We untie the smartphone from the all-seeing eye of Google. An alternative version of Android has been released without reference to Google services. Imitation of Google services on Android.

You get used to good things quickly. Ecosystems from Microsoft, Apple and Google have firmly settled on mobile devices, enveloping them with its undeletable and deeply integrated services. Can you imagine an iPhone without iTunes music, iCloud, office suite iWork or some kind of Lumiya without Xbox Music, OneDrive, MS Office? Agree - this is a pathetic sight. But how interesting is an Android smartphone without signs of Google interference? Read more about this.

Why delete Google services?

As it usually happens, it was evening, there was nothing to do and I got confused with the firmware of my dearly beloved Sony Xperia Z1 Compact on the latest version of CyanogenMod - 12.1 (based on Android 5.1 Lollipop). The developers of Cyanogen have made a lot of trouble during my absence from the world of custom firmware, and in addition to the installation archive, which is killer in its structure and internal scripts, they also decided to foist on users their proprietary recovery menu - Cyanogen Recovery. I don’t understand why these “enthusiasts” were not satisfied with the classic and much more functional CWM, but there’s nothing to be done.

As we know, almost all CM/AOSP-based firmware comes without Google services - they need to be installed separately from a zip archive. Since I am used to minimalism, I downloaded a third-party application package, but the proprietary recovery refused to install it, citing the lack of a signature. I didn’t want to sew a package weighing half a gig, signed by Cyan, and decided to abandon this idea altogether and live for a week freed from the shackles of the good corporation.

There may be three key reasons that may prompt you to repeat my experiment:

1) Become the master of your smartphone

As we know, slightly less than all smartphones that are officially sold in Europe and the CIS come with pre-installed Google services that cannot be removed (the Chinese allow themselves to abandon them, replacing them with analogues for local markets). Alas, these are the OS licensing conditions. But why the hell does a smartphone decide for us what can be deleted and what cannot?

By following my path, while ordinary users are wondering what this “Google Assistant” is, music subscription, market, “you have to pay for programs” - you become the rightful owner and absolute ruler of your device. Only you decide what will be preinstalled on your smartphone and how it will work. To do this, it is not necessary to sew SM, you can simply get root rights to stock firmware and cut out everything unnecessary bit by bit through Root Explorer or Titanium Backup.

2) +50% autonomy

I don’t think I’ll open America to anyone if I say that Google services eat up the battery about the same as desktop Chrome RAM. The main energy costs come from activities related to accessing the network - synchronizing contacts, documents, receiving mail, sending location, usage statistics, check-ins gaming achievements V Google Play Games. Even if you deliberately disable many unnecessary synchronization points, sneaky Google services manage to hang in the background forever, eating up RAM and sending data and statistics on the use of your gadget.

By getting rid of this burden, you get about a hundred megabytes of additional free RAM and about a 50% increase in battery life.

3) Comfort for the paranoid

It is quite logical that by getting rid of the constant transmitter of data about your location and annoying apps that require too many access privileges, the paranoid can breathe easy and relax a little. Now no one secretly scans nearby WiFi points, supposedly to improve the accuracy of geolocation, no one records the exact history of your movements on the world map, no one collects statistics about you, no one even knows what language you use to communicate with the outside world.

Back to Symbian

In the era of Symbian smartphones (they cried, right?), applications were installed on a smartphone (unexpectedly) using installation files, similar to how you do it on a PC under Windows control. So, life without Google services is a great chance to get nostalgic and return to that very era. There are a scattering of .apk files at your service on developer sites or forums like 4pda and xda-developers.

For the most harmful ones, alternative markets are also available - Amazon, Yandex, SlideMe, Aptoide, 1Mobile, as well as a free software repository called F-droid. These and other markets have a good base of offers, naturally inferior in volume to the “file dump” Google Play. Alternative markets often also have in stock latest versions current applications and can update them automatically.

