there are any apps you want to get rid of, long-press on their icon and drag the icon up to the Uninstall link at the top.
[...] The big miss if you don't connect your Android phone to your Google account is the Google Play Store: Try and load up the Play Store app and you'll just be met with the sign in screen again. To get around this, you need to start sideloading apps through your Android phone's web browser.
In times gone by you would need to authorize "unknown" apps (not from the Play Store) in Settings, but modern versions of Android ask for authorization on an app-by-app basis. You've got two choices here: Either embrace the Amazon App Store, which isn't as comprehensive as Google's but has most of the big-name apps, or transfer apps over one by one as you need them from the excellent APKMirror repository.
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Monday July 30 2018, @03:38PM (13 children)
My iPhone 7 perpetually prompts me to sign in to iCloud. I don't, because I don't use iCloud.
I filed a bug to report this. Apple's response explained how to completely disable iCloud in the Settings App but I haven't yet disabled iCloud support for Notes because it says that doing so will "delete all of your iCloud notes".
It's not clear whether that will delete them all on my local device so I leave it enabled. Sometime Real Soon Now I'm going to email myself all my notes then disable that too.
On my Mac mini the iCloud login prompt never gives up, but that's OK because it doesn't force itself to be the front-most app so I just move it mostly off the edge of the screen and down in one corner.
For macOS I can disable the UserAgent responsible for that, but to do so would require that I lift a finger to do so. Surely you can see the bind I'm in.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 30 2018, @03:47PM (5 children)
Gaaaah! I got a mac mini a while back to be the general purpose family computer. It works well as intended, everything but that damned iCloud login!!! We do the same thing as you: move it off to a corner. And like you, it has been an annoyance just under the threshold to figure out what I need to do to get it to cut out.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Arik on Monday July 30 2018, @05:14PM (4 children)
Get Slack. Put Slack on Mac. Enjoy Slack.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 30 2018, @09:21PM (3 children)
Slack is the new evil. More top-down spyware level control, resource intensive JS bullcrap, etc.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Arik on Monday July 30 2018, @11:43PM
You can choose to run a crap browser on top of it if you want, of course. It's Free.
http://www.slackware.com/getslack/
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 31 2018, @01:12AM
I run the web client sometimes so I can talk with one of my groups. JFC everything is so slow. IRC but orders of magnitude worse.
(Score: 3, Informative) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Tuesday July 31 2018, @10:29AM
Not THAT "Slack" [slack.com] - but Slack [slackware.com], the original and best. Accept no substitutes.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Monday July 30 2018, @04:08PM (5 children)
No, don't risk wearing out a finger!! I'm quite opposite- I will forgo sleep and food until I disable auto-starting processes that annoy me. Heck, I've unpackaged .app, .kext, installer packages, etc., edited them and their xml, repackaged, and voilà, nirvana.
You said you "don't use iCloud". Then how do you have "iCloud notes" that you're concerned with losing?
And can you back up the "iCloud notes" to an external drive, then disable the iCloud support completely?
They have to be in there somewhere, come-on man, find them, root them out! Emailing is too easy.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday July 30 2018, @05:12PM (3 children)
I think that was the beginning of the end for me. Things very much like that started me down the road to Linux. "WTF do I have seventy three services running on my box, and they are using all of my memory, plus half of virtual memory? Is THIS why my computer is so SLOW?!?!"
It's great having a machine that doesn't do ANYTHING, unless you tell it to do something. And, never having to wait for it to complete some other task in the background. Linux boxen won't even update or upgrade until you explicity order them to do so.
Phones should be like a Linux box. At your service, and not at the service of Microsoft/Google/Amazon/NSA/advertisers/insert_least_favorite_entity_here.
ICE is having a Pretti Good season.
(Score: 3, Funny) by RS3 on Monday July 30 2018, @07:15PM
Oh, I have lots of boring Linux machines. It's awesome. Every now and then I need the challenge and excitement of teaching Windows or MacOS a lesson.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Monday July 30 2018, @07:48PM (1 child)
If you install a GUI distro on a server, you've got a YUGE attack surface.
Commence by stopping all the services that you don't think you actually use. Wait a few days so as to be certain that you really do _not_ need them, then "apt-get remove" or the yum equivalent so as to remove their binaries.
Now try "apt-get remove xlib" or whatever the package is called. You're going to free up quite a lot of disk space.
Remove _all_ the packages your server does not absolutely _require_.
Just to have a _single_ shared library installed increases your attack surface as malware might link to it.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by RS3 on Tuesday July 31 2018, @01:01AM
I agree, and do just that. Well, I generally install X-windows but very rarely run servers in X mode. That's why we have X-server (window) software to run on a workstation. I remember 10ish years ago when I first downloaded Ubuntu Server and excitedly installed it. Tried "startx", "xinit", X, what? No X? Okay, I get it.
Actually the servers I admin are quite well locked down. Under constant attack, but with very few open ports (external firewall too) and IP blocking software that works well. File and directory permissions pretty carefully set.
20 years ago I worked for a medical equipment company (systems / network engineer). Their systems were Novell based. The competition used Unix and Windows. One day the sales manager asked me to list a few reasons why our systems were better. One of my arguments was that nobody could play games on the server. Or run any user apps on the server, for that matter.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Monday July 30 2018, @07:44PM
ALL of iCloud's alleged "services" are enabled by default.
The same login is used for the App Store as for iCloud.
I eventually wanted to install just a very few apps - Google News, Facebook, Google Authenticator.
Somewhere in there I expect my notes got copied to my iCloud account.
I am very strongly of the opinion that for all or devices to _require_ Internet access just to function _at_ _all_ is the result of a conspiracy to convince us to register for paid websites.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 30 2018, @04:12PM
I use iCloud, but only to let the Find My iPhone and Find my Mac work. I have everything else that wants to use iCloud disabled from using it.
This way I'm never prompted to login to iCloud, since it's always autologged in, but it isn't actually doing anything. Well, that I know of, anyway.