Android and Google Phones.
Some years ago, I tried to use Android without using Google. While my wife was using a Fairphone with Google services, I had a rooted Samsung Galaxy S II with open source Android 7 (AOSP) thanks to cyanogenmod / LineageOS. I could have used Google apps, Play Store and Google location provider etc. but at that time I preferred to try the hardcore Google-less way.
CyanogenMod: my old rooted Galaxy phone
CyanogenMod: my old rooted Galaxy phone is still part of my device lab.
Cyanogen Mood (CyanogenMod)
It's inconvenient, yet possible, to use Android phones without Google services. No assistant, no spyware, no convenient online services at all, unless you explicitly choose and install one.
I felt a bit like a yokel wearing a tinfoil hat: no popular solution worked out of the box, no way to use banking or car sharing apps (that either refused to start on a rooted phone for security reasons or didn't support location services from any other location provider except for Google), and as many popular apps are not listed in f-droid, I had to download apk files from Android Police's APK mirror and make a manual install for every update.
The lesser evil as a comfortable compromise?
When I was looking for a new job (before eventually becoming a self-employed freelancer), I chose to try the exact opposite strategy for a while, currently using a Google Pixel 4a and all of their services, including docs and calendar sync. Despite the clunky UI of Android 12, it still seemed a good user experience over all, and I was happy to get all the latest security updates and have access to my data from any device.
Don't look beautiful?
Android 12's controversial clunky UI Update annoyed many users when it was rolled out in 2021: "Just upgraded to Android 12 and what the fuck is this new UI?!"
Android 12 Screenshots: People are getting so angry over this controversial change in Android 12
If this was supposed to be more accessible, then why most of the text is truncated and keeps moving like an old LED advert device in a cheap shop window? Well, we can use alternative launchers and Lanting Icon Pack to customize our Android's look and feel at least a little.
Screenshots of customized Android phone screens with or without Google
Google still has cute animations on its search website and I still like their artwork in the calendar app, but somehow their current motto seems to be "don't look beautiful". But wasn't that supposed to be "don't be evil" when Google appeared as a fresh new hipster startup?
When Google dropped "don't be evil" 😡
Although Google dropped their motto "don't be evil" years ago, their services still seem to be the lesser evil or rather the only useful alternative in several cases.
Trying to use Ecosia, which makes use of Microsoft Bing as the actual search engine, for "googling" dev related knowledge, I had to resort to Google sooner or later again, which will also refuse to produce useful search results eventually.
Searching without matches: screenshot of a blue character sitting with a fishing rod, next to the message: your search did not match any documents.
In 2025, Google ended its DEI commitments, renamed the Gulf of Mexico to "Gulf of America" for U.S. users and blocked reviews after rename criticism after premature compliance to announced decrees of the new U.S. president.
Posting is currently turned off for this type of place showing an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico on Google Maps in 2025
Note that many other companies moved in the same direction before, including Meta (Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram), X (formerly known as Twitter), and even the Swedish music streaming service Spotify reportedly donated 150,000ドル to the presidential inauguration ceremony in 2025. Google's not the only big corporation that we should probably seek to avoid wherever possible, and there are more reasons why.
In 2026, OpenAI's president donated millions of dollars to a MAGA organization supporting Donald Trump causing a "#QuitGPT" shitstorm.
Adding (mis)features instead of fixes
Instead of fixing their very own search algorithm and stop to deteriorate the popular Android operating system, Google tried to use its supremacy as the most powerful Chromium maintainer to push the controversial tracking technology FLoC.
Screenshot of a drawn eye with the Google Chrome logo as a pupil on the sites Am I FLoCed?
But Google's public blunders are just the tip of the iceberg.
Try and google Dr. Timnit Gebru and you may never want "to google" anymore. Dr. Gebru, founder of the Distributed AI Research Institute, was terminated as Google’s ethical AI leader in December 2020 after criticizing the company’s practices in a research paper. Quoting a DAIR mission statement:
AI is not inevitable, its harms are preventable, and when its production and deployment include diverse perspectives and deliberate processes, it can be beneficial.
[フレーム]
This video by VICE news, AI Ethics Researcher Timnit Gebru's Firing Doesn’t Look Good For Google, is provided by YouTube, a former startup that was purchased by Google in 2006. Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google, the "big four" or "GAFA" companies are North American firms that have become a dangerously powerful oligopoly that dominates most people's digital lives.