Main problems and hardships

First of all, I needed my contacts in the amount of 170 pieces. Naturally, I could forget about synchronization, so I exported contacts from Gmail to a vCard file, which I successfully fed to the phone. After restoring contacts, it was necessary to connect mail. I was completely satisfied with the standard mailer included with CyanogenMod - it can accept push, looks very similar to Gmail, and supports gestures. True, with the corporate box we had to work hard, manually setting up the server settings.

Among the application sources suggested above, I left w3bsit3-dns.com and F-droid. From the last one I installed Firefox browser and the Telegram messenger, AdAway ad blocker, as well as some specific programs, which I will discuss later. The rest of the good stuff - social media clients, a book reader and the Fleksy keyboard - I conscientiously tore out from the forum. This is where the first serious problem for me arose.

My favorite Fleksy keyboard turned out to be tied to a Google account, so I couldn’t improve my dictionaries and personalize my typing. I killed a good half a year to teach the keyboard all my swear words and abbreviations, eventually getting ultra-accurate and monstrously fast typing speed on my smartphone, but without Google services all this turned out to be inaccessible to me.

The calendar became another stumbling block in my experiment. You cannot create an event in it without connecting your Google account. The solution was found in the form of the Offline Calendar application, available in the F-droid repositories, which created a local calendar on the device.

So is the game worth the candle?

As always, it's up to you, and only you! In general, living without Google services is actually, with some reservations, more than comfortable, and the lion's share of problems can be solved. You gradually find replacements for popular applications, wondering how you used to be so attached to one thing, you begin to rejoice at the extra day of work on one battery charge, and you console yourself with the knowledge that you have become a full-fledged ruler over your device and its system. But, I’ll be honest – existence without Google services is interesting game for geeks and enthusiasts and not everyone will emerge victorious. Losers will lose all data if their smartphone is seriously damaged or lost. Serious software failures in the operation of the device after inept intervention in system files are also possible.

If you feel ready for exploits, it seems to me that giving up Google services will give you a lot of impressions and interesting discoveries. Start with a couple of days or a week, and then you’ll like it and won’t want to go back. Or would you like to?

First version Android platforms Since its release it has undergone several updates. Google, paying great attention to the further development of the system, is constantly working not only to correct detected errors, but also to expand the functionality of the popular OS.

One of the developers' innovations operating system Android has become the latest protection system that has appeared on devices starting with version 5.1. This function ( Factory Reset Protection or FRP lock) is as follows: if a smartphone is lost or stolen, the owner will be able to block his gadget, after which, without a login/password pair from a Google account, the phone will not be subject to further use. The same protection will work if you try full reset settings (hard reset).

But how can we bypass the Google account if we reset the settings ourselves, for example, when flashing the device or deleting graphic key? In addition, there are often cases when the system does not accept the correct password/login.

In any case, when you first start the device and try to access wi-fi networks, a request will appear on the smartphone screen to confirm your Google account on Android:

This is where the need arises to find a way to cope with the problem.

Google account bypass

It should be noted that the situation is complicated by the fact that, given the large number of smartphone manufacturing companies in Android based, and even more models, there is simply no single universal solution for all devices. Therefore, we will now look at several proven options.

How to avoid the reset problem

To avoid getting into an unpleasant situation, do not forget to take advantage of the opportunity provided by the developers. To do this, before performing a reset, go to “ Settings", select the section " Accounts" (May be " Accounts"), we find " Google", open.

Next, call up the menu by clicking on the three dots in the upper right corner and select “ Delete account"(on some models, the action selection is caused by a long press on the account field). Now we need (USB debugging) and activate the “ OEM Unlocking»:

Five ways to bypass Google account protection

Method No. 1

The first step is to remove the SIM card and then turn on the smartphone. Next, select the desired language, ignore the window with SIM (button “ skip"). In the next window where you need to enter a phone number or email. mail, press and hold the symbol @ until the settings button appears, first press it, and then “ Android Keyboard Settings" After that, click touch button « back" at the very bottom of the display, then press and hold the submenu button there (you may also have to press the " home", differently on all devices) until the Google search bar appears:

In the search bar that opens, write the word “ settings" Once in the settings section, select “ Recovery and reset", and then turn off " Auto recovery" And " Preservation backup copies "(and in exactly this sequence), after which we reset the settings:

Method number 2

Another universal method that can help in a difficult situation when it is not possible to access the Internet or settings or it is also impossible to perform other actions.

