Welp, my family refuses to use SimpleX. I'm still partially trapped at M*ta WhatsApp then. But I don't wanna turn GPS (GooglePlayServices) on.

Just dont.

You still get push modifications, just with a little delay.

Actually it's the opposite.

If you care enough about privacy to not have the Google Play store installed, what on earth posesses you to have WhatsApp anywhere near your phone?

My family.

Huh?

Its an app to download stuff from play store. Not helpful for your question.

If you selfhost https://github.com/mautrix/whatsapp

If you don't self host you could try https://www.beeper.com/

Given its history and ongoing lawsuits and investigations, I think that you might want to reconsider your perspective on privacy.

Privacy is like a chain, the weakest link is the end of it.

In my opinion, while there are serious concerns about Google, they pale into insignificance when compared with META.

I'd be less worried about the Play store and more worried about WhatsApp, but that's just me.

Interesting, although I'm not sure how it is meant to work with Whatsapp, the install notes say running in an Android VM is not recommended, and the other option is running it in a physical phone, so I'm not sure what the benefit is in that case

Err Beeper docs say you need to open the actual WhatsApp app every 12-14 days or it will disconnect.

I also think beeper uses play services for notifications so not sure it solves the original problem.

Most people live in the real world.
Most people cant or dont want to just go ultra privacy and cut literally any big tech service out of their live immediately.

Yes going all the steps is better than going only one step, but going one step is better than none. Don't shame people for what they have not yet done but support the steps they have taken.

As I said in the post, damn my family.

So why would you comment it?

Aurora store says it needs Play Services.

What am I supposed to do? Here everyone uses it, you can't talk to friends or family, have a job, get info about school, etc, without it

That depends on how much you value privacy, it's not a question I can answer.

You install whatsapp on an old phone, leave it at home plugged in somewhere.

You link beeper to that WhatsApp.

Then you can use an open source app from fdroid like elements or schildichat without play services to send whatsapp messages through beeper on your real open source phone.

Beeper should just be a matrix.org chat server. There's a lot of open source apps for matrix.org.

I self host so I'm not 100% certain on beeper. I know it uses the same open source project I do to get my messages into matrix.

Get a second phone to run WhatsApp. When not using WhatsApp, turn the phone off or get a Faraday bag to keep it in.

You replied to a person who didn't comment it.

Beeper itself isn't the problem, it's all the hoops you have to jump through for the bridges to trick WhatsApp, Facebook, etc into connecting with it.

You can set up a WhatsApp↔Matrix bridge

Ok interesting approach