Alternatives to Android / Google and escaping the AI deluge

In My Humble Opinion
1

My Pixel 7 wants to upgrade to the latest android which inclues More! and Better! AI!

I am not impressed.

I am not totally against AI, just mostly. I hate, Hate, HATE having it shoved in my face. Our site documentation software uses AI to genreate a floor plan from video. Its reasonably accurate, clean and mostly painless. I like that. I dont want it writing my emails, my documents, suggesting changes I dont want and dont need to my spread sheets, making spell check basically useless and ruining auto replace/suggest. I certainly dont need AI pop ups interfering with every new document email and life in general.

I used to like Google, you know, before they decided it was necessary to be evil. I liked the clean efficiency of google search, I liked the simple functionality of Gmail and Google workspace. I bought google phones because they came with the most basic Android implementation and did not come with Facebook and a bunch of other shit I did not want pre installed. Thats all pretty much over.

So, is there a decent alternative? Does anybody make a no nonsense android phone? Are any of the altrnative OS’s viable? Should I move to iPhone?

What do I use instead of Google search? What browser instead of Chrome? Ive used Brave browser a little bit, but frankly its a sleeze fest that pushes crypto. I see a lot of people use Opera.

It it worth migrating our cloud drive and office software to Microsoft? Is there another alternative to Google workspace?

2

I’ve had a good experience with Firefox.

3

I think you should be able to disable much of that by changing various app settings–and that depends on the phone.

4

I’m in a similar boat myself. Between the AI spam and enshittification of search (even before AI) and the Manifest v3 limits on uBlock, I’m getting pretty sick of Google. I’m about 30% through my de-Googling process right now.

Unfortunately your options are pretty limited because Microsoft and Samsung, the two other big competitors, are both pushing AI hard too.

Apple is actually pretty good on this front. It prompts you about Apple Intelligence when you first get a device or upgrade to a new OS, but if you say no, it won’t bug you again until the next OS version. It’s not like Google where you’re constantly being pestered.

Brave and most other browsers are unfortunately just reskinned Chromium, so still tied to Google’s whims.

The exceptions are Safari (Apple), Firefox (nominally independent but almost entirely funded by Google), and Orion (by the Kagi search engine, uses Webkit open source but is itself closed sourced and still early alpha).

For search, I’ve used Kagi almost exclusively for the last half a year and it’s been really good. That and ChatGPT means I almost never use Google Search anymore (and am much much happier for it… Kagi is amazing and really respects you as a user).

Apple Photos is similar to Google Photos.

The workspace stuff will be hard, especially Google Calendar. There’s Zoho that offers an online office and email suite for a very reasonable price, and they’ve been around forever. Microsoft Office online is another option too. Nothing is as seamlessly integrated as Google Workspace (or whatever it’s called now).

5

Thanks that useful. We have 8 users and 16 terabytes of storage with Google Workspace along with our website, so it is a significant move.

I was assuming Microsoft’s solutions would be just as integrated so that’s a little disappointing.

6

Strictly IMHO: They have the basics, like Word/Excel/Powerpoint, but their other services (Outlook, SkyDrive/OneDrive/Windows Live Drive/whatever it’s called these days), Teams, etc. just feel like hacked-together pieces of shit… maybe I’m biased, but no other major software vendor puts out as much jank as Microsoft. It got noticeably worse after the recent Windowses and especially after the Copilot AI spam.

Their entire consumer software suite just feels like an exercise in minimal-effort me-too box-ticking, selling just barely-adequate semi-functional low-end crap to big businesses that buy licenses by the tens of thousands and judge software by their checklists and discounts, not by their quality. Their stuff feels like adware stuck in the 90s and 2000s.

But that’s just me… I’ve been in the software industry for a few decades, so I guess I’m just jaded and judgy. Millions of others use their software every day and don’t complain. Shrug. Give it a try if you want. But be warned that they’re pushing AI so hard these days that it completely dilutes the meaning and value of it; every other product of theirs is called Copilot now and there’s even a new keyboard key for it…

Apple is the only one, as far as I know, that lets you completely turn off the AI stuff (with a single on/off slider). They don’t try to shove it in your face like everyone else.

