Do you need google on android? How to install applications without Google Play

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I haven’t parted with my Nexus 4 for a year and a half now, and it just so happens that the battery life is worse than before. Of course, you can order a new one, but it takes time, fuss with replacement, etc., so it was decided to conduct an experiment to completely get rid of Google Apps, which often took first place in terms of battery consumption and always had a not very good reputation in terms of energy saving.

I have been familiar with kernels for a long time, but there was no desire to experiment with enthusiast builds, so Cyanogenmod 11 was chosen as a test subject. Yes, it was the 11th version based on KitKat, for the simple reason that during the “experiment” (December 2014-January 2015) many criticized LolliPop for being gluttonous, and there was no adequate third-party firmware based on 5.0 at that moment.

Well, Cyanogen is installed, but the Google Apps package recommended for installation is not. Less than 5 minutes later, the question arose: where to get applications? A very obvious solution comes to mind in the form of Yandex.Store. Go to the yandex.store website and download the store's apk. It’s worth noting here that the AOSP browser turned out to be quite good. It is unlikely to be suitable for long surfing on the Internet, but for quick search the necessary information or checking the schedule at the university will do.

Let's go back to the store. Yandex.Store is installed and ready to use, but one thing about this very use is terribly repulsive. We are, of course, talking about the design of the application. After Google has spoiled us with tales of ubiquitous Material Design, there is no desire to see an interface a la Android 4.0.

The surprise was the presence of most applications in the store catalog: here you have clients of all popular social networks, and office suites, and even Flappy Bird in the original. By the way, not everything is rosy with toys, there are not many of them, and those that exist are already quite old and do not shine with quality. However, for me, as a person who practically does not play on my phone, this was not a big drawback.

All the most required applications were successfully installed, and those that were not found in the store were downloaded from a well-known forum.

Let's get back to battery life. On official firmware 5.0, and even 4.4 with my use (social networks, calls, WhatsApp and a little Internet), the phone lasted an hour and a half for the screen to work, plus or minus 20 minutes.

Imagine my surprise when, on the first day without Google Apps, I saw in the screen performance statistics that same hour and a half with 45% of the remaining charge. And indeed, by the end of the day the phone had not yet turned off, and the screen operating time stopped at 2.5 hours with 10-15% charge, which could not but rejoice.

There were some drawbacks: for example, there were problems with notifications, many stopped coming, the VK application was especially upsetting, so messages had to be checked manually by refreshing the page directly in the application.

Everything was fine for about two weeks, but then all the disadvantages began to reveal themselves. It became clear that without Google Play really boring, because you often want to check what new applications have appeared and try them out right away. Evernote, which replaced Google Keep, also did not catch on - yet Keep turned out to be more familiar and simpler. Perhaps it’s worth stopping here and talking about what applications I replaced this or that from Google. As mentioned above, Evernote replaced Google Keep for me, but it didn’t justify itself because the interface was too cumbersome. There are a lot of unnecessary and unnecessary functions for me, but there is excellent synchronization in the cloud, without which there is no life at all after Keep.

Google Calendar was replaced by Any.do Cal, but it was deleted a couple of days later because it found great alternative represented by Today Calendar, which I still use. There is a nice Material Design, you can check the weather, and it’s convenient to plan an event.

Music on the phone I'm in lately I don't listen, so as a music player The built-in CyanogenMod Apollo was enough. It turned out to be convenient to view mail using the Yandex application, but later the choice fell on Mailbox. Still, it turned out to be much more pleasing to the eye than a mixture of iOS and Android interfaces in one program.

I hadn’t really used Google maps before, so I switched to 2Gis painlessly and completely, and Yandex.Transport shows the public transport schedule without any complaints. The choice of browser was obvious; Chrome's closest competitor, in my opinion, has always been Firefox, so I chose it as the main one and was very pleased. The Yandex browser, by the way, turned out to be quite laggy, so after 10 minutes of use it was removed, but the translator helped out, although it lagged behind its Western counterpart in terms of functions.

The app is no longer available on Google Play :(

And so with almost every application from Google, a replacement was found for everything, with the exception of Google Now, but the point here is not that I needed it endlessly, on the contrary, unexpectedly for myself, I noted that the service, of course, is pleasant, but not necessary - It is quite possible to live without it. Without geolocation, by the way, too.

