I admit that this is a little narrow - but I figured I'd share my experiences.
I use Replicant, so I really want a phone with few blobs, an unlockable bootloader, and a low price. I did not win on this phone... too many blobs.
However, I like this phone, and it was cheap (I have XT1304 / US GSM edition). I figured that if I could de-Google the device it'd tide me over until CM comes out and is stable. I don't care to use Google Play Services. At all. (I know it's rare, but hey, I like smartphones, just not so tied to the walled garden.)
When I disabled all of the Google & Motorola Services that I could on stock, I'd get crashes from anything that wanted to use my location. ADB revealed it was crashing looking for the "network" location provider.
This would kill everything; even the modem would be reset - I'd miss calls, the Launcher would restart...it was basically a soft reboot because of underlying system crashes. Switching the location mode off of "High Accuracy" or "Device" to "Battery Saving" would cause it not to crash, but that's not exactly a good location provider.
Now yes, I'm disabling "system" services. I'm on my own. But someone's gotta do it.
My solution:
Post-factory reset with no Google account:
Install any location consumer - I used SatStat in F-Droid. (I'm too new to post links; find it yourself. You're smart and people like you.) I installed it via adb after turning on USB Debugging. There aren't many other ways from GNU/Linux distros, but you should be able to MTP it on there too.
Turn location on. Dismiss annoying dialog: No Google you can't snarf my location. (This dialog doesn't save its answer if you don't have a Google Account. It. Asks. Every. Time. Therefore, it must die.)
At this point it gets fuzzy - I basically went on a disabling spree, and managed to disable everything except Google Play Services (No Notifications, Clear Data, Disable Service) checking to see if SatStat would crash between every disable. I was also checking the Location settings every once in a while as well - eventually Google Settings revealed that "Google Location reporting is not avaiable for this location" which means... it's dead, Jim. No more annoying dialog. At this point it was safe to disable Google Play Services.
When I was done I had about half a page of apps - if that. At which point... I installed F-Droid, and am busy repopulating the world.
The entire point of this post: if you're going to de-Google your phone, use CM and don't flash GApps. Disabling everything on stock is risky, but doable. Just expect to factory reset. Disabling in Settings is so much better than the old days of Root & Remove.
Related
Hi everyone...
I've done the most stupid thing in my entire life with Android - I've trusted OP of this thread (the Force OTA how-to).
I've struggled with getting all push notifications and tokens for almost all Google service.
There's only one left, that doesn't work: android device manager doesn't see my device.
I know that other people had problems with it also, I didn't get it back to work with any instruction available.
I don't want to factory reset...
Is there any way I can re-add my device to Google Play (it's listed and I can push apps to device) and Android Device Manager?
ATM it just says I don't have any...
BTW: The other thread should be removed as this stupid method only causes problems!
Unfortunately it's just closed.
the fix should be very easy: remove and re-add your google account from settings->account->google
you won't loose anything
I wouldn't ask if it would be so easy.
I've tried that, i've tried giving permissions to manager once again, i've trying re-caching the google play store.
The only thing that changed was that my phone now shows up in google-play list (as my device).
andrut said:
I wouldn't ask if it would be so easy.
I've tried that, i've tried giving permissions to manager once again, i've trying re-caching the google play store.
The only thing that changed was that my phone now shows up in google-play list (as my device).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What I said before IS the fix, what does not work yet? did you tried a restart of the phone?
I've tried that already two days ago.
I have push notifications, I have working PlayStore, I can see device on the device-list and 'last usage' data is updating everyday.
What I don't see is my device in "android device manager" (website to track phone & ring/clear it).
andrut said:
I've tried that already two days ago.
I have push notifications, I have working PlayStore, I can see device on the device-list and 'last usage' data is updating everyday.
What I don't see is my device in "android device manager" (website to track phone & ring/clear it).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
then try to check on "google settings" app on your phone if device management is enabled (location + wipe)..or maybe it needs some time to appear on the website again
It is set, i've searched for all possible options.