What should be done:

We insert the SIM card into the locked phone, from which we will delete the drone account. Then, call this number from another device. We accept the call and select the action “ Add new challenge", then enter any numbers in the dialer:

Now we need to enter our Google account, for which we know the password (or create a new one). After that, we save the contact to this account:

After the completed manipulations, reboot the smartphone.

Method number 3

We insert a SIM card into the smartphone that we will unlock and call this number from another phone. Next, as described in the second method, click on + (i.e. add a new call), and drop the call. After this, the keyboard will open, use it to enter the following combination: *#*#4636#*#* (see screenshot):

Immediately after entering the last character, an automatic transition to a new window with information and advanced settings will occur. Now click on the arrow located in the upper left corner of the screen and go to standard settings devices, select the section “ Recovery and reset", disable " Copying data" And " Auto recovery" (May be " Archiving" And " Data recovery"), after which we perform a factory reset (or hard reset):

It remains to wait for the procedure to complete, and after that we log into our Google account via Wi Fi.

Method number 4

You can try to enter the standard settings in another way: on the main screen, press and hold the “ Home", and when the Google icon appears, tap on it and go to the search bar, click, the keyboard appears, type the word " Settings»:

Method number 5

Please watch the video that tells you how to bypass your Google account using the application after resetting the settings QuickShortcutMaker, which will help provide quick access to the settings of a locked smartphone, as well as to the menu of applications installed on it:

We talked about the simplest and most popular methods that can help resolve the issue without harming the device. You can find a lot of other methods on the Internet, but do not forget that if you are not confident in your actions, then there is a danger of causing even more damage to your gadget. Therefore, if you have saved the receipts and the warranty period has not expired, then service center specialists will help you completely free of charge.

*Note: if the described actions did not bring the desired result, do not rush to try everything at once. It makes sense to wait from one to three days, and then proceed to the next attempts, because this is exactly the period provided by the developers for unlocking the device.

Was the information provided useful to you? Have you encountered such a problem? If yes, then tell us how you managed to bypass Google account on Android. That's all for me, good luck!

It is not possible to completely remove Google Play Services without root rights, but if you really want to, you can configure your phone so that Google services are minimally present in it. Let's see how to disable Google services in the settings, and what to do to completely remove them.

Shutdown

Typically, the need to remove or disable Google Play Services arises due to the significant energy consumption of this application. Calendar, Maps, Hangouts, Drive, Location Services and other plugins may not be used, but they still take up a lot of space and eat up battery power. To reduce the impact of Google Play Services on your phone, just disable them in the Android settings.

Go to settings, find the section with accounts. You need a Google account, which is what everything on Android is connected to. You can remove it, and then the calendar data and other built-in programs and services will no longer be synchronized. But let's go the other way and try to simply stop Google Services and the Google Services Framework.

Open sync settings account. Here you need to uncheck all the boxes so that each plugin stops functioning. If you are concerned about Android's high power consumption, do the following:

Go to the "Language and input" section in the settings.
Open the Voice Search submenu.
Go to the "OK Google Recognition" section.
Move the toggle switches to the inactive position.

This will allow you to disable the function on Android voice search, which constantly accesses the microphone and drains the battery. The phone will work even longer if you erase the cache of built-in applications - Play Market, Google Services.

Open the Applications section in Settings.
Go to the All tab.
Open the Services page, click “Clear cache”.
Stop the program by clicking the appropriate button.

In the same way, you can delete the cache and leave the rest of the plugins running. You can easily return them to working condition if necessary, but for now they will not interfere and consume charge.