In general, the author of these lines lasted exactly a month, after which Google Apps were re-flashed, and the phone again began to hold an order of magnitude less. Undoubtedly, I could have tried to hold out longer and, most likely, I would have gotten used to it, but still the ecosystem took over and I got used to using something other than Chrome on home computer Well, it didn’t work out, and where there is Chrome, there is Keep, and Translator, and other Google delights.

To tell the truth, thoughts of limiting myself from Google applications still haunt my head, especially in view of the latest ones, which plans to expel Google from Android and create its own application store, but without Google’s gluttonous services. All we can do is wait and hope that the guys will do everything well.

Perhaps it is worth drawing a few conclusions and summing up all of the above.

Yes, it has been experimentally proven that Google Services eats up your battery with great appetite, but all this, in part, can be justified by the quick arrival of notifications, widespread synchronization and the strong simplification of everyday life.
Google Play, like any beautiful (can you hear Yandex? Beautiful!), convenient and content-filled application store is a great thing, without which a modern smartphone can hardly be called a smartphone.
You can easily find a replacement for your usual application, but will this replacement be better than what it was? In some cases, yes, but if you live somewhere abroad, you are unlikely to agree with me about the usefulness of Yandex services or 2Gis maps.

Which Google services are most important to you? Share with us in the comments what is stopping you from giving up Google Apps?

If you are interested in using Android, but don't want everything to do with Google, there are ways to ditch Google entirely. Thanks to correct set tools You can have a truly open Android interface.

Why would you do this?

Here's the thing: For most people, Google is what it does. Android good. Google services, Google Play and constant sync with your Gmail account are some of the most valuable things about Android.

But many people take responsibility for what Google knows about how they use their phones, so the idea of Android device It just doesn't work for them. If you like the idea of Android but don't like dealing with Google, then an Android phone without Google might be good decision for you.

Of course, this requires some intervention. You can't just turn Google off from anyone existing phone. You remove the operating room Google system, which comes on the phone, and replacing it with an alternative, and for some phones this is a better solution.

What will you need to do

The first thing you will need is the right Android phone. This will require wiping the phone and loading a custom ROM. Something with an unlocked bootloader, like anything from the old Nexus line - or a good workaround for custom ROMs - will do just fine.

IN otherwise You will need a custom ROM. We tested this using LineageOS - it has excellent device support and is updated frequently.

How to use Android without Google

For testing, we're using Lineage OS installed on a Nexus 6. Right out of the box, the setup experience is pretty simple - just click and you're ready to go. Since the device does not have Google services, there is nothing to sign into it.

But here the first question also arises: how to get applications? Without the Play Store, it is an empty system without any ecosystem. The good news is that since Android is open, there are good (and trustworthy) alternatives to the Play Store. In particular, two stand out:

Amazon Underground: Amazon's Android store has the most large catalog apps outside of Google Play, allowing you to install most of your favorite apps without the need for Google.
F-Droid: The F-Droid app store is a lesser-known alternative to Google Play, but it's a great choice for those who only want software with open source code. Everything in the F-Droid store is open source and free to use, making it best choice for those who prefer this ecosystem.

There is also a third option, although it is not a real appstore: APKMirror. This is an APK (Android Package Kit) website that displays free apps that you will find on the Google Play Store. These user-uploaded APKs are manually reviewed and approved by the APKMirror staff, so you can trust that they are always legitimate copies pulled from Google Play devices - they are never pirated or have spyware.

No matter which direction you go, you will need "Unknown Sources" to even install the appstore itself, as well as any apps from said store. If you don't know how to do this, we have a guide on how to download apps.

You simply use your phone's browser to download the appropriate APK file- either the appstore or standalone APK - and then install it normally.

Things You'll Miss Without Google

As we've said before, Google services add a lot of value to Android, and you'll obviously lose out by going to Android without Google.

You'll miss syncing your contacts, which is very important for most people. Of course, you can export your contacts and back them up before you decide to leave Google, which is a good idea.

Otherwise you'll miss out on things like syncing Chrome and Chrome passwords, Gmail, Google Maps, Google Pay... almost everything Google apps. This is one thing to keep in mind when downloading anything (especially from APKMirror): if it requires Google Play Services, it simply won't work on your new phone without Google.

