I am so endlessly angry at this, I actually switched banks because my old bank's app didn't work on a degoogled phone.
this post was submitted on 01 May 2026
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Gross they are acting like USA.
It is Google, one of the pillars of evil in the USA.
Thats great and all, but completely non-actionable.
Tell me instead - what exactly should I do?
Install GrapheneOS on a used Pixel or an upcoming Moto.
Or e/os on its supported devices
Move. Currently get a phone compatible with Lineage/GrapheneOS (second hand pixel, coz fuck Google). Soonish, Linux phone.
The Linux phone is like Iranian nukes... always just right around the corner.
Sad but true, or fusion, or AGI. Still volla is selling even if not really open source, and pressure is building.
i think a solution would either cone through court or law
The deal can't be altered if there's no Vader in the loop.
Build on hardware you control. Your data stays there. No company in the middle. No terms to change. No altered deal.
Does any hardware offer all (or at least most) of the functions of a modern flagship phone, and at least 50% of the performance and applications?
There is GrapheneOS, but since it is downstream of Google code, that brings us back to the Vader issue: Google has recently started releasing fewer Android updates, and all Graphene can do is pray they don't alter the deal further.
That’s not why 99% of people buy an Android phone. They buy it because it’s the only alternative to iPhones, and they start at significantly cheaper prices than iPhones.
The people that buy Android phones for their “openness” are the extreme minority.
The fact that android wasn't closed like apple's ecosystem was the exact reason I rejected apple for android.
You aren't wrong. Only minor quibble is that a reason many of us use android is that it's been more open. Apple treats its customers like shit, and locking their hardware and software down like android is about to move even further toward, is all part of that overall contempt apple shows for customers. I would guess that if apple didn't lock their ecosystem so tight, Google may not have planned to make this change. They've probably been talking for years about how they can do it if apple gets away with it. They finally decided it was going to be worth pissing off a segment of users. Fucking assholes.
I removed the email account from my Google account years ago and I run Graphene, which I hope will weather the storms. This is possible to do by the way. The only thing I still use a google account for is subscriptions. For a while I was able to use FreeTube to get away from that, but it's been shaky at best in the past few months. I should try it again.
The minute there's an alternative to YouTube, a real, meaningful one- which I'm not sure is possible, I'm deleting the google account entirely.
Peertube works. The only missing piece is content creator migrating (or at least use both platforms).
You can use Pipepipe, Libretube, Clipious or Newpipe without a google account and still have all of your channel subscriptions.
What happens when the Google API decides it can't identify you, or comes across an offensive video (like world news, or worse, a gay person), and then tells you to sign in?
I don't think Tubular (a NewPipe fork) has the option to use a proxy like Invidious, which may be a workaround...
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Pipepipe
What a name!
Realistically, how many people bought an Android phone because it was open? I doubt most people even considered that, or know that it may have been true. Most people who buy Android phones do it because they don't like iPhones, or don't want to spend the amount necessary to get one. It's just the "other brand of phone".
If the message is "this is what they're taking away from you!" it's helpful if the people know what they had first.
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