Re: What can't you do on Android WITHOUT a Google Account set up in the OS?

On 1/1/2025 9:33 AM, R.Wieser wrote:

I have a TracFone with no Google account,

[snip]
 I replaced android with graphene OS.  The phone is switched off unless I
need it (when traveling).  Its main app is OsmAND, a map program.
 

   I don't think I can do that with TacFone, but it's OK. I only
use the phone on an occasional basis, and pretty much only for phone calls.

I'm amazed that these companies are allowed, legally, to exert such
control over a device I paid for.

 I hope you're not running Win10/11, which has become nothing more than a
thick ethernet client and doubling as an advertising platform. :-)
 

   I have Win11 installed for testing software. I haven't allowed it
online and haven't done much with it. About a year ago I built a new
computer and decided to try Win10. It took about 2 weeks, but I'm
happy. It's fast, lean, free of all the crap, with updates blocked. The
last thing I managed to accomplish was to stop ALL notification
popups. So now it works as well as XP, but with support for newer
hardware/software/64-bit, etc.
   It was very complicated, but not impossible. Though after getting
it mostly set up it wouldn't activate. I had to start over from scratch and
activate first, before the tweaking. That worked. I tried to install a
security update in Auguest. One problem led to another. I finally gave up.
The upddate messed up my system big time, despite not actually
installing! Luckily I had made a disk image just before updating.
   Moral of the story, to my mind: Win10 is mostly OK but very brittle and
very bloated. Win10 doesn't like tweaks. Microsoft are increasingly trying
to control everything. I've had no surprises, no ads, no Copilot showing
up, etc. But I'm not allowing any updates and have disabled as much
calling home as I can find.
    I don't expect to try any updates again. The August experience was
a ridiculous fiasco that shouldn't have happened for mere security
updates. I ended up on a wild goose chase enlarging WinRE. (Which
shouldn't even be required.) And it still just screwed everything up.
BUT, the same update went without a hitch on my laptop that's
less tweaked. So that seems to be further evidence that MS are
punishing tweaks.