[GUIDE] DeGoogle any device and install MicroG

[Hritwik]

This guide explains how to deGoogle any android by removing most of google invasive crap. (yes, GPlay services is also removed).​

Play store, Google app and other crap is also removed from system, so if you want to use them, install them as user app. The installation for play store is different, and it is explained below.

Check my Post on reddit for more up to date info and clear instructions HERE

When we remove Gplay services, many apps and services stop working . Many apps will give error but still work (like maps and telegram and whatsapp). Play store will definitely not work and many apps that use push notification through Gplay services (most of them) will not be able to do so. In my case Uber, ola or any other ride app was also not working and was crashing constantly. Paytm will also not work without play services. And on top of that many apps that use location might not behave properly.

Whoosh! those are a lot of problems for uninstalling play services. So, why would anyone want to do that?
Simply put it, Google is an Advertising company. No it is not a company that sells product, i mean yes it sells products and earns from them BUT more than 60% of their revenue comes from Ads that they serve you. And yes, google is the biggest Ad company in the world with more than 80% of ad share (i may be wrong about the %, feel free to search yourself). So obviously they want ta make money out of your data (by selling it) and to do that what better way than to install spyware on world's largest mobile OS.
Google play services record your every action, tracking every app that you opened and everything you do. That data remains with google and they sell it to 3rd parties (and you agreed to it when you made Google account and setup your android device. Remember Clicking on "I AGREE"?).

Here i will not discuss how invasive it is. A simple Web search with "google play services tracking" will give you much more information. (and please do search it, i beg you) (Pro Tip: reddit has best answers, so explore reddit links from search)
Here is a good one explaining things

And Gplay services Eat a LOT of battery by constantly Running in background. So if you want better battery, remove it



So you have decided to degoogle your phone (and debloat it). What to do about all those errors after removing play services?

Here Comes MicroG. microG is an Open Source replacement for Google Play Services.

"MicroG is a free-as-in-freedom re-implementation of Google’s proprietary Android user space apps and libraries.
The linux-based open-source mobile operating system Android is not only the most popular mobile operating system in the world, it’s also on the way to becoming a proprietary operating system. How is that?
While the core operating system is still released as part of the Android Open Source Project, the majority of core apps are not. It gets worse: More and more libraries and APIs are only available on phones that run various Google apps pre-installed, effectively locking third-party apps to the Google ecosystem. For these reasons Android is described as being a “look but don’t touch” kind of open.
At this point, several popular open-source applications already require some of Google’s proprietary libraries to be installed. Increasing demand in the free software community in addition to severe problems in Google’s proprietary software discovered by the Android modding community, have led to the development of a free software clone of Google’s proprietary core libraries and applications - the microG Project was born.
Although most microG components are far from complete, users are amazed by the results. Free software users got extended application support, privacy-caring users can reduce or monitor data that is sent to Google and especially older phones can expect some battery life improvements."

(So it basically removes all those errors. Great!)


So, Lets start Degoogling!

Warning: bootloader needs to be unlocked, magisk should be there and twrp should be installed.
NOTE: MAKE FULL NANDROID BACKUP OF YOUR DEVICE BEFORE PROCEEDING BY GOING TO TWRP -> BACKUP -> SELECT ALL . store it in PC or somewhere safe​

Removing google crap

• Flash TWRP and install magisk.
  
• We need Signature spoofing in the ROM. Download SmaliPatcher from here and tick all patches, (We are interested in the "signature spoofing" one but all of them are useful) and follow the instructions on its page to install that module. Now your system supports signature spoofing. (I recommend SmaliPatcher even if your rom supports Signature Spoofing so that no issue arises)
  Other ways for signature spoofing are given in MicroG wiki here
  
  (IF YOU ARE ON STOCK ROM)
  
• In case you had the Google Play Services previously installed (which Users having stock ROM have), remove all updates and the packages in /system/priv-app of the Google Services (you can use TWRP file manager or any root explorer to delete below packages, just delete the apk files in respective folders):
  • GmsCore (PrebuiltGmsCore, PrebuiltGmsCorePi, PrebuiltGmsCorePix)
  • GoogleBackupTransport
  • GoogleFeedback
  • GoogleLoginService
  • GoogleOneTimeInitializer
  • GooglePartnerSetup
  • GoogleServicesFramework
  • Phonesky
  • SetupWizard
  • Velvet.
• In case you forgot to remove the GmsCore updates, you can manually remove these using adb uninstall com.google.android.gms.
• After that, reboot your android device - all privileged GAPPS should be removed. (a bootloop may be caused, but dont worry, just boot into TWRP and follow below steps.)

