I only recently learned about the BraX3 and went ahead and ordered one to try it out.
Until then, I am doing a little digging to make sure I understand the device and OS as well as possible so that I am as prepared as possible to use it when I get it. I currently have a Samsung and have never messed with de-Googled phones before, so there is a bit of a learning curve.
From what I gather, apps that I currently pay for through Google Play may or may not still work if they have a version of the app which doesn’t require payments, but I will essentially be limited to those free versions, right?
For example, I pay for YouTube Premium (disregard the issue with them implementing age verification for a moment). Assuming YT still works, I will no longer be able to use the paid version, correct?
Same goes for other apps like PocketCasts (for podcasts), I assume?
I just want to make sure I understand how this works and appreciate any clarification in advance.
You can login to Aurora (the front end for getting apps and updates from the Play Store), and that will allow you to restore purchased apps, so this part will work. But some apps may not work well due to the mimic’d Play Services (microG is this part), you have to check compatibility with something like the Plexus app, looking at the “microG” ratings for the app in question.
As @abdullah mentions, by logging into the Play Store, you obviously link between the phone and your Google account, so a lot of privacy is compromised. But I suggest this is still much better than a fully stock Google Pixel or Samsung device, that are submitting exponentially more telemetry and data, and also serving up more ads etc. the other direction. So these are greatly improved using iodéOS, even if you are not anonymous to Google anymore.
Make a list of apps you want to continue using and see if there are alternative apps from the FDroid Store.
But you may need to use the Aurora Store. Basically it spoofs Google Play Store, with anonymous login. Regarding paid apps, I think it depends on how payment is made.
If it is via Google Play Store, then that is an issue for privacy as you log into the real Google Store and essentially google the phone. And there might be a technical limitation. I haven’t tried it. I want to keep the degoogled function.
I have two apps which I pay for on the developers website. Originally, I used the iPhone app when I had an iPhone. I have used Graphene, Lineage and now iodé. I was able to download the apps via Aurora. Then open the app, add my creditials and it all works without logging into Google.
My experience with other privacy oriented ROMs is that yes you can download apps previously purchased from Google Play via the Aurora app (after providing your Google account credentials to the app) and yes these purchased apps will generally work as expected, barring any underlying issues with the ROM itself not fully supporting parts of the Google API…
However, any apps where you previously made in-app purchases will likely not have those purchased features available. In extreme cases these apps will not even provide basic free features, and might not even launch at all (this basically depends on how the app developer has coded the app to respond to the lack of Play Store in-app purchase verification).
This page from the microG GmsCore Wiki gives status of the microG implementation for various portions of the Google API:
You can see that most of it is working “well enough”, some of it not that well, and some features will never be support. “Such is the price of Freedom!”
Also to speak to and agree with @rik above, IMHO the best use of a “de-Googled” ROM of any sort is to break the incessant activity tracking of Google in combination with location tracking. Proper de-Googling should break most of the activity tracking and most of the linkage between non-cellular location sources (Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, etc.). But unfortunately there’s simply no way to get rid of your ISP’s ability to log cell tower connections and provide that info to third parties such as Google, your friendly .gov agent, etc.
I’m sure that most of us have use cases for specific phone apps that can’t be fully or even partially anonymized for whatever reason. Is that a reason to not use those apps at all? Is cell phone tower triangulation a reason to not use cell phones at all?
In the meantime, (again IMHO) whatever you can do to make the b@stards work for that tracking data is a win in my book.
As Rob mentioned in a recent video log into YouTube via a browser and you will get all your premium features and minimise the privacy issues.
But for apps where you cant do a browser log in then you cant use them without compromising on Privacy.
