Hi guys basically as the title says. I have a pixel phone running GrapheneOS and I really don’t want to install Play Services. Is there an alternative for me? I need reliable notifications for Telegram and signal. Edit: Thank you all amazing people for helping I learned alot and found best setup for me
It depends. Some apps have their push notifications system but may consume more battery.
You should list what apps
You’re right I need reliable notifications for Telegram and signal
There’s a fork of Telegram on F-droid called “Telegram FOSS” that runs a background service for notifications. I’ve used it and the effect on battery drain is pretty minor, like maybe 2% per charge. Not sure if something similar exists for Signal.
I use MicroG on my phone, it’s a basic FOSS replacement for GMS and makes push notifications work for all apps. It gets push notifs from Google’s servers but you don’t need an account. It doesn’t use Google at all for location, which is nice as that’s a highly invasive aspect of Play Services. Not all ROMs are compatible with it, I use it on Lineage
Does it work with WhatsApp? Its the only app that drains my battery like crazy. I had it installed but didn’t work
It’s a drop-in replacement so it should provide push notifications and location functionality just fine for every app. Other functionality such as IAPs will probably be unsupported.
From the data I see on Plexus for WhatsApp, the core functionality and notifications work just fine on MicroG, but backing up chats to Google Drive is broken.
Then I’m just unlucky because it didn’t work for me, no push notifications
What ROM are you using? MicroG depends on a ROM feature called “signature spoofing” that allows it to impersonate the Play Services apps.
GrapheneOS
Yeah, that ROM doesn’t support MicroG. Graphene is more focused on being hardened for security
Telegram X works for me
Signal does its own notifications
Very badly
Yea but it drains my battery