There is an alternative: MicroG

There is an alternative to Google Play Services: a project called microG. It is designed to emulate all Google Play services, but is completely open source.

It consists of five key components designed to replace the core tools found in Play Services. This should theoretically allow apps that would normally require Play Services to work, such as Maps or Gmail. But here's the thing: microG is only compatible with ROMs that support signature forgery... and Lineage OS is not one of them. As a result, microG has its own fork of Lineage called LineageOS for microG.

Of course, this also defeats the whole purpose of the "Android without Google" project, but it's an alternative if you want to live Google-free but still rely on access to one or two specific apps.

So, using Android without Google? Perhaps not. But if you want to get out of the Google ecosystem, aren't a big Apple fan, and don't mind downloading a custom ROM, it's definitely possible. If you don't need any Google services, that's even better.

First version Android platforms Since its release it has undergone several updates. Google, paying great attention further development systems, is constantly working not only to correct detected errors, but also to expand the functionality of the popular OS.

One of the developers' innovations operating system Android has become the latest protection system that has appeared on devices starting with version 5.1. This function ( Factory Reset Protection or FRP lock) is as follows: if a smartphone is lost or stolen, the owner will be able to block his gadget, after which, without a login/password pair from a Google account, the phone will not be subject to further use. The same protection will also work if you try to do a hard reset.

But how can we bypass the Google account if we reset the settings ourselves, for example, when flashing the device or deleting graphic key? In addition, there are often cases when the system does not accept the correct password/login.

In any case, when you first start the device and try to access wi-fi networks, a request will appear on the smartphone screen to confirm your Google account on Android:

This is where the need arises to find a way to cope with the problem.

Google account bypass

It should be noted that the situation is complicated by the fact that in the conditions large quantity smartphone manufacturing companies Android based, and even more models, there is simply no single universal solution for all devices. Therefore, we will now look at several proven options.

How to avoid the reset problem

To avoid getting into an unpleasant situation, do not forget to take advantage of the opportunity provided by the developers. To do this, before performing a reset, go to “ Settings", select the section " Accounts" (May be " Accounts"), we find " Google", open.

Next, call up the menu by clicking on the three dots in the upper right corner and select “ Delete account"(on some models, the action selection is caused by a long press on the account field). Now we need (USB debugging) and activate the “ OEM Unlocking»:

Five ways to bypass Google account protection

Method No. 1

The first step is to remove the SIM card and then turn on the smartphone. Next, select the desired language, ignore the window with SIM (button “ skip"). In the next window where you need to enter a phone number or email. mail, press and hold the symbol @ until the settings button appears, first press it, and then “ Settings Android keyboards " After that, click touch button « back" at the very bottom of the display, then press and hold the submenu button there (you may also have to press the " home", differently on all devices) until the Google search bar appears:

In the search bar that opens, write the word “ settings" Once in the settings section, select “ Recovery and reset", and then turn off " Auto recovery" And " Saving backup copies "(and in exactly this sequence), after which we reset the settings:

Method number 2

Another universal method, which can help in a difficult situation when it is not possible to access the Internet or settings or it is also impossible to perform other actions.

What to do:

We insert the SIM card into the locked phone, from which we will delete the drone account. Then, call this number from another device. We accept the call and select the action “ Add new challenge", then enter any numbers in the dialer:

Now we need to enter our Google account, for which we know the password (or create a new one). After that, we save the contact to this account:

After the completed manipulations, reboot the smartphone.

Method number 3

We insert a SIM card into the smartphone that we will unlock and call this number from another phone. Next, as described in the second method, click on + (i.e. add a new call), and drop the call. After this, the keyboard will open, use it to enter the following combination: *#*#4636#*#* (see screenshot):

Immediately after entering the last character, an automatic transition to a new window with information and advanced settings will occur. Now click on the arrow located in the upper left corner of the screen and go to standard settings devices, select the section “ Recovery and reset", disable " Copying data" And " Auto recovery" (May be " Archiving" And " Data Recovery"), after which we perform a factory reset (or hard reset):

All we have to do is wait for the procedure to complete, and after that we go into our account Google via Wi Fi.

