last night, my pixel came! I flashed Graphene and I am now running it smoothly!

I am in the process of downloading apps and I have a question: I am interested in at least using discord on this device. It is absolutely one of my most used apps. On PC, I use legchord. Im a big fan. Is there something similar available for mobile? and I have a similar question for Whatsapp, and FB messenger (although those are less important)?

For one, I was getting really irritated about the apps my google device wouldnt let me delete, and also the apps I wanted to side load. That being said, I definitely don't like meta. I have an app on my PC called caprine. I wouldn't download first party meta apps, but these are the apps my friends use to talk, so if there is a workaround, I was just asking about that

I run my own Matrix server and just bridge Whatsapp, Messenger, Discord and Telegram to it. Element (a matrix client I'm using) Works without google services.

The only catch is I have to have a second Play-services enabled profile on the phone, and sign in to whatsapp there every two weeks, so it keeps my Matrix session fresh.

FYI you can use a combination of Shizuku and Canta to get rid of pretty much any Google app on an Android phone. Useful tip I got here recently.

Pay it forward.

Any chance you have instructions somewhere on running these bridges? I'd love to do that, myself.

The way I run it is Google Play lives in the Private Space, which is well worth setting up. That way you don't have "secure but not anonymous" pings going back to Google all day

It's nice because then I don't just have war footage living in my main gallery too lol

Same. This is the way.

• Owner profile only for installing and updating apps
• Primary/daily profile for pure FOSS apps
• Private space within the primary profile for Google services and any apps that require it

Each one is slightly different, obvs.

https://matrix.org/ecosystem/bridges/

Sure!

I highly recommend using the matrix-ansible-docker-deploy. It has a pretty good documentation that should not give you much trouble, if you have at least very basic self-hosting experience (i.e can get a domain, a server, and set up SSH and firewall ports), and configuring it to do what you want is usually just adding a single config line into vars.yml when setting it up.

Once you get to the configuration step in the quickstart, where you change a few rows, also take a look at the more in-depth configuration documentation, and scroll down to the chapter about configuring bridges/bridging other networks.

For example, setting up a messanger bridge is literally just adding matrix_mautrix_meta_messenger_enabled: true into your vars.yml when you are setting it up.

How do they work? Those tools actually delete system apps?

Not OP but I think Facebook also trapped a lot of users with marketplace. I don't use it but my wife does. Where we live you ain't selling anything if it not on Marketplace. Unfortunately it's a useful service. I've got 3 kids so our house is a revolving door of Marketplace.

I did the same 4 years ago and it kinda worked, but often Telegram messages were not delivered (never saw them). Compatibility also broke for some messeger a few weeks later. It was not worth the time invest.

For Discord, the newest one AFAIK is Revenge which is also in the middle of a rewrite, there's Aliucord also which is mature but on an old version of Discord. On desktop there's also EquiBop. Some people are suggesting Matrix bridges as well which I should try. Be careful with WhatsApp since I've heard they're very ban-happy.

To be honest I'm not sure they work under the hood but they use debug mode and some other stuff to do what they do. Yes they can remove system apps, pretty much anything. They have a traffic light system to warn you about whether its safe to remove some things. Green is good, orange is a bit risky, red is riskier again. The risk usually relates to the impact on other apps or functions working.

Twas pretty easy to set up.

Edit: Screenshot addition. Not quite traffic light system but you get me. Unless they have illuminous pink traffic lights somewhere!

@umbrella @bloogoose yes, you are the one being obstinate. I live in INE of those countries you mention where saying "Signal" and "Iron potatoes" sound the same to most of the population, and every business and public institution is basically unreachable unless you're using WhatsApp. I stopped using WhatsApp, those who respect my choice of privacy installed signal, the rest either call me or disappeared from my life. There is no excuse to keep using those platforms, it's that simple.

Yes. Same.