It's strange as it need so much time to appear... After first run it showed up seconds later on my account.
I'm at a loss here. I have asked Google for their help and they were useless. I have been using a Samsung Galaxy S8+ (AT&T). It has a feature called SMART LOCK that uses a Trusted Place, which has worked in the past without any issues. For those that don't know or use it, it allows you to keep your device unlocked while your at a trusted place. With that being said, My home address keeps deleting from Google Assistant > Settings> Personal Info> Home & Work Locations. My work location stays here, but my Home Location keeps getting deleted for some reason. I can't figure out what is causing it.
I've deleted it and edited it many times and yet it still happens.I thought it was an app or allowed program, but I went through them and didn't see anything that shouldn't be allowed in my Google account. I have deleted my cache, data and uninstalled updates on all, Google Play Store, Google Assistant as well as a few others. Yet my Home Location keeps on disappearing for no apparent reason. I wouldn't care so much, but I use the Smart Lock feature while home.
I have used Tasker from the play store and set up commands and this didn't even work to unlock phone while at home.
I have wiped my phone many times and it still happens. Does anyone else have this issue or at least know a fix or is this a bug?
Any help would be much appreciated.
Sounds very frustrating. I have not heard of the issue before.
I'm wondering if you have also cleared out your Gmail address/contact info and Google calendar profile, as well?
What happens when/if you create a new alias profile? Will the alias address remain?
I would have to get back to you on that. I haven't tried creating another profile (alias). I can create another Google account and see what happens. I was also wondering if it was a fb so that could be doing it, but I have the same apps on my tablet (running marshmallow) and it doesn't get deleted from there.
Is doing it on my phone and my wife's.
Okay so I've done a little digging on the subject, and I've found that if I delete all data for Google play services, and then reupdate them, these maps that I'm seeing this error message displayed will work.
What's curious is that I've found if I alter these Google services in *any* way at all, for example, removing google play services permission for reading my sms messages, which has ZERO to do with maps, this error occurs once again, on those same maps within a couple of apps. On another device, I went in and only disabled services required to look for Google pay/NFC (I don't use any). This alteration also causes that same issue with maps !! The only fix is deleting all Google play services data, reinstalling the updates on the play services, and then not touching a freaking thing or permission. Perhaps the most bizarre aspect of all is that if I freeze play services entirely, those maps still work upon reenabling
What's all the more bizarre too is that Google Maps will display maps with zero issues with those same mentioned modifications made. It only effects maps within other apps, like my weather app for example.
What on earth is the meaning of this? All I'm trying to do is save battery but also stop some of the constant spying. Those services don't need access to my SMS messages. In fact I can have a perfectly normal operational conversation with Google play services frozen entirely.
Anyone have any advice on stopping some of the snooping without breaking completely unrelated aspects of other apps that don't even fully depend on these services to run in the first place? Only the map part does?
I know many might say just leave them running and who cares what it wants access to. But I do. If I can help it at all, I'd rather not be constantly freezing and unfreezing the services depending what I'm doing as that can get a little tedious.
I'd love to hear your takes on why these apps with maps function the way they do in this particular regard (especially when Google maps, the one that should be most closely dependent on play services, works no matter if services have been altered or not)
Sent from my [device_name] using XDA-Developers Legacy app
Okay, I thought I had the issue pegged but turns out not so much. This time, literally all I had done was hibernate GPS... Turned on airplane mode and went to sleep. Woke up and maps not working despite GPS being woken normally, like I had done for years with no issues.
I'm really starting to regret starting from scratch to declutter. Who would have ever thought starting over and using in the same manner as before would *break* something..... How frustrating
Hey folks,
so although I deactivated the f***** password manager, it still keeps asking me for EVERY password in EVERY app if I wanted to save it. I can't seem to get rid of this behaviour.