Method number 4

You can try to enter the standard settings in another way: on the main screen, press and hold the “ Home", and when the Google icon appears, tap on it and go to the search bar, click, the keyboard appears, type the word " Settings»:

Method number 5

Please watch the video that tells you how to bypass your Google account using the application after resetting the settings. QuickShortcutMaker which will help ensure quick access to the settings of a locked smartphone, as well as to the menu of applications installed on it:

We talked about the simplest and most popular methods that can help resolve the issue without harming the device. You can find a lot of other methods on the Internet, but do not forget that if you are not confident in your actions, then there is a danger of causing even more damage to your gadget. Therefore, if you have saved the receipts and the warranty period has not expired, then service center specialists will help you completely free of charge.

*Note: if the described actions did not bring the desired result, do not rush to try everything at once. It makes sense to wait from one to three days, and then proceed to the next attempts, because this is exactly the period provided by the developers for unlocking the device.

Was the information provided useful to you? Have you encountered such a problem? If yes, then tell us how you managed to bypass Google account on Android. That's all for me, good luck!

You can completely disable unnecessary Google services (built-in applications) on almost any device (smartphone, tablet, TV set-top box...) without having divine root rights using free application Activity Launcher, which after its extremely useful work simply removed.

On my Mi Max from Xiaomi, I immediately unlocked the bootloader, installed a custom kernel, got root rights... and got rid of all the unnecessary Google junk, so the screenshots below will be from my youngest son’s phone.

Just yesterday they resuscitated him Samsung Galaxy Grand 2 Duos (we replaced the broken sensor, made full reset and updated the firmware). We have not yet installed an application for creating screenshots on this smartphone, so the article will contain “live” photos of the process of expelling non-deletable Google services.

If you don’t understand at all what the article is about, if you’re afraid of “breaking your smartphone,” if your hands are shaking and there will be no one to save your phone after you delete something that’s not possible, the information below is not for you .

So, download and install the Activity Launcher application using the official link from Google Play (it’s at the end of the article)…

After its update the day before yesterday, it became known as “Application Activation”...

...by the way, it now works in the eighth version of Android.

Launch Activity Launcher and click on “Recent actions”. In the drop-down menu, click on “All actions”...

...find the “Settings” item...

(on my smart it looks like this)…

...and in it we find “Application Manager” (the one with the signature “com.android.settings.applications.ManageApplications”)...

...or “All applications” with the same signature (you can press the line in front of the one highlighted in the screenshot below)…

As I understand it, these differences depend on the smartphone manufacturer or Android version.

...we are not afraid of anything and confirm our actions - “Yes”...

We get a disabled application - the shortcut disappears from the desktop and you will no longer find your “Google Play Books” anywhere on your smartphone. We do the same with all the “leeches” from Google...

No delete button for Hangouts? Then we are coming to you, together with Activity Launcher...

You get used to good things quickly. Ecosystems from Microsoft, Apple and Google have firmly settled on mobile devices, enveloping them with its undeletable and deeply integrated services. Can you imagine an iPhone without iTunes music, iCloud, office suite iWork or some kind of Lumiya without Xbox Music, OneDrive, MS Office? Agree - this is a pathetic sight. But how interesting is an Android smartphone without signs of Google interference? Read more about this.

Why delete Google services?

As it usually happens, it was evening, there was nothing to do and I got confused with the firmware of my dearly beloved Sony Xperia Z1 Compact on the latest version of CyanogenMod – 12.1 (based on Android 5.1 Lollipop). The developers of Cyanogen have made a lot of trouble during my absence from the world of custom firmware, and in addition to the installation archive, which is killer in its structure and internal scripts, they also decided to foist on users their proprietary recovery menu - Cyanogen Recovery. I don’t understand why these “enthusiasts” were not satisfied with the classic and much more functional CWM, but there’s nothing to be done.

As we know, almost all CM/AOSP-based firmware comes without Google services - they need to be installed separately from a zip archive. Since I am used to minimalism, I downloaded a third-party application package, but the proprietary recovery refused to install it, citing the lack of a signature. I didn’t want to sew a package weighing half a gig, signed by Cyan, and decided to abandon this idea altogether and live for a week freed from the shackles of the good corporation.

There may be three key reasons that may prompt you to repeat my experiment:

1) Become the master of your smartphone

As we know, slightly less than all smartphones that are officially sold in Europe and the CIS come with pre-installed Google services that cannot be removed (the Chinese allow themselves to abandon them, replacing them with analogues for local markets). Alas, these are the OS licensing conditions. But why the hell does a smartphone decide for us what can be deleted and what cannot?