I use a Mac with an Android phone — can’t stand iPhones — but my Pixel is constantly spamming me with Gemini everything, and has annoying dark patterns like in Gmail where they put the AI button next to the most commonly used buttons so you accidentally click on them more :roll_eyes: Fucking Google. My Macbook asked once and hasn’t bugged me about it since.

There are also some third-party independent cell phones (Fairphone, Librem, a few others maybe), but they are decades behind the major manufacturers and have terrible specs. If you’re OK with that, they do offer you a lot more freedom and control than the locked-down Apples and Androids. But sadly most of the industry has moved away from “you are the customer” to “you are the product”. They don’t want you to have control. They want to sell you a pretty screen from which you’ll buy more of their crap and services.

7

If you really want freedom and control, you’re basically left with Linux computers (and janky phones) plus local open-source clones of the major apps, like LibreOffice. For email there’s ProtonMail and FastMail and such. The other cloud services, especially good photo and document sync, will be difficult. And there’s nothing as all-in-one as Google’s, especially once you start collaborating with other people.

8

I upgraded to the latest Android, and I really can’t tell the difference between it and the previous version. I like the new Advanced Security stuff, because it makes me feel all safe from the government, or something, because my phone will turn off if it gets confiscated.

I have Gemini turned off as much as possible. The main thing was turning off App Interaction or something like that. It lets Gemini interact (and read from) your other apps. Turning that off disables all of the Google Assistant features Gemini was taking over. I almost never used that voice control stuff, and now it is completely useless. Recently I asked it to set a reminder for me, and Gemini told me I’d have to turn on the App thing. Oh well, I guess I have to open the alarm app and set one for myself.

I’ve been using Firefox on Android for years, and it is fine. Firefox on Android can run the full version of uBlock Origin, which more than makes up for any speed decrease over Chrome.

I set Firefox’s default search engine to be Duck Duck Go, and for almost all things it works as well as any other search engine. If it isn’t finding me good results, I can always add !g to a search and DDG will search Google for me.

I never use the Google search bar on my phone, I always go into the browser to search. I do use Google Maps, because they’ve not managed to ruin that yet.

I don’t use Gmail for my primary email, but I do have my Gmail account added to Thunderbird on Android. If necessary, I can use Gmail through Thunderbird. You’d still be using Gmail, but it won’t bug you about AI.

The Google Workspace thing is going to be much harder to get away from. For that, I’d probably just stick with Google. You can go through all the hassle of moving to Microsoft, learning how to use and manage the Microsoft stuff, just to discover it doesn’t matter if you vote for Kang or Kodos.

If you really want to, you can self host a Nextcloud server. Don’t, though. I use it, and it’s mostly fine, but after dealing with it for several years I would not want to be in a position where my business depends on it.

9

If you are happy with tinkering, your best bet would be to convert your Android Pixel 7 phone into an AOSP phone (a “degoogled phone”).

AOSP is the Android Open Source Project, from which forms the base Google uses to construct Android (a closed source phone OS); however Android is not the only OS created from AOSP. There are many other, non-google, community led development projects which create phone OS and are 100% open source.

  1. LineageOS - the largest project, by far, because it supports the most devices as its primary aim is to provide long-term support for Android devices (a consumerist market that notoriously demands constant turnover every 3 years and abandons old hardware)
  2. GrapheneOS - The most polished and popular OS for newer devices (like your Pixel 7)
  3. /e/ - A fork off of LineageOS primarily designed to work on Murena Smartphones (A Euro phone)
  4. calyxos - The maintainers have paused development on this due to internal structural changes, but it has the shared goal of privacy and long term support.

I have only personally used LineageOS and feel that it is as good as Android, but with the added bonus that Google system modules were not spying on me. ALSO I could continue receiving system updates and upgrades weeeeeelllllllll past the time Google abandoned supporting my phone (I still get updates from the LineageOS team for my ORIGINAL PIXEL XL).