IF YOU ARE ON CUSTOM ROM-> after flashing rom zip, do not reboot and follow below (DONT FLASH ANY GAPPS)SIZE]

Make full backup of your device if not made till now​

Installing MicroG

• Download Latest "MinMicroG-Standard-XXX.zip" from here
• Add "system-" to start of package name (thus making it like "system-MinMicroG-Standard-XXX.zip" ) and copy it in sdcard or internal storage of phone. Now boot into TWRP
• flash "system-MinMicroG-Standard-XXX.zip".

OLD METHOD, USE THIS IF ABOVE WONT WORK

• Download the following from here
  • full NanoDroid-xx.xx.xx.xxxxxxx.zip
  • NanoDroid-setupwizard.zip
  • NanoDroid-uninstaller.zip (if it causes brick)
• Copy below in sdcard or internal storage of phone. Now boot into TWRP
  • NanoDroid-setupwizard.zip
  • NanoDroid-uninstaller.zip (if it causes brick)
• flash NanoDroid-setupwizard.zip, now an aroma installer is opened. click on next , agree to terms and click next, chose save location "/data/media/0" (you can change this as per your needs but remember this location since here the installer will save 3 files) and click next
  
  
• now from here onwards you can select yourself according to your needs or follow my tutorial till the end of aroma installer.
• you should be on generic settings page, tick 'apps', 'maps apiv1', 'init scrips', 'gnu bash', and 'shell utils'. click next.
• in microG page, select "full", next, on f-droid page select "official", next, select all 4 nlpBackends, next, now here select "play store(patrched)" if you want to use Play store (your choice, if you want to degoogle select "Aurora + fake store"), next
• now select apps of your choice here, next, on Debloat setup page click next (yeah just skip it), and finally click on create config, next and finish.
• Aroma installer Ends now.
  
  
• Now while in twrp, connect your phone to PC and browse to internal storage (or the location you selected during aroma installer to save files)
• the 3 files will be ".nanodroid-overlay", ".nanodroid-setup", ".nanodroid-apps". Copy these to PC and keep them in some place safe. Now open "nanodroid.zip" (that you downloaded earlier) with winRAR or 7zip and drag and drop these 3 files in it. (they should be in root of the zip where "meta-inf" folder is)
• now copy NanoDroid-xx.xx.xx.xxxxxxx.zip to your phone and flash it.
• now boot into system. if flashing nanodroid causes bootloop, restore from twrp backup that you made (i told you so!).

Configuring MicroG
You need to setup microG , go into microG settings (in app drawer or in settings) and set up everything like:

• check results in Self-Check, grant all the missing permissions (by tapping on them)
  • especially the Battery Optimization item
  • if Phonesky (= Fake Store or Play Store) lacks signature spoofing permissions head to Settings / Apps / Permissions / Signature Spoofing and grant it
• enable Google device registration
• enable Google Cloud Messaging (only if you want to receive push messages from your applications)
• enable Google SafetyNet, required for applications that utilize SafetyNet, for example Pokémon GO (Currently Broken)
• in UnifiedNlp Settings choose all (whichever you've choosen to be installed)
  • Déjà Vu, Mozilla, Apple, and others (like GSM and WiFi Location Service)
  • Nominatim as Address lockup backend
• after everything is done, reboot
• if you installed Play Store open it, setup account and install your apps

Make sure you have all options ticked in self-check of microG settings (except maybe for last one). if not web search it or post it here.
Congratulations, you have successfully removed Gplay services.