Removal

To produce complete removal Services require root rights. You can get them different ways, some custom firmwares have them by default. With root access, you can even uninstall built-in programs from the system, removing them directly from the directories in which they are installed. Let's see how to remove built-in Google Play Services on Android, and what applications can be removed in general:

Launch Root Explorer or another manager that is suitable for working with file system Android.
Open the /system/app directory. Inside you will see built-in programs.
A similar list of applications with some additions will be in the /system/priv-app directory.

If you delete these files, as well as frameworks in the /system/framework directory and libraries in /system/lib, then there will be no built-in software left on Android, and the question “Google services, can they be deleted?” will finally receive a positive response. How to recover remote programs? There is only 1 way - you need to download Google Services.

It just so happens that you get used to good things quickly. Ecosystems from Microsoft, Apple and Google have firmly settled on mobile devices, enveloping them with their uninstallable and deeply integrated services. Can you imagine an iPhone without iTunes music, iCloud cloud, iWork office suite or any Lumiya without Xbox Music, OneDrive, MS Office? Agree - this is a pathetic sight. But how interesting is an Android smartphone without signs of Google interference? I'll tell you now.

Why remove Google services?

As it usually happens, it was evening, there was nothing to do and I got confused with the firmware of my dearly beloved Sony Xperia Z1 Compact on the latest version of CyanogenMod - 12.1 (based on Android 5.1 Lollipop). The developers of Cyanogen, assholes, have done a lot of damage during my absence from the world of custom firmware, and in addition to the installation archive, which is lethal in its structure and internal scripts, they also decided to foist on users their proprietary recovery menu - Cyanogen Recovery. I don’t understand why these idiot enthusiasts weren’t satisfied with the classic and much more functional CWM, but there’s nothing to be done.

As we know, almost all CM/AOSP-based firmware comes without Google services - they need to be installed separately from a zip archive. Since I’m used to minimalism, I downloaded a third-party application package, but the proprietary recovery refused to install it, citing the lack of a signature. I didn’t want to sew a package weighing half a gig, signed by Cyan, and decided to abandon this idea altogether and live for a week freed from the shackles of the good corporation.

There may be three key reasons that may prompt you to repeat my experiment:

1) Become the master of your smartphone

Following my path, while ordinary users are wondering what this “Google Assistant” is, music subscription, market, “you have to pay for programs” - you become the rightful owner and absolute ruler of your device. Only you decide what will be preinstalled on your smartphone and how it will work. To do this, it is not necessary to flash SM, you can simply get root rights on the stock firmware and cut out all the unnecessary bits and pieces through Root Explorer or Titanium Backup.

2) +50% autonomy

I don’t think I’ll open America to anyone if I say that Google services eat up the battery in about the same way as desktop Chrome RAM. The main energy costs come from activities related to accessing the network - synchronizing contacts, documents, receiving mail, sending location, usage statistics, marking game achievements in Google Play Games. Even if you deliberately disable many unnecessary synchronization points, sneaky Google services manage to hang in the background forever, eating up RAM and sending data and statistics on the use of your gadget.

By getting rid of this burden, you get about a hundred megabytes of additional free RAM and about a 50% increase in battery life.

3) Comfort for the paranoid

It makes sense that by getting rid of the constant transmitter of your location data and intrusive applications that require too many access privileges, the paranoid will be able to breathe easy and relax a little. Now no one secretly scans nearby WiFi points, supposedly to improve the accuracy of geolocation, no one records the exact history of your movements on the world map, no one collects statistics about you, no one even knows what language you use to communicate with the outside world.

Back to Symbian

In the era of Symbian smartphones (they cried, right?), applications were installed on a smartphone (unexpectedly) using installation files, similar to how you do it on a Windows PC. So, life without Google services is a great chance to get nostalgic and return to that very era. There are a scattering of .apk files at your service on developer sites or forums like 4pda and xda-developers.

