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Comment by archi42 | Hacker News Reader

I'm using this on a HTC 10 for 9 to 12 months now (on an inofficial LineageOS build). Only major quality of life issue is the lack of system-wide weather data (e.g. Garmin Connect is unable to display weather on my fitness tracker). Minor annoyances are the absence of the pretty good Google Maps (though I've heard good things about Here Maps on HN) and that Volvo on Call seems to have some trouble with rendering the replacement OSM map data; but I only installed VoC recently, so I could not check this on a Google-infected Android, plus that feature is not that important (and if I'll ever be too drunk to find my car that's probably a good thing after all).

Two friends of mine migrated from Windows Phone directly to Samsung Galaxy S... uhm, not sure, 8 or 7 I think... with LineageOS+MicroG, and are quite happy as well.

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> Minor annoyances are the absence of the pretty good Google Maps

I don't understand. What prevents you from installing Google Maps on your phone? It works perfectly fine on mine. (I'm running the MicroG-infused version of LineageOS. [1])

[1] https://lineage.microg.org/

I use MapsGo, which requires Chrome.

These run well on MicroG/Lineage, and I also was unable to run the full Maps APK.

Hm, not wanting Google on my device? ;-) But yeah, I could probably use it.

So you're not using Google search, either, I assume? Just curious because while I absolutely understand your aversion torwards Google, I do think it's more sensible sometimes to strike a good balance between privacy concerns and comfort/laziness than to completely sacrifice one for the other.

Not the person you're replying to but hopefully useful information: I stopped using Google services incrementally over the past year or so. I started with this distro on my 5x (but had difficulty getting updates to work) and eventually moved to an iPhone. In the last few months I've switched to DuckDuckGo for search, Firefox for browsing and offline Open Street Maps for navigation. I still have a gmail account but I only check it about once per month, if that. I suspect I'll export my data from it soon and close it.

It was tricky in places and fiddly in others, but overall I'm happy that I'm doing a reasonable amount to keep Google out of my life without being inconvenienced now. A piecemeal approach certainly worked for me, so I'd certainly recommend that to minimise impact for anyone thinking of doing the same.

Search is the easiest to replace. There are plenty of other search engines available, and Google Search really isn't all that good anymore. They're mostly good if you're looking for big sites, news sites, or commercial stuff. Anything obscure they don't seem to know anymore.

Replacing gmail is possible, but annoying, because I've got way too many site subscriptions tied to it. I really need to start using email addresses on my own domain for everything from now on. That way, in the future it's painless to switch email providers.

Android is one of the hardest, because of all the Android apps that rely on Google services. I'll definitely be checking out Lineage + microG.

"Aversion" is such a strong word... I mean, yes, I try to avoid Google due to privacy concerns. That means no more Chrome, no Google-Search-as-default and not logging in via Google.

OTOH, you're totally right about striking a balance: If I'm sitting at work, looking something up and DuckDuckGo doesn't yield the expected results I'm quick to prepend a "!g" - which gets me the desired information in about 90% of the cases. Or if I plan a trip in advance I use Google Maps so I can get a good estimate of the travel time for a specific time of day.

Also: My SO and I have a shared Google Calendar, which I sync to my device via DAV.

I just stopped indiscriminately streaming all my personal information to Google, instead I gained some more control about what data the company gets.

The goal of some MicroG users is to completely remove all Google apps. It's more a matter of preference and principle than the app not working.

Also, Maps is constantly harvesting location data and beaming it back to G servers, something many MicroG users are explicitly trying to prevent.

I'm still disappointed by Google's ongoing refusal to implement "allow only while in foreground" permissions to apps (for things like location).

I think there's two different use cases for Lineage + MicroG: remove all ties to Google, and make sure they can't track you, no matter what convenience and functionality you sacrifice; and remove as many ties to Google as possible without sacrificing significant convenience and functionality.

The latter of course rewards Google for their sleaziest, most locked-down services that everybody still needs. The former punishes the user for the same thing.

> I don't understand. What prevents you from installing Google Maps on your phone?

...or visiting maps.google.com ? Still works just as well, play services or not.

Except for the fact that the web interface is a lot slower.

It's a pity that I skipped the HTC 10 and transitioned directly from the HTC One M9 to the Galaxy S8. It seems to be a well-supported LOS device, and I could probably still be using it happily. I still love the way it looks--I have no idea why everyone moved away from the metal back to glass when half of them don't even support wireless charging.

I carried an HTC 10 and the battery went bad pretty quickly. When I googled around that sounded common.

That's why you use MicroG. Battery life is considerably better without Google services.

OK but my HTC 10 would die after an hour and charge extremely slowly after a year of use. The battery was clearly physically degraded and MicroG would not have fixed it.

Is someone maintaining a HTC10 build now? The last I checked it had been abandoned in November.

Ah, don't take the post as an ad for the HTC 10. I only got it for the great headphone amp (I have Sennheiser HD 650 headphones with 300R impedance). I think there are better supported LOS devices. Especially with other users warning about the battery.

I run an older, unofficial LOS9 build. Thread on XDA: https://forum.xda-developers.com/htc-10/development/rom-line...

The latest built is from yesterday https://androidfilehost.com/?w=files&flid=283479

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