Google really fucked us good with their grasp over the smartphone ecosystem.
Imagine an alternative universe where phones were as open as desktop computers.
this post was submitted on 05 Sep 2026
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Yep, I didn't want banking apps anyways, I-I-I'll just use cash I guess haha
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Play Integrity is the biggest Stranglehold Google has on Android, and it fucking sucks that so many (including my company) use it without asking any questions, regardless of bad reviews on the play store by users that use security focused OSes (like Graphene OS)
I HATE IT!
Lots will not leave play store reviews.
in the case of the apps my company do, there is a high volume of people in my country that use that app thus its very likely that peeps are leaving reviews.
Fuck your Play Integrity. Fortunately I use no app that needs that shit.
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(17 replies)
Whether you install a custom ROM or not:
Don't use Google.
Correct. Lineage OS only, F-Droid only. Nothing G-related at all whatsoever. No need.
I have a Motorola I probably need to do this to, especially if Google is about to lock down against using F-Droid and stuff.
What a huge freaking inconvenience. When am I gonna find the time?
But I'm hoping there's builds for something that will just work and not be like "Oh BTW the camera doesn't work." It seems a lot harder to find alternate ROMs these days if you're not on a Samsung or Pixel.
It's gotten so complicated too because they keep adding more and more anti-user layers. I like messing with stuff but I don't want to be forced to hack my daily driver! Ugh.
Yeah, that's one thing that kind of killed me. My One+has a great camera, but it's mediocre with the stock camera on LOS. Thankfully open camera and libre camera help. Check them out in Fdroid first which is what I should've done.
I'm going to see it I can take the APKs for the One+ apps from APKPure and strip the need for Google out of them so they'll work in my phone again. I suck at writing code, but reading and modding I can do better.
Yes of course
Doesnt LineageOS have a way to block Play integrity entirely? Most apps dont care at all if you say you dont support it at all, rather than telling them the actual value
GrapheneOS does that
Check out RestlessOS maybe, though GSI so no kernel or firmware updates
The only thing that you need play integrity for is banking apps.
I recommend buying a 50$ smartphone solely for banking and leaving it at home.
Maybe a silly question, but can you not do it in a web browser? It's what I've been doing.
Different countries have different systems. In Sweden, our "banking app" is not really for doing bank tasks, it's everywhere in society as a 2FA app. Buying a bus ticket, booking a medical appointment, paying bills, logging in to various government and non-government web sites, signing a contract, etc. They all use the banking 2FA app. It's really really difficult to have a normal life without this app.
It does not require Play Integrity though... yet.
True. I was more talking about "banking apps" being more than seeing the balance of my accounts in a web browser instead of using their app. BankID is used for much more than that.
As a swede not living in sweden (so I don't have a Swedish bank account) it is literally bureaucracy hell to do anything in sweden for me.
And I live in France, with its insane bureaucracy.
And I live in France, with its insane bureaucracy.
Lol I can relate. My mother lost her passport when we were in France (she is from France), her handbag was stolen. It was a week of going to different places, trying to get them to tell you which paper to use and from where to get it, and then to actually get the paper with the correct information.
It's always hilarious when I see Europeans complaining about the U.S. government when their own does shit like this.
The U.K. doesn't have jury trials anymore [for "less serious" crimes]...
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One of the two banks I use forces you to use their app for 2FA. I despise this practice but I'm also way too lazy to close those accounts. Luckily Scotiabank app doesn't use Play Integrity or whatever and works on GrapheneOS. The other bank I just use web browser yep.
For most other stuff MicroG works. It's still google but at arms length. I use it for Youtube Morphe modded adblock/sponsorblock app and stuff like that.
That way if your phone is stolen you're locked out of your bank! Genius!
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Unfortunately, at least in my country, it's getting harder and harder to do banking through a plain old webbrowser. Apps are being pushed hard and afaik all of them use the Google Lock-In API in their Android app. Alternatively I could switch to iPhone, but having had the displeasure of experiencing their crappy hardware and even worse service I'd rather cut my balls off than ever dealing with Apple again.
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Why leave at home? I have got a whole ass computer I can do banking on when at home.
Not only banking. I cannot commute to work without it. The most convenient way of commuting is an app Mälardalstrafik, and it will not even show search results without play integrity.
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On Fairphone you can re-lock the bootloader. I installed eOS and my banking apps from G**gle Play work perfectly
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I wish we could still adjust everything as easily as it once used to be. I just want access to the entire OS. I understand why they limit it. But they should leave an option for users to access it. I bought a Poco (Xiaomi) earlier this year and it absolutely horrible. The quick settings menu and the notification shade are separated and there's no way to have them in one view. It also does this thing where it will wipe anything you don't use for 2 seconds in an effort to conserve energy and memory. But you're constantly restarting apps that way and using more energy while making it slow to use. Not to mention you can't fill in forms while switching between apps. I also don't understand why Google neutered the recents screen ( I know it's been like this for around 10yrs). What's the point of the recents screen if you can't lock anything in it and you can only see four apps in it. And the horizontal not even stacked view is annoying as hell.
Wtf is play integrity and should I care if I use CalyxOS?
It's a google API that apps can use to check if they're running on a verified system, and unless google graciously allows, alternative OSs will always fail the check, which can make some apps unusable. For example many banking apps do this in the name of security.
Pretty sure calyx doesn't use google stuff so it should be fine, I presumably don't have it and don't want it.
It's the apps that use the google stuff, so certain banking, governement, and as I recently found out, dating apps (bumble) will simply not work. This is also the reason why google pay and most payment apps won't work https://calyxos.org/docs/guide/getting-started/#calyxos-limitations---calyxos-versus-stock-android
Interesting, never used any of those
I have no idea whether my phone passes it or not, everything seems to work.
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