What I tried up to now:
deactivated the PWM via my google account settings on my phone
reactivated and deactivated it again to see if it was just some setting that had gotten stuck
turned the phone off and on again
started chrome -> settings -> password, although I assume this is an app-internal value
opened my phone's account on my pc, altered the value here (I could see both on the PC when I turned the PWM on/off on the phone and vice versa, so the value change works, but google chooses to ignore it)
Is there anything I have overlooked? Is there any additional value that needs changing? Other google services, for example syncing my contacts (at least those that my old phone didn't eff up) worked without any problems.
As another approach to get rid of this sh***y behaviour: is google's password manager a standalone app, can I just uninstall it via ADB?
Dunno if anything of this is important: Phone is a Sony Xperia 10 II, unrooted, three days old.
In case I forgot any useful information, please ask.
Welcome to XDA! Seems like you did everything to turn off the Google account PWM option. It's not a separate Play Store app.
Only thing I can think of is there's a another Play store 3rd party PWM app installed like LastPass or Sony bloatware app, etc...
Thanks mate!
Nope, there is no other password manager installed and I tried my very best to get rid of all the bloatware I could find and thought to be safe to uninstall. Also, the password saving question bears the Google-"G", so it shouldn't be any 3rd party program.
Is there anything else I can do except being frustrated and annoyed? =/
Last days I was testing Google's Find My Device (gFMD) vs Xiaomi's Find Device (xFD) on my two Xiaomi phones:
Davinci: Mi 9T, Xiaomi.eu MIUI 12.5.2/A11
Lisa: 11 Lite 5G NE, stock MIUI 12.5.8/A11
---
Both gFMD and xFD come as preinstalled system apps
gFMD can be set through Google settings, xFD must be activated through Xiaomi Cloud
gFMD can be installed to every Android with GApps (it relies on Google Play Services)
xFD comes with (stock) MIUI firmwares
---
If you have several phones registered to the same Google account (each of those phones may have also other/multiple Google accounts set), with gFMD you can check for each of them
Similarly, if you have several phones registered to the same Xiaomi Cloud account, with xFD you can also check for each of them
For gFMD you must have Google History Location enabled
Of course, both gFMD and xFD require Location to be turned on (although some features like playing sound or erasing data remotely work also.with Location disabled)
Both gFMD and xFD work with Mobile Internet or WiFi
---
Precise requirements for gFMD can be found eg here:
https://support.google.com/maps/thread/9580022?hl=en&msgid=9582219
Some screenshots in the guide might be outdated (Google settings may look little different now/with the newer Android version).
But all required settings are properly described - except I was nowhere able to find the Visibility status for Google Play
Note: When I properly set everything, gFMD locating was still failing for me on one phone. Then I disabled gFMD, rebooted, enabled it back and rebooted - gFMD finally started to work then
---
Both gFMD and xFD can be used (find location of the phone, etc) through browser (on the PC or the phone, incl. the own phone):
https://www.google.com/android/find
https://us.i.mi.com/mobile/find
gFMD can be used also through that app, but xFD only through browser
Of course, for the real use there is no sense in using the browser on the own phone (except to test do xFMD and gFD work) or in using xFMD app to check the own phone
---
With both gFMD and xFD you are supposed to locate your phones.
With gFMD you can also inspect it's history of locations (Maps Timelapse)
With both apps you can force playing a sound on the target/remote device. Also, with both you can erase data remotely and inspect the battery status
With gFMD you can change unlock pin/pattern remotely.
xFD has a similar Lost Mode option (forcing a user on the remote phone to login with your Xiaomi Cloud password to unlock the phone)
---
To work properly, both gFMD and xFD must have Autostart enabled and Battery Optimization disabled.
Btw, for xFD, Autostart cannot even be controlled/disabled
gFMD shows notifications on the remote phone that phone is trying to be located and then that phone was located. This might be useful while testing but not in the real case if the phone would be lost or stolen.
