Hello I use GOS have for almost a year and finally removed sandboxed play services in my main profile and only use Aurora for my bank app and Apple Music in my main profile still have Google Voice in private space but seperated from my main profile all my apps are only FOSS other than the 2 apps from aurora and it feels so good to finally say that. I just wanted to share my big news with you and hope you can all ditch Google apps/services as I have its amazing how my spam calls/texts have stopped or become less the more I degoogled.

I hope everyone has a great Degoogle/privacy enchancing experience

Any better replacements for Google Voice welcome in the comments if there is any.

    • bruhSoulz@lemmy.mlEnglish
      4·
      19 days ago

      Ty! ^^ been thinking about deleting my final remaining gmail account but unfortunately there may be unexpected consequences so I’m second guessing still.

      • cyberwolfie@lemmy.ml
        3·
        19 days ago

        Since deleting my Google account early this year (having used it as a primary account for e-mail for about 15 years), I have only stumbled upon two problems. The first one was that an old account I had with my current ISP had tied my phone number and my old e-mail account. This was solved with a call to customer service that severed that link and allowed me to make a new account with my phone number. The second was that I missed an invitation to an alumni party from a previous job… so yeah…

        Note, I did spend a significant time overlapping my new primary mail account with the Gmail-account to ensure I had resolved as good as all of these issues. Since moving to Proton, I think I spent 2 years before actually deleting my Google account. That included a fairly thorough cleanup of old accounts that took quite some time and energy (boy, do some of these services give you a hard time deleting old accounts…)

      • QuazarOmega@lemy.lol
        2·
        19 days ago

        Yeah, I’m not doing that either yet, I’m using it for a few things and can’t really replace it

  • zerozaku@lemmy.worldEnglish
    11·
    19 days ago

    Recently I too have made a huge change in move towards degoogling and replaced Gboard with Heliboard. I never thought I’d be able to replace Gboard because I use gesture typing a lot. Heliboard doesn’t come inbuilt with gesture typing but you have to import from closed source(?) data which is just a one time import (would like to know more on this one from someone more knowledgeable). So far, it has been great!

    • copd@lemmy.world
      3·
      19 days ago

      Unfortunately I can’t access my banking app without a “certified virtual keyboard”. I have to flip back to gboard whenever I want to check my bank balance

        • copd@lemmy.world
          1·
          17 days ago

          To be fair, android custom keyboards are ridiciously insecure. They have access to effectively everything on the screen and what you’re typing while also having access to make external requests.

          The solution is for Android to allow you to select keyboards per app

          Yup

  • Sarcasmo220@lemmy.ml
    5·
    19 days ago

    I have significantly reduced my usage of Google and Apple services for a couple of years now. Sometimes I wonder if I should go back, but then I see the enshitification of it all and it reminds me why I did so in the first place.

      • Sarcasmo220@lemmy.ml
        2·
        19 days ago

        I guess it’s less the services and more the updated hardware that tempts me. I don’t do anything that requires a lot of computing power, so I get tempted to get something with Samsung Dex or Motorola Ready For to use it as both mobile and laptop/desktop.

        I do use the Librem 5 with convergence, but storage is becoming an issue. I have a few things I can try to maximize storage before seriously considering something else.

    • cyberwolfie@lemmy.ml
      2·
      19 days ago

      I’m on CalyxOS with microG, and as far as I know, Android Auto does not work here. I understand this is a deal-breaker for a lot of people, but I have personally never seen Android Auto to be of particular interest, so I am completely fine with it.

  • spookedintownsville@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    19 days ago

    Congrats. I’ve moved away from using Google other than for school/work (I have no choice there). Although I still haven’t deleted my personal account yet.

  • nossaquesapao@lemmy.eco.br
    1·
    19 days ago

    Congrats! It can be a difficult choice for some, because of the inconveniences it brings, but it’s well worth it. We all need to ditch the big corporations and be free.