ONLY IF YOU HAVE USED OLD METHOD (USING NANODROID)

Updates of nanodroid

Make full backup of your device before update. In case anything happens after update, you can rollback easily​

So the nanodroid is updated quite frequently with the apps that come with it. So when you see an updated version of nanodroid on official download page (yeah there are no automatic updates, you have to manually check by going to the download page and download it) download below zips from here

• full NanoDroid-xx.xx.xx.xxxxxxx.zip (the updated version)
• NanoDroid-uninstaller.zip (the updated version)

* Now open "NanoDroid-xx.xx.xx.xxxxxxx.zip " (updated version) with winRAR or 7zip and drag and drop those 3 files [ ".nanodroid-overlay", ".nanodroid-setup", ".nanodroid-apps".] in it. (just like you did before)
* Now copy NanoDroid-xx.xx.xx.xxxxxxx.zip to your phone and flash it through twrp.
You may need to re-configure microG, so just do it again.

Huge thanks to the below members for the tools.
@FriendlyNeighborhoodShane for MinMicroG
@MaR-V-iN for microG (thank you sir!)
@Setialpha for nanodroid

and other ones whom i forgot to add

 

[Hritwik]

reserved

 

[Hritwik]

reserved 2

 

[Hritwik]

reserved just in case

 

[prkfsz]

Damn near best tutorial i've ever seen, thank you good sir!! :good::good::good:
i'm not sure i made it work completelly tho..

Coming from stock marshmallow on Galaxy Note 4. I uninstalled google crap first using Titanium backup even tho the phone seemed to get stuck when i was uninstalling the Google Play services, took it almost 1½ hour..). Then manually cleaned some leftovers using file manager in TWRP.
Then just for the heck of it tried to run the Nanodroid patch file but i got an error message that it couldnt deodex one x.jar file (can't remember it's name just now). Tried instead to patch with Smalipatcher but the damn thing couldn't see i have admin privileges no matter what i did and just refused to run alltogether.

Then i tried this way you described. Did everything as the tutorial says, got no error message, everything seemed to run smooth and the apps i chose were installed. (altho TWRP did freeze a couple of times during aroma setup so i had to reset by taking out the battery). Now i know i should set upp the microG settings, but the microG icon and the app is nowhere to be found. The modul named NanoDroid exists and is activ in Magisk, but it's not possible to open it.

Not sure what is happening and how to proceed from here.. Could you give a pointer or two? Would be much appreciated.

 

[Retseem]

What about GoogleLocationHistory???
Is this one needed or does it have to be removed as well?

 

[Hritwik]

Damn near best tutorial i've ever seen, thank you good sir!! :good::good::good:
i'm not sure i made it work completelly tho..

Coming from stock marshmallow on Galaxy Note 4. I uninstalled google crap first using Titanium backup even tho the phone seemed to get stuck when i was uninstalling the Google Play services, took it almost 1½ hour..). Then manually cleaned some leftovers using file manager in TWRP.
Then just for the heck of it tried to run the Nanodroid patch file but i got an error message that it couldnt deodex one x.jar file (can't remember it's name just now). Tried instead to patch with Smalipatcher but the damn thing couldn't see i have admin privileges no matter what i did and just refused to run alltogether.

Then i tried this way you described. Did everything as the tutorial says, got no error message, everything seemed to run smooth and the apps i chose were installed. (altho TWRP did freeze a couple of times during aroma setup so i had to reset by taking out the battery). Now i know i should set upp the microG settings, but the microG icon and the app is nowhere to be found. The modul named NanoDroid exists and is activ in Magisk, but it's not possible to open it.

Not sure what is happening and how to proceed from here.. Could you give a pointer or two? Would be much appreciated.

updated the guide, see new instructions

 

[Hritwik]

What about GoogleLocationHistory???
Is this one needed or does it have to be removed as well?

just search in internet what that does and if its useful to you, dont remove it.

 

[Samsung-frisbee]

Looks good! Almost there?

Thank you for your good work.! All seems well after I follow your steps using a AICP rom. All the checks in microG are green except the play store phonesky, that I can not fix but does not seem to be a problem

Problem:
One test case for me however is the app flightradar24. This app can be installed just fine from the Aurora store. When I start it however it prompts me immediately to install the google play services as they appear not to be installed or up to date. I can also install these from aurora, but haven't done that as it would defy the purpose of of all the previous work.

So my question is:
- Should I expect Flightradar24 to work on a minmicrog system on android 10?
- If so, where is it going wrong?
- Yes I have the microG location services enabled.

PS. Also I tested Gmail. It also complains about absent play services.

Addition: Actually I find that no application the requires Google is working at all. Did I miss something perhaps?

