Using Android Without a Google Account

12 Sep, 2024

All my children use some type of de-Googled Android device. They use them daily without complaint or even much awareness that their phones are not standard Android phones. (See also: What Is the Right Age for a Smartphone?).

Last night, I found a note of apology on my desk, next to an older Pixel phone with GrapheneOS, now with cracked screen. It had dropped to the floor, and it was rightly pointed out in the note that I'd forgotten put a screen protector on. Accidents can happen.

I enjoy flashing ROMS (it's around the upper limit of my technical skill!) and looking for refurbished phone deals, so I'll go bargain hunting soon enough, but in the mean time, we needed a temporary solution.

I had an old Motorola phone (E4plus), which is unfortunately not compatible with /e/OS or LineageOS.

I thought I would try setting up this phone with as little connection to Google as possible. It turns out—at least with older Android phones—you can set up an Android device without logging into a Google account. That, with using the Aurora Store, enables you to set up a semi-deGoogled phone easily.

Overview

What follows is a step-by-step list of instructions. This is the basic idea:

Factory reset and skip request to add Google account
Download F-Droid apk and Aurora Store (apk or via F-Droid)
Clean up home screen and shortcuts
Download required apps or alternatives from the two stores
Drag all preferred apps to home screen

Factory reset

Here are the steps for setting up your Android phone without logging into a Google account.

Update: First go to Accounts in Settings and delete any accounts that are there.

Go to Settings and scroll down to Backup & Reset, and select this
Select Factory data reset
Choose Reset Phone and Erase Everything
Once the device has restarted, set it up as new and connect to your WiFi
(On the Moto E4plus I was able to change privacy settings here)
At the Google Sign-in screen select Skip and then skip again when it asks you if you are sure
Switch off all possible Google services and continue
Skip the device company's own setup questions if possible (I just pressed Next without entering details on the Moto screen)

You should see a normal Android home screen.

Goodbye, Google Play

It's time to download two app stores that don't try to track you. You'll need to use the preinstalled Chrome browser one time.

Start up the Chrome browser, and decline repeated requests to log in
Search for 'f droid apk'
Make sure you are on a page beginning with https://f-droid.org/...
Scroll down and click on the blue DOWNLOAD F-DROID button
Allow Chrome access to photos, media and files
Ignore the warning about installing apks and press OK
Once downloaded, open the F-Droid apk file; this will give you a pop-up warning about unknown sources; press Settings in that warning box
Scroll down and toggle Allow installation of apps from unknown sources to ON; ignore the warning and press OK
Find the Downloads icon on your phone
Select the downloaded F-Droid.apk file and press install
Once installation is finished, open the F-Droid store; you'll need to wait a few minutes to allow for updates
Search (in F-Droid) for Aurora Store by Rahul Kumar Patel and press INSTALL
Allow installation from F-Droid when asked
Open Aurora Store and grant permissions (Installer Permission is required; Background Downloads and External Storage Access are optional)
Hit Finish
Select 'Log in using' Anonymous

You now have two new app stores. F-Droid contains mostly free and open source applications, while Aurora provides anonymous access to Google Play.

A Google-avoiding phone

At this point, it's up to you how much you want to use Google applications and the Play Store. You may see occasional update requests, as there are Google apps on the phone you can't erase. I try not to use any of them.

If you are doing this for a child, like I did, you can populate the home screen with apps downloaded from F-Droid and Aurora for easy access. These apps will update via those two stores.

I removed the Google search widget from the home screen as well as any Google apps from the quick access bar at the bottom,and I deleted any bloatware that came with the phone (Candy Crush Saga, anyone?).

Applications

With regards to installing new applications, keep the following in mind:

apps from F-Droid are mostly open source and vetted
Aurora accesses Google Play Store apps, but anonymously
you will not be able to access paid-for Play Store apps via Aurora

Here's what I installed on my child's temporary phone:

F-Droid

Organic Maps
Mull browser
Fossify Gallery (See Updates below re: Simple Gallery)
Obsqr—having a QR code reader made transfer of the contacts list via Nextcloud easier

Tuta mail and Mullvad VPN were incompatible with the older Motorola device.

Aurora

Signal Private Messenger
WhatsApp Messenger (no way around this, socially)
Tidal (monthly subscription music streaming service)

Here's what I kept from Google/Moto Android

YouTube without signing in
Contacts (not sure if worth replacing with FOSS app; again, thoughts and advice welcome!)
Camera app

I dragged all the newly downloaded apps to the home screen, and created a new web search widget using Mull browser and added that there too:

Android

The home screen displays the desired applications

This is a basic setup. After today, we can add any other required applications (Netflix, Pinterest,...) together.

One important thing I forgot to do is export the .vcf contacts file from the Pixel phone. I ended up transferring those via my Nextcloud server.

Problems

I saw a few warnings about 'invalid or corrupted apks' but the downloaded apps are working.

Banking or government ID applications tend not to work reliably when downloaded from the Aurora Store.

YouTube didn't work right away; I installed LibreTube as an option. NewPipe was not a hit previously.

I tried signing into YouTube with a dummy account, but Android began signing me into all the Google apps on the phone. I didn't want this, so I deleted that account.

I have not touched on security in this article, because I don't know enough about that. I presume running alternative apps on an older Android version is not great, but this phone will mostly be used at home. It's a temporary solution.

Conclusions

I've outlined steps for setting up an older Android device without logging into a Google account, with some independence from the Play Store. The Google apps are still there—you cannot erase them easily—but you can choose not use them. Placing the preferred apps on the home screen can help as a reminder to use them. Remember to update via F-Droid or Aurora Store.

While this doesn't come close to a fully deGoogled phone, it's very easy to set up and can be a good temporary solution while keeping yourself or children, family or friends away from constantly conducting all activities and business via a Google account.

Updates

'Larry H' on X sent the following response regarding the Simple apps suite:

Simple apps were sold to an adware company, switch to the clean forked Fossify Gallery https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.fossify.gallery/

Here are all of the apps in one place.

On Reddit, someone responded with this neat list of Android app alternatives and their sources: De-googling Android application alternatives. I like this list because it is clear and not overwhelming.

Someone posted a link to this blog post on Hacker News. In the comments I read it's best to wipe all accounts before doing a factory reset, so I have added this step above, as it can't hurt to do so.