For the most harmful ones, alternative markets from Amazon and Yandex are also available, as well as a free software repository called F-droid. All three have a good base of offers, naturally inferior in volume to the “file dump” Google Play. Alternative markets often also have the latest versions of current applications and can update them automatically.

Main problems and hardships

Among the application sources suggested above, I left w3bsit3-dns.com and F-droid. From the latter, I installed the Firefox browser and the Telegram messenger, the AdAway ad blocker, as well as some specific programs, which I will discuss later. The rest of the good stuff - social media clients, a book reader and the Fleksy keyboard - I conscientiously tore out from the forum. This is where the first serious problem for me arose.

My favorite Fleksy keyboard turned out to be tied to a Google account, so I couldn’t improve my dictionaries and personalize my typing. I spent a good half a year trying to teach the keyboard all my swear words and abbreviations, eventually getting ultra-accurate and monstrously fast speed of typing a test on a smartphone, but without Google services all this turned out to be inaccessible to me.

So is the game worth the candle?

As always, it's up to you, and only you! In general, living without Google services is actually, with some reservations, more than comfortable, and the lion's share of problems can be solved. You gradually find replacements for popular applications, wondering how you used to be so attached to one thing, you begin to rejoice at the extra day of work on one battery charge, and you console yourself with the knowledge that you have become a full-fledged ruler over your device and its system. But, I’ll be honest - existence without Google services is an interesting game for geeks and enthusiasts, and not everyone will emerge victorious from it. Losers will lose all data if their smartphone is seriously damaged or lost. Serious software failures in the operation of the device after inept intervention in system files are also possible.

Basically, all famous manufacturers of phones, tablets and other devices for Android control installed in their Google devices Play or as it was previously called Android Market. However, there are manufacturers on whose devices, due to licensing, Google Play is not installed.

Who doesn't have Google Play

This mainly concerns devices from little-known Chinese companies. Buyers of such devices benefit in price, which is the determining factor for them when choosing, although they often lose in quality and functionality.

After purchasing such a device through certain time, when the owner needs to install an application, a logical question arises: how to install Play Market (Google Play)?.

Where to get Google Play

You can download Play Market from third-party sites and install it, however, it will not work on all devices due to the fact that the manufacturer has not received a license for Google services. It will be possible to install the Play Market, but it will not work.

Applications from Internet sites

You can search for applications on your computer on various sites, download, and install. You can search for applications on third-party sites directly from your phone and install them. This method will not be the most convenient and, in addition, when downloading applications from different sites the risk of catching the virus increases.

Applications from other sources

There is another way to install applications without Google Play, it is just as convenient and the security will be at the same level. It consists of using third-party sources, namely alternative application stores, which are competitors of Google Play in app distribution.

You will find everything in them popular apps which you need. I advise you to use app stores only from well-known companies, such as Amazon or 1mobile.

Steps for installation

So you decided to install an alternative to the play market, the process of installing stores is the same, let's look at it using the example of 1 Mobile Market. The installation will consist of 3 steps - changing settings, downloading and installing:

Settings

Go to the settings, select the “Security” item in the menu, look for the line “Unknown sources” and mark it to allow the installation of applications from unknown sources, because Google considers only its Play Market to be a known source, and we will download 1 Mobile Market from the Internet.

Loading

We open any browser, you can use the built-in one or Chrome, Opera and others. In the browser in address bar enter the website address of 1 Mobile Market - www.1mobile.com.

On the site, click on the word Market at the top of the page, or at the very bottom of the page on the inscription 1Mobile Market, this field should open the download page.

On the download page, select for which device you want to download 1Mobile Market - phone or tablet and click the Download button under the corresponding device. Chrome may display a message “the file may harm your device”, ignore it, click OK and the download will begin.

Installation

Once the download is complete, all that remains is to install the application. To do this, go to downloads and run the file containing 1 Mobile Market in the name, the installation process will begin.

Click install in the window that appears, and when a message appears stating that the application is installed, click the open button and go to the 1Mobile Market store