 

[Samsung-frisbee]

Thank you for your good work.! All seems well after I follow your steps using a AICP rom. All the checks in microG are green except the play store phonesky, that I can not fix but does not seem to be a problem

Problem:
One test case for me however is the app flightradar24. This app can be installed just fine from the Aurora store. When I start it however it prompts me immediately to install the google play services as they appear not to be installed or up to date. I can also install these from aurora, but haven't done that as it would defy the purpose of of all the previous work.

So my question is:
- Should I expect Flightradar24 to work on a minmicrog system on android 10?
- If so, where is it going wrong?
- Yes I have the microG location services enabled.

PS. Also I tested Gmail. It also complains about absent play services.

After further investigation I have not been able to run any apps that depend on Google play services. They all fail on not recognizing GPS.

All checks in microG are OK. I am puzzled

 

[nxb]

^- signature spoofing must be failing.

 

[hrsh45]

thanks for making this.

 

[amp]

There's LineageOS with microG baked in: https://lineage.microg.org/

 

[Andrologic]

This guide explains how to deGoogle any android by removing most of google invasive crap. (yes, GPlay services is also removed). ​

Play store, Google app and other crap is also removed from system, so if you want to use them, install them as user app. The installation for play store is different, and it is explained below.

Check my Post on reddit for more up to date info and clear instructions HERE

When we remove Gplay services, many apps and services stop working . Many apps will give error but still work (like maps and telegram and whatsapp). Play store will definitely not work and many apps that use push notification through Gplay services (most of them) will not be able to do so. In my case Uber, ola or any other ride app was also not working and was crashing constantly. Paytm will also not work without play services. And on top of that many apps that use location might not behave properly.

Whoosh! those are a lot of problems for uninstalling play services. So, why would anyone want to do that?
Simply put it, Google is an Advertising company. No it is not a company that sells product, i mean yes it sells products and earns from them BUT more than 60% of their revenue comes from Ads that they serve you. And yes, google is the biggest Ad company in the world with more than 80% of ad share (i may be wrong about the %, feel free to search yourself). So obviously they want ta make money out of your data (by selling it) and to do that what better way than to install spyware on world's largest mobile OS.
Google play services record your every action, tracking every app that you opened and everything you do. That data remains with google and they sell it to 3rd parties (and you agreed to it when you made Google account and setup your android device. Remember Clicking on "I AGREE"?).

Here i will not discuss how invasive it is. A simple Web search with "google play services tracking" will give you much more information. (and please do search it, i beg you) (Pro Tip: reddit has best answers, so explore reddit links from search)
Here is a good one explaining things
And Gplay services Eat a LOT of battery by constantly Running in background. So if you want better battery, remove it



So you have decided to degoogle your phone (and debloat it). What to do about all those errors after removing play services?

Here Comes MicroG. microG is an Open Source replacement for Google Play Services.

"MicroG is a free-as-in-freedom re-implementation of Google’s proprietary Android user space apps and libraries.
The linux-based open-source mobile operating system Android is not only the most popular mobile operating system in the world, it’s also on the way to becoming a proprietary operating system. How is that?
While the core operating system is still released as part of the Android Open Source Project, the majority of core apps are not. It gets worse: More and more libraries and APIs are only available on phones that run various Google apps pre-installed, effectively locking third-party apps to the Google ecosystem. For these reasons Android is described as being a “look but don’t touch” kind of open.
At this point, several popular open-source applications already require some of Google’s proprietary libraries to be installed. Increasing demand in the free software community in addition to severe problems in Google’s proprietary software discovered by the Android modding community, have led to the development of a free software clone of Google’s proprietary core libraries and applications - the microG Project was born.
Although most microG components are far from complete, users are amazed by the results. Free software users got extended application support, privacy-caring users can reduce or monitor data that is sent to Google and especially older phones can expect some battery life improvements."

(So it basically removes all those errors. Great!)


So, Lets start Degoogling!