Google renamed its Bard bot "AI mode" and came up with Google Gemini, Notebook LM and AI Studio to keep up with contenders like OpenAI's ChatGPT, Microsoft's GitHub Copilot, Anthropic's Claude, and European contenders like Mistral's Le Chat and Ecosia AI.
Despite AI's unreliability and oblivion, you might have noticed that AI bot know you well and that's no coincidence, as users give away more detail than classic search engines and tracking cookies could ever collect before.
Trying to make a list of useful Google alternatives
As we can see, there is a growing list of reasons to ditch Google products and services for good, but we have to find and support useful alternatives. Here are some that I already tried or that I'm willing to give a(nother) try someday:
Google as a search engine 🔎
Maps and Navigation 🗺️ (updated August 14, 2023)
Waze is NOT a Google alternative, as it has been acquired by Google back in 2013, especially not if you're concerned about privacy, but otherwise it might still be a useful alternative to the Google maps app for car navigation.
Weather
Web Browser 🕸️🌏 (updated August 2023)
There are many web browsers, but only a few browser engines.
Android System and Android App Stores 🛒
- f-droid
-
apkmirror (app store mirror server by androidpolice)
-
LineageOS (formerly known as Cyanogen Mod)
- TeamWin TWRP
- What about Sailfish, Ubuntu Touch, and Firefox OS? Is this still a thing?
Smartphones and Computers 🖥️🐧 (updated February 2025)
- Fairphone
- Shiftphone
-
Tuxedo or any other Laptop preinstalled with Linux
- Apple and Microsoft (if you're doing native app development or you just don't like Linux)
To be fair, Google's Pixel phones are high quality and get software updates for a very long time. Google's controversial Pixel 4a battery quality update, inadvertently rendering many devices unusable without a (free) battery replacement, proved how many people were still using a Pixel 4a device in 2025.
Too many people buy new phones despite their old devices were still usable if they got software updates. The Android open source project (AOSP), CyanogenMod, and LineageOS, but also alternative operating systems like SailfishOS or Ubuntu Touch, help ambitious users take control of their own devices and escape planned obsolescence.
Calendar, Contact Sync, Documents 📅 (updated)
Translate, Dictionaries, Writing Assistance (updated 2025)
Ads and Analytics
Google Analytics was recently declared illegal in the EU as Austria's data regulator has found that the use of Google Analytics is a breach of GDPR. And Google Ads, like any other "behavioral" advertising, is not only unethical and a waste of bandwidth and usability that can deteriorate your website's web vitals ranking, but as Jeremy Keith pointed out, it does not even work.
Google Analytics
Google Ads
- any other commercial ad provider: not really an alternative
- hosting selected ads on your local server, that match your content
- getting a sponsor
European Alternatives (updated 2026) 🇪🇺
There is a database of "European Alternatives" to software, apps, and web services too often controlled by untrustworthy states like China or the USA.
Lists of European and independent international alternatives keep getting updated and so does this article that you are reading now.
Green fairphone and notebook
This is my Fairphone 6 by the way.
Officially called somthing like "my The Fairphone Gen. 6", it's an Android phone (using Google services unless you use the degoogled e/OS AOSP Android version). The Dutch producer prioritizes sustainable sourcing, longevity and repairability.
Unlike Apple, Fairphone guarantees updates for a very long time.
Unlike Google, Fairphone also prioritizes privacy.
It has a physical key for airplane mode (or any other modes configurable), and I have disabled most built-in AI assistants and energy-consuming defaults.
Finish my work in progress
Acknowledging the tendency to release thoughts and concepts instead of striving for perfection, I had just written down what came into my mind without making any effort to add any up-to-date research myself. DEV is not StackOverflow, and you can't downvote, so please do my homework and help me complete this list.
(Update: Thanks to everyone who already did it! Your contributions are appreciated!) At least I did add some external links. Feel free to reuse and repost my post content and make super popular listicles like 26 Google Alternatives every DEV must know, as this one did not receive enough likes and views yet. I also updated my "25" listicle adding another alternative to make it "26". Let's see if we'll find another addition to keep going in 2027.
In the end, we might all benefit from a community effort, so please leave your suggestions in the comments!