this post was submitted on 10 May 2026
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Privacy
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Can we trust that isn’t a campaign to promote Google? What are these websites? Why aren’t they blocking an iPhone? Can any of that be replicated or is this just a Google campaign to create fear and doubt
GrapheneOS user here! Not sure about websites but there are certain apps that don't work properly without Google Play Services, but Graphene's app store has a sandboxed version of it, so I just installed that and revoked all it's permissions. Then if an app needs it, I just turn on the relevant permission, do the thing and then turn permissions off again. It's a bit of a pain at first but I'm used to it now.
Note that some apps will say that they won't work without GPS, but actually will if you give it a try.
some of them are now straight up refusing to run without the play store.
Then they don't deserve your business
Man, I want a phone with physical kill switches for things like Wifi, GPS, Bluetooth, because a lot of things seem to detect when these things are turned 'off' by software. Wonder how they'd react if in software, GPS is enabled, but the actual hardware is not powered at all
They most likely won't work. Just speculation, but I would imagine most software that "needs" information like GPS don't care that its on or off, they care that they try to pull data and there is none.
pine phone
I'd say making a 2nd user for the apps that need Play Services (like banking and Uber/Lyft) is the move. This only allows Play Services to run when the 2nd user is on and also fully seperates it from the main user!
Oh yeah that's something I've been meaning to look into!
I'm a grapheneOS user and I don't have any google services installed. I havecyetvto hit any major issues with any apps or websites I use. Lucky, maybe?
The main ones for me are the RBC app, Skip the Dishes and Communauto. But I think those might all be Canadian?
I am Canadian. I don't use the rbc app, I use a different bank and use their website. I alao use the skip website when I order there, but I've never heard of the third one.
Because the iPhone has their own spyware to prove you're a ~~product~~ user.
https://support.google.com/recaptcha/answer/16609652?hl=en
https://blog.cloudflare.com/how-to-enable-private-access-tokens-in-ios-16-and-stop-seeing-captchas/
Interesting. Definitely turning that off. (As if it actually turns off)
If you turn it off, you'll have to do the captchas manually.
Yeah I’m okay with that.
I just do them wrong, after a few tries it lets me through
Its basically forced by Google. I mean who wouldn't force it after someone deliberately removes your government sanctioned spyware. See if people stopped calling it google or Apple and just USA spyware with backdoor to your lives it would be better at getting to the privacy issues. I mean the NSA already proved this is a fact.
more info here: https://reclaimthenet.org/google-broke-recaptcha-for-de-googled-android-users
Haven't encountered this yet, has it been let loose in the wild?
Good point, this would have to work on iPhones too and people without a phone would just not be able to use those websites at all.
I just loaded a bunch of recaptcha on my GrapheneOS phone. So, I dunno what this is all about.
Yeah exactly. Millions of websites? Which ones? Though I don't see how this would benefit google
@meowmeow because iPhone is already doing what Googles Playstore is now going to do