
MicroG Project: A re-implementation of Google’s Android apps and libraries - ProfDreamer
https://microg.org/
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fallenshell
This is great. This can be shipped on custom ROMs with only attribution
required, correct? Can we (ROM builders and developers) incorporate this at
the current state of the project?

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ysleepy
The current state is not for the faint of heart. There are occasional Issues
which need some logcat analysis. \- But I'm running it for many months and it
works out for me. It is not feature complete though, just mostly.

But I think if the ROM Developer community takes an _active_ interest many
edge cases could be polished out.

~~~
fallenshell
Hmmm... Nice. I might be integrating this into special builds for testers.

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zserge
So this does not affect app developers, but rather firmware developers, right?
Also, do these libraries end up talking to Google backends or there is a
choice to use some other backends with compatible API? Sorry for a newbie
question, I tried my best to avoid Google APIs in my APKs so far, so I don't
really know much about them.

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j_s
GmsCore is helpful for Android users who want to stay away from Google (even
when application developers don't!). For example, it makes it possible to use
Signal without depending on Google Cloud Messaging. (This is also helpful when
Google stuff may not necessarily be available, such as on Amazon devices.)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10665520](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10665520)

[https://o9i.de/2015/10/23/howto-
gmscore.html](https://o9i.de/2015/10/23/howto-gmscore.html)

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breakingcups
I was hoping something like this would come off the ground. It's good to have
alternatives!

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brad0
Interesting. I'm guessing that we can ship this with androidx86?

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ysleepy
I'm using this and its pretty great.

Normal Play Store works for me. The installation procedure with Needle is not
for the average User but doable.

The apk must be in system-priv or somewhere for everything to work, I always
forget, but the XDA Thread has the Info on that.

For me this is exactly what I wanted, Push Notifications and Play Store. The
other google cruft can stay where it came from.

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anilgulecha
This is good, and it makes sense for many apps that are unavailable on
f-droid, amazon store, replicant, cyanogenmod and others.

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feylikurds
What is it that would stop Google from turning off access to the Google Play
Store by way of Store (Phonesky), especially if MicroG becomes popular?

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realusername
Technically, they probably won't see the difference between Phonesky and the
actual Google Play Store if they mimic enough the APIs. The problem is more
legally if that's possible, I'm not a lawyer but technically, it will be
really difficult to stop.

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ikeboy
They can always add some obfuscated code in their proprietary version and
require a code every so often or something similar.

Google has been known to do this [https://moderncrypto.org/mail-
archive/messaging/2014/000780....](https://moderncrypto.org/mail-
archive/messaging/2014/000780.html)

"As an example, I created a system that randomly generates encrypted
JavaScripts that are designed to resist reverse engineering attempts."

If they provide a binary blob that resists reversing, there might not be a way
around including that blob.

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realusername
That's indeed true. Android phones are not still really updated often and I
guess they need to keep backward compatibility for lots of things limiting
their options for this kind of tricks.