Warning: bootloader needs to be unlocked, magisk should be there and twrp should be installed.
NOTE: MAKE FULL NANDROID BACKUP OF YOUR DEVICE BEFORE PROCEEDING BY GOING TO TWRP -> BACKUP -> SELECT ALL . store it in PC or somewhere safe​

Removing google crap

• Flash TWRP and install magisk.
• We need Signature spoofing in the ROM. Download SmaliPatcher from here and tick all patches, (We are interested in the "signature spoofing" one but all of them are useful) and follow the instructions on its page to install that module. Now your system supports signature spoofing. (I recommend SmaliPatcher even if your rom supports Signature Spoofing so that no issue arises)
  Other ways for signature spoofing are given in MicroG wiki here
  
  (IF YOU ARE ON STOCK ROM)
• In case you had the Google Play Services previously installed (which Users having stock ROM have), remove all updates and the packages in /system/priv-app of the Google Services (you can use TWRP file manager or any root explorer to delete below packages, just delete the apk files in respective folders):
  • GmsCore (PrebuiltGmsCore, PrebuiltGmsCorePi, PrebuiltGmsCorePix)
  • GoogleBackupTransport
  • GoogleFeedback
  • GoogleLoginService
  • GoogleOneTimeInitializer
  • GooglePartnerSetup
  • GoogleServicesFramework
  • Phonesky
  • SetupWizard
  • Velvet.
• In case you forgot to remove the GmsCore updates, you can manually remove these using adb uninstall com.google.android.gms.
• After that, reboot your android device - all privileged GAPPS should be removed. (a bootloop may be caused, but dont worry, just boot into TWRP and follow below steps.)

IF YOU ARE ON CUSTOM ROM-> after flashing rom zip, do not reboot and follow below (DONT FLASH ANY GAPPS)SIZE]

Make full backup of your device if not made till now​

Installing MicroG

• Download Latest "MinMicroG-Standard-XXX.zip" from here
• Add "system-" to start of package name (thus making it like "system-MinMicroG-Standard-XXX.zip" ) and copy it in sdcard or internal storage of phone. Now boot into TWRP
• flash "system-MinMicroG-Standard-XXX.zip".

OLD METHOD, USE THIS IF ABOVE WONT WORK

• Download the following from here
  
  • full NanoDroid-xx.xx.xx.xxxxxxx.zip
  • NanoDroid-setupwizard.zip
  • NanoDroid-uninstaller.zip (if it causes brick)
• Copy below in sdcard or internal storage of phone. Now boot into TWRP
  
  • NanoDroid-setupwizard.zip
  • NanoDroid-uninstaller.zip (if it causes brick)
• flash NanoDroid-setupwizard.zip, now an aroma installer is opened. click on next , agree to terms and click next, chose save location "/data/media/0" (you can change this as per your needs but remember this location since here the installer will save 3 files) and click next
  
• now from here onwards you can select yourself according to your needs or follow my tutorial till the end of aroma installer.
• you should be on generic settings page, tick 'apps', 'maps apiv1', 'init scrips', 'gnu bash', and 'shell utils'. click next.
• in microG page, select "full", next, on f-droid page select "official", next, select all 4 nlpBackends, next, now here select "play store(patrched)" if you want to use Play store (your choice, if you want to degoogle select "Aurora + fake store"), next
• now select apps of your choice here, next, on Debloat setup page click next (yeah just skip it), and finally click on create config, next and finish.
• Aroma installer Ends now.
  
• Now while in twrp, connect your phone to PC and browse to internal storage (or the location you selected during aroma installer to save files)
• the 3 files will be ".nanodroid-overlay", ".nanodroid-setup", ".nanodroid-apps". Copy these to PC and keep them in some place safe. Now open "nanodroid.zip" (that you downloaded earlier) with winRAR or 7zip and drag and drop these 3 files in it. (they should be in root of the zip where "meta-inf" folder is)
• now copy NanoDroid-xx.xx.xx.xxxxxxx.zip to your phone and flash it.
• now boot into system. if flashing nanodroid causes bootloop, restore from twrp backup that you made (i told you so!).