10

Most intriguing! My wife and I have pretty well divorced ourselves from Google, but Android is one of the last hangers-on. And we sure as hell aren’t going to switch to Apple. I glanced at the LineageOS page, but didn’t see an answer to my main question: if I install it, will my app data, contacts, texts, and so on be preserved? Or will I have to back it all off first, and reinstall apps and whatnot?

11

I use Linux for my personal stuff, and MacOS at work. I have a Pixel phone. Like @echoreply said, you can turn pretty much all the Google Gemini stuff off on an Android phone. I’m not certain what switches I hit, but their description seems like the same thing I did. Firefox is my browser and DuckDuckGo is my default search engine. DuckDuckGo does have some AI built into its search, but it generally just allows you to turn it on/off.

In general, I get no AI intruding when I don’t ask for it.

Oh, and I fucking hate Chrome. I have to use it for one site at work due to it checking the browser agent (yes there are workarounds, not going to do that for a work site). It’s generally a pretty horrible interface, and it’s fucking terrible at selecting/copying/pasting - will ALWAYS de-select the last > on a line when you go to copy from this page. It might do that elsewhere, too. but I hate it too much to visit any other site with it.

12

AI junk is all over YouTube.

I made the mistake of watching video with an older, retired engineer. He repairs a ship’s engine. I didn’t realize it was AI generated.

Now my feed has at least 8 versions of similar stories. Experienced old man is mocked by younger engineers as he fixes various types of engines.

History videos are rich targets for AI. It’s very hard to know what is AI. The upload date is the best clue. Anything recent has to be viewed with suspicion.

AI likes the Royal family. Everyone knows they’re very private and never discuss their conversations with each other.

Link to a 2 min short https://youtube.com/shorts/hsg4QI4DrTk?si=SRa-ZZiiL1lzeqN8

13

That and channels that churn out lots and lots and lots of content every single day, far faster than humanly possible.

14

Who would have thought that spammers would ruin YouTube faster than YouTube’s mother company ever could? A pity, but amazing.
Same is happening with other former nice sites and services.
Enshitification works when you have a captive audience. Are we really captive to such a degree? Sam Altman pretends we are, but I have my doubts.

15

Everything will be reset. It’ll even require unlocking and replacing the bootloader (which allows for the installation of the new OS, but the phone will now flash a “verified boot warning” on startup).

The steps are not difficult, here are the full instructions for flashing LineageOS and GrapheneOS on a Pixel 7, but it does require being good at reading/following directions as written and being comfortable with copy-pasting commands into a CLI terminal (Powershell, or zsh, or bash or whatever).

Not for those who dislike tinkering.

16

I’ll shortly be receiving a phone from china – a OnePlus Ace 5 – that will come installed with the Chinese OS, ColorOS (long story why I’m doing this)
IME Chinese phones don’t yet have bothersome AI, so I will option 1 first of ColorOS + google services and let you know how I get on.

But if the bloatware is too much I will also be trying to flash LineageOS or GrapheneOS (or OxygenOS, the official global version).

17

Unless I’m reading the list of compatible phones incorrectly, it appears that LineageOS isn’t supported on any Samsung phones newer than about five years old. Oh well.

18

Update

I know it’s a bit of a tangent from the op; I only mentioned importing a phone because I thought I’d likely be rooting to lineage.

But the Chinese OS is working great for me; it’s switched fully to English, and all the google apps work, but there’s no google assistant, or gemini, or any other irritations like that, so I have no reason to root it now.

Probably not an option for american dopers but just an FYI.

19

Thats encouraging.

20

In terms of phones, the Fairphone is also AOSP-based. Out of the box it’s just pretty standard Android 15, but there is also a separate version that comes with /e/os for a more de-Googled, but still Android-compatible, experience.

And if you don’t mind leaving Android and iOS altogether, there are also a few pure Linux phones like PinePhone - PINE64 and Purism - – Librem 5. But I would expect a lot of jank and a terrible day-to-day user experience on those…