Privacy

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A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

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A tip for Android users. (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

6 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I just wanted to share that you can disable google play store on stock Android and not lose that much functionality, if for any reason you use an app that require Google play store or you want to make a play store purchase, you can enable it again.

I personally disabled it and I get my apps from Aurora Store, ApkPure and Droidify.

It decreased my phone battery usage by a lot and I am less dependent on google overall.

all 7 comments

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Careful, Google is currently forcing apps to migrate from SafetyNet to PlayProtect!
SafetyNet is used by tons of security theater apps like banking 2FA. It is an API of play services.
PlayProtect is basically the same but you have to talk to it though google play. This is a blatant move by google to make exactly what OP is suggesting impossible, and means that if you do this, you may soon see many apps break that you are forced to use.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

I use a mix of opensource and closed source apps, so I would keep it disabled till something breaks.

But thank you for the heads up.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago (1 children)

My phone reports that the Google play store hasn't logged any battery usage all day. Is it active for other users?

[–] [email protected] -2 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Do you really think it says the truth? I think I saw such systems lying in the past so can't believe them no more.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I WANT to disable the Samsung store but that can't be done in options. I'll have to figure out how to brute force it.

Bookmarked to look at the other store options.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 4 months ago

Depending on the phone model you could wipe your phone and flash a custom ROM, or use universal android debloater. If you decided to use the debloater make sure to back up your important files(I don't know how does Samsung boot loader deal with debloater and if it would make your phone stay in a booting loop forcing you to boot into recovery mode), what ever you decide to do don't root your phone.

I don't know if there is a third way.