Following my path while regular users they wonder what it is this “ Google Assistant”, subscription music, market, “you have to pay for programs” - you become the full owner and absolute ruler of your device. Only you decide what will be preinstalled on your smartphone and how it will work. To do this, it is not necessary to flash SM, you can simply get root rights on the stock firmware and cut out all the unnecessary bits and pieces through Root Explorer or Titanium Backup.

2) +50% autonomy

I don’t think I’ll open America to anyone if I say that Google services eat up the battery about the same as desktop Chrome RAM. The main energy costs come from activities related to accessing the network - synchronizing contacts, documents, receiving mail, sending location, usage statistics, marking game achievements in Google Play Games. Even if you deliberately disable many unnecessary synchronization points, sneaky Google services manage to hang in the background forever, eating up RAM and sending data and statistics on the use of your gadget.

By getting rid of this burden, you get about a hundred megabytes of additional free RAM and about a 50% increase in battery life.

3) Comfort for the paranoid

It makes sense that by getting rid of the constant transmitter of your location data and intrusive applications that require too many access privileges, the paranoid will be able to breathe easy and relax a little. Now no one secretly scans nearby WiFi points, supposedly to improve the accuracy of geolocation, no one records the exact history of your movements on the world map, no one collects statistics about you, no one even knows what language you use to communicate with the outside world.

Back to Symbian

In the era of Symbian smartphones (they cried, right?), applications were installed on a smartphone (unexpectedly) using installation files, similar to how you do it on a PC under Windows control. So, life without Google services is a great chance to get nostalgic and return to that very era. There are a scattering of .apk files at your service on developer sites or forums like 4pda and xda-developers.

For the most harmful ones, alternative markets are also available - Amazon, Yandex, SlideMe, Aptoide, 1Mobile, as well as a free software repository called F-droid. These and other markets have a good base of offers, naturally inferior in volume to the “file dump” Google Play. Alternative markets often also have in stock latest versions current applications and can update them automatically.

Main problems and hardships

First of all, I needed my contacts in the amount of 170 pieces. Naturally, I could forget about synchronization, so I exported contacts from Gmail to a vCard file, which I successfully fed to the phone. After restoring contacts, it was necessary to connect mail. I was completely satisfied with the standard mailer included with CyanogenMod - it can accept push, looks very similar to Gmail, and supports gestures. True, with the corporate box we had to work hard, manually setting up the server settings.

Among the application sources suggested above, I left w3bsit3-dns.com and F-droid. From the last one I installed Firefox browser And Telegram messenger, blocker AdAway advertising, as well as some specific programs, which I will discuss later. The rest of the good stuff - social media clients, a book reader and the Fleksy keyboard - I conscientiously tore out from the forum. This is where the first serious problem for me arose.

My favorite Fleksy keyboard turned out to be tied to a Google account, so I couldn’t improve my dictionaries and personalize typing. I killed a good half a year to teach the keyboard all my swear words and abbreviations, eventually getting super-accurate and monstrously fast typing speed on my smartphone, but without Google services all this turned out to be inaccessible to me.

The calendar became another stumbling block in my experiment. You cannot create an event in it without connecting your Google account. The solution was found in the form of the Offline Calendar application, available in the F-droid repositories, which created a local calendar on the device.

So is the game worth the candle?

As always, it's up to you, and only you! In general, living without Google services is actually, with some reservations, more than comfortable, and the lion's share of problems can be solved. You gradually find replacements for popular applications, wondering how you used to be so strongly attached to one thing, you begin to enjoy an extra day of work on one battery charge, and you are comforted by the knowledge that you have become a full-fledged ruler over your device and its system. But, I’ll be honest - existence without Google services is an interesting game for geeks and enthusiasts, and not everyone will emerge victorious from it. Losers will lose all data if their smartphone is seriously damaged or lost. Serious software failures in the operation of the device after inept intervention in system files are also possible.

If you feel ready for exploits, it seems to me that giving up Google services will give you a lot of impressions and interesting discoveries. Start with a couple of days or a week, and then you’ll like it and won’t want to go back. Or would you like to?