Notifications are coming from Google Play Services and must be disabled there: Settings, Apps, Manage apps, Show System apps, find Google Play Services, Notifications, Disable notifications
---
Through the tests (while traveling on vacation and now back at home) I found:
gFMD properly locates both my phones in some seconds but Davinci is usually located little faster. Sound can be played even if the remote phone was not located (similarly should work for changing pin/pattern or erasing data but I didn't test)
xFD always successfully locates my Davinci (maybe little slower than gFMD)
However, more often than not, xFD fails to locate my Lisa. On the next try (immediately or after some time), or even after a few unsuccessful attempts it then successfully locates Lisa.
I could not find why it sometimes fails. Eg, I'm testing through browser from the Lisa itself (hence Lisa is not sleeping), and gFMD has just successfully located Lisa, but xFD fails several times to locate Lisa and then suddenly locates successfully
However, you can still play sound when locating fails
-
Long story short, I found Google's Find My Device more reliable than Xiaomi's Find Device but I will continue using both (just in case)
thank you for the careful and thorough walkthrough of your experience with both Google's and Xiaomi's find my device services. I hadn't even begun to think about those aspects of my phone security in nearly as much depth as you have until I read what you had to say about it.
I'm tempted to activate Google's fmd service, but I'm hesitant to share such sensitive data with more than one international corporate giant. I had an unpleasant experience last year with getting my phones (two Redmi Note 7s* and two 9s) hacked and a lot of data compromised, including precise location. This might just be making me overly skittish.
However, it still seems prudent to ask whether there's any way of being confident that you, and only you, are accessing that location data when, and only when, your trusted software does so for good reason. Or something reasonably close to that, if that's simply too high a standard.
Is the FMD redundancy worth the doubled personal data exposure? More generally, would you consider Xiaomi and Google equally secure? I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.
* I had two Note 7s, identical (same unlock, both logged into everything), except only one had a SIM. One got stolen. I got locked out of things, and my remaining phone got overrun by malicious software... a separate story
summervelvet said:
thank you for the careful and thorough walkthrough of your experience with both Google's and Xiaomi's find my device services. I hadn't even begun to think about those aspects of my phone security in nearly as much depth as you have until I read what you had to say about it.
I'm tempted to activate Google's fmd service, but I'm hesitant to share such sensitive data with more than one international corporate giant. I had an unpleasant experience last year with getting my phones (two Redmi Note 7s* and two 9s) hacked and a lot of data compromised, including precise location. This might just be making me overly skittish.
However, it still seems prudent to ask whether there's any way of being confident that you, and only you, are accessing that location data when, and only when, your trusted software does so for good reason. Or something reasonably close to that, if that's simply too high a standard.
Is the FMD redundancy worth the doubled personal data exposure? More generally, would you consider Xiaomi and Google equally secure? I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.
* I had two Note 7s, identical (same unlock, both logged into everything), except only one had a SIM. One got stolen. I got locked out of things, and my remaining phone got overrun by malicious software... a separate story
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I see your risks but I prefer the advantages (hoping to be able to erase my lost/stolen phone, in case it ever happens)
Also, I don't think that my data at Xiaomi are less secure than my data at Google.
Actually, I'm more unhappy since the corresponding govt agencies of the two superpowers having easy access to my data through their back-doors at Xiaomi and Google respectively
Btw, long ago I enabled Xiaomi Cloud (prerequisite for Xiaomi Find Device) because of backup/restore and that helped me couple of times to super easily and quickly restore almost everything upon factory reset/data formatting
Therefore I backup parts of my data on Google side and parts (some common to both sides) at Xiaomi.
Hence again to whom should I believe more (and why?) about security of my data on their servers.
And similarly about giving my privacy to the two giants (again, I'm more worried about the corresponding states/agencies than the two companies)
But unless you left everything and go to the woods, you cannot protect your privacy in the modern life, and you can never be sure that your accounts here or there would ever be compromised, hence I again have to choose between the pros (commodities) and contra (privacy and secure of my data)
After all, my sins are mostly about sometimes driving over the speed limit and discussing here about Magisk and so, hence I don't care that much about being spied