Configuring MicroG
You need to setup microG , go into microG settings (in app drawer or in settings) and set up everything like:

• check results in Self-Check, grant all the missing permissions (by tapping on them)
  
  • especially the Battery Optimization item
  • if Phonesky (= Fake Store or Play Store) lacks signature spoofing permissions head to Settings / Apps / Permissions / Signature Spoofing and grant it
• enable Google device registration
• enable Google Cloud Messaging (only if you want to receive push messages from your applications)
• enable Google SafetyNet, required for applications that utilize SafetyNet, for example Pokémon GO (Currently Broken)
• in UnifiedNlp Settings choose all (whichever you've choosen to be installed)
  
  • Déjà Vu, Mozilla, Apple, and others (like GSM and WiFi Location Service)
  • Nominatim as Address lockup backend
• after everything is done, reboot
• if you installed Play Store open it, setup account and install your apps

Make sure you have all options ticked in self-check of microG settings (except maybe for last one). if not web search it or post it here.
Congratulations, you have successfully removed Gplay services.

ONLY IF YOU HAVE USED OLD METHOD (USING NANODROID)

Updates of nanodroid

Make full backup of your device before update. In case anything happens after update, you can rollback easily​

So the nanodroid is updated quite frequently with the apps that come with it. So when you see an updated version of nanodroid on official download page (yeah there are no automatic updates, you have to manually check by going to the download page and download it) download below zips from here

• full NanoDroid-xx.xx.xx.xxxxxxx.zip (the updated version)
• NanoDroid-uninstaller.zip (the updated version)

* Now open "NanoDroid-xx.xx.xx.xxxxxxx.zip " (updated version) with winRAR or 7zip and drag and drop those 3 files [ ".nanodroid-overlay", ".nanodroid-setup", ".nanodroid-apps".] in it. (just like you did before)
* Now copy NanoDroid-xx.xx.xx.xxxxxxx.zip to your phone and flash it through twrp.
You may need to re-configure microG, so just do it again.

Huge thanks to the below members for the tools.
@FriendlyNeighborhoodShane for MinMicroG
@MaR-V-iN for microG (thank you sir!)
@Setialpha for nanodroid

and other ones whom i forgot to add

This is gold. Haven't tried yet but will be donating to the MicroG project if this works.

This guide explains how to deGoogle any android by removing most of google invasive crap. (yes, GPlay services is also removed). ​

Play store, Google app and other crap is also removed from system, so if you want to use them, install them as user app. The installation for play store is different, and it is explained below.

Check my Post on reddit for more up to date info and clear instructions HERE

When we remove Gplay services, many apps and services stop working . Many apps will give error but still work (like maps and telegram and whatsapp). Play store will definitely not work and many apps that use push notification through Gplay services (most of them) will not be able to do so. In my case Uber, ola or any other ride app was also not working and was crashing constantly. Paytm will also not work without play services. And on top of that many apps that use location might not behave properly.

Whoosh! those are a lot of problems for uninstalling play services. So, why would anyone want to do that?
Simply put it, Google is an Advertising company. No it is not a company that sells product, i mean yes it sells products and earns from them BUT more than 60% of their revenue comes from Ads that they serve you. And yes, google is the biggest Ad company in the world with more than 80% of ad share (i may be wrong about the %, feel free to search yourself). So obviously they want ta make money out of your data (by selling it) and to do that what better way than to install spyware on world's largest mobile OS.
Google play services record your every action, tracking every app that you opened and everything you do. That data remains with google and they sell it to 3rd parties (and you agreed to it when you made Google account and setup your android device. Remember Clicking on "I AGREE"?).

Here i will not discuss how invasive it is. A simple Web search with "google play services tracking" will give you much more information. (and please do search it, i beg you) (Pro Tip: reddit has best answers, so explore reddit links from search)
Here is a good one explaining things
And Gplay services Eat a LOT of battery by constantly Running in background. So if you want better battery, remove it



So you have decided to degoogle your phone (and debloat it). What to do about all those errors after removing play services?

Here Comes MicroG. microG is an Open Source replacement for Google Play Services.

"MicroG is a free-as-in-freedom re-implementation of Google’s proprietary Android user space apps and libraries.
The linux-based open-source mobile operating system Android is not only the most popular mobile operating system in the world, it’s also on the way to becoming a proprietary operating system. How is that?
While the core operating system is still released as part of the Android Open Source Project, the majority of core apps are not. It gets worse: More and more libraries and APIs are only available on phones that run various Google apps pre-installed, effectively locking third-party apps to the Google ecosystem. For these reasons Android is described as being a “look but don’t touch” kind of open.
At this point, several popular open-source applications already require some of Google’s proprietary libraries to be installed. Increasing demand in the free software community in addition to severe problems in Google’s proprietary software discovered by the Android modding community, have led to the development of a free software clone of Google’s proprietary core libraries and applications - the microG Project was born.
Although most microG components are far from complete, users are amazed by the results. Free software users got extended application support, privacy-caring users can reduce or monitor data that is sent to Google and especially older phones can expect some battery life improvements."

