this post was submitted on 18 Feb 2025
51 points (98.1% liked)

DeGoogle Yourself

9726 readers
23 users here now

A community for those that would like to get away from Google.

Here you may post anything related to DeGoogling, why we should do it or good software alternatives!

Rules

  1. Be respectful even in disagreement

  2. No advertising unless it is very relevent and justified. Do not do this excessively.

  3. No low value posts / memes. We or you need to learn, or discuss something.

Related communities

[email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Hello. I have been trying to DeGoogle for about one month, migrating from Google to other services. But the biggest obstacle is Android, which is deeply embedded with Google services and, of course, trackers. It's really, really hard to replace it with alternatives. There are no alternatives I know that are compatible with my phone. Maybe I will have to buy a new phone, or look for even more alternatives, or code my own operating system (OS) (but I can't code!). I don't know whether I can De- this Android. Hmmm...

Is there any good way to De- this Android? If I can't, is there any way to improve privacy and minimize the ability and impact of Google on this "failed to DeGoogle" phone? Thanks for any advice.

I'm using Redmi Note 13.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

is this a rant or are you looking for actionable info? if it's the latter, you need to determine which version you got exactly. Xiaomi ships different versions under the same name. like, they start off with Snapdragon SoC, then swap in Mediatek, then maybe slip in previous gen Snapdragons with only 4G/no NFC, etc.

you also didn't specify if you've already unlocked the bootloader, which is an (at least) week-long process.

your best bet would be to get rid of that phone, then go to LineageOS devices page, use the Filter to filter for current version (i.e. 22 at the moment) and then look for used devices you can get at cheaply. e.g. although it's a 5-year old model, the Poco F1 is an almost ideal hacker phone - fast SoC (faster than the one you got), available with 8 GB RAM, has the widest OS support (including PostmarketOS), it's not glued shut so you can swap the battery, etc.

edit: forgot to mention, you want a device that has official LineageOS support. that's not the only way to get a non-google-infested phone, but then you're dependent on some rando from XDA to ship you updates when they get around to it.

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago

I still have my poco f1 and I liked that phone a lot but my carrier decided it will no longer work on their network and I had to buy a new phone ๐Ÿ™ƒ