(So it basically removes all those errors. Great!)


So, Lets start Degoogling!

Warning: bootloader needs to be unlocked, magisk should be there and twrp should be installed.
NOTE: MAKE FULL NANDROID BACKUP OF YOUR DEVICE BEFORE PROCEEDING BY GOING TO TWRP -> BACKUP -> SELECT ALL . store it in PC or somewhere safe​

Removing google crap

• Flash TWRP and install magisk.
• We need Signature spoofing in the ROM. Download SmaliPatcher from here and tick all patches, (We are interested in the "signature spoofing" one but all of them are useful) and follow the instructions on its page to install that module. Now your system supports signature spoofing. (I recommend SmaliPatcher even if your rom supports Signature Spoofing so that no issue arises)
  Other ways for signature spoofing are given in MicroG wiki here
  
  (IF YOU ARE ON STOCK ROM)
• In case you had the Google Play Services previously installed (which Users having stock ROM have), remove all updates and the packages in /system/priv-app of the Google Services (you can use TWRP file manager or any root explorer to delete below packages, just delete the apk files in respective folders):
  • GmsCore (PrebuiltGmsCore, PrebuiltGmsCorePi, PrebuiltGmsCorePix)
  • GoogleBackupTransport
  • GoogleFeedback
  • GoogleLoginService
  • GoogleOneTimeInitializer
  • GooglePartnerSetup
  • GoogleServicesFramework
  • Phonesky
  • SetupWizard
  • Velvet.
• In case you forgot to remove the GmsCore updates, you can manually remove these using adb uninstall com.google.android.gms.
• After that, reboot your android device - all privileged GAPPS should be removed. (a bootloop may be caused, but dont worry, just boot into TWRP and follow below steps.)

IF YOU ARE ON CUSTOM ROM-> after flashing rom zip, do not reboot and follow below (DONT FLASH ANY GAPPS)SIZE]

Make full backup of your device if not made till now​

Installing MicroG

• Download Latest "MinMicroG-Standard-XXX.zip" from here
• Add "system-" to start of package name (thus making it like "system-MinMicroG-Standard-XXX.zip" ) and copy it in sdcard or internal storage of phone. Now boot into TWRP
• flash "system-MinMicroG-Standard-XXX.zip".

OLD METHOD, USE THIS IF ABOVE WONT WORK

• Download the following from here
  
  • full NanoDroid-xx.xx.xx.xxxxxxx.zip
  • NanoDroid-setupwizard.zip
  • NanoDroid-uninstaller.zip (if it causes brick)
• Copy below in sdcard or internal storage of phone. Now boot into TWRP
  
  • NanoDroid-setupwizard.zip
  • NanoDroid-uninstaller.zip (if it causes brick)
• flash NanoDroid-setupwizard.zip, now an aroma installer is opened. click on next , agree to terms and click next, chose save location "/data/media/0" (you can change this as per your needs but remember this location since here the installer will save 3 files) and click next
  
• now from here onwards you can select yourself according to your needs or follow my tutorial till the end of aroma installer.
• you should be on generic settings page, tick 'apps', 'maps apiv1', 'init scrips', 'gnu bash', and 'shell utils'. click next.
• in microG page, select "full", next, on f-droid page select "official", next, select all 4 nlpBackends, next, now here select "play store(patrched)" if you want to use Play store (your choice, if you want to degoogle select "Aurora + fake store"), next
• now select apps of your choice here, next, on Debloat setup page click next (yeah just skip it), and finally click on create config, next and finish.
• Aroma installer Ends now.
  
• Now while in twrp, connect your phone to PC and browse to internal storage (or the location you selected during aroma installer to save files)
• the 3 files will be ".nanodroid-overlay", ".nanodroid-setup", ".nanodroid-apps". Copy these to PC and keep them in some place safe. Now open "nanodroid.zip" (that you downloaded earlier) with winRAR or 7zip and drag and drop these 3 files in it. (they should be in root of the zip where "meta-inf" folder is)
• now copy NanoDroid-xx.xx.xx.xxxxxxx.zip to your phone and flash it.
• now boot into system. if flashing nanodroid causes bootloop, restore from twrp backup that you made (i told you so!).

Configuring MicroG
You need to setup microG , go into microG settings (in app drawer or in settings) and set up everything like:

• check results in Self-Check, grant all the missing permissions (by tapping on them)
  
  • especially the Battery Optimization item
  • if Phonesky (= Fake Store or Play Store) lacks signature spoofing permissions head to Settings / Apps / Permissions / Signature Spoofing and grant it
• enable Google device registration
• enable Google Cloud Messaging (only if you want to receive push messages from your applications)
• enable Google SafetyNet, required for applications that utilize SafetyNet, for example Pokémon GO (Currently Broken)
• in UnifiedNlp Settings choose all (whichever you've choosen to be installed)
  
  • Déjà Vu, Mozilla, Apple, and others (like GSM and WiFi Location Service)
  • Nominatim as Address lockup backend
• after everything is done, reboot
• if you installed Play Store open it, setup account and install your apps

Make sure you have all options ticked in self-check of microG settings (except maybe for last one). if not web search it or post it here.
Congratulations, you have successfully removed Gplay services.

ONLY IF YOU HAVE USED OLD METHOD (USING NANODROID)

Updates of nanodroid

Make full backup of your device before update. In case anything happens after update, you can rollback easily​

So the nanodroid is updated quite frequently with the apps that come with it. So when you see an updated version of nanodroid on official download page (yeah there are no automatic updates, you have to manually check by going to the download page and download it) download below zips from here

• full NanoDroid-xx.xx.xx.xxxxxxx.zip (the updated version)
• NanoDroid-uninstaller.zip (the updated version)

* Now open "NanoDroid-xx.xx.xx.xxxxxxx.zip " (updated version) with winRAR or 7zip and drag and drop those 3 files [ ".nanodroid-overlay", ".nanodroid-setup", ".nanodroid-apps".] in it. (just like you did before)
* Now copy NanoDroid-xx.xx.xx.xxxxxxx.zip to your phone and flash it through twrp.
You may need to re-configure microG, so just do it again.

Huge thanks to the below members for the tools.
@FriendlyNeighborhoodShane for MinMicroG
@MaR-V-iN for microG (thank you sir!)
@Setialpha for nanodroid

and other ones whom i forgot to add

This is gold. Thank you. Will be donating to the MicroG project if they accept donations, worth every penny.

 

[nacos]

Edited on Dec.10,2021
It works like a charm with Havoc OS (Samsung S8)

Hi,
I just installed MicroG on a Samsung S8 running Android 7 and although the installation went perfect, without any errors, I don't have any icon, thus I cannot get access to settings. I do see the microG Services Framework application installed in Application Manager but I cannot launch it.
I followed the new instructions to the letter.

Please advise!
Thanks!

 

[Michael Westen]

SafetyNet fails?

 

[akha666]

will this guide work on the Stock MIUI 12.0.9 for Mi 9T?

 

[goobener]

I could use some assistance finding some files. I've tried several methods but can't seem to locate the files below. I'm using a rooted and unlocked S20 5G (986U1) Can you help me with a method or app to find these. I'm using Cx for file manager but the search seems limited, or I'm doing it wrong.

• In case you had the Google Play Services previously installed (which Users having stock ROM have), remove all updates and the packages in /system/priv-app of the Google Services (you can use TWRP file manager or any root explorer to delete below packages, just delete the apk files in respective folders):

o GoogleBackupTransport

o GoogleLoginService

o GooglePartnerSetup

o Phonesky

o Velvet.

 

[Andrologic]

I could use some assistance finding some files. I've tried several methods but can't seem to locate the files below. I'm using a rooted and unlocked S20 5G (986U1) Can you help me with a method or app to find these. I'm using Cx for file manager but the search seems limited, or I'm doing it wrong.

• In case you had the Google Play Services previously installed (which Users having stock ROM have), remove all updates and the packages in /system/priv-app of the Google Services (you can use TWRP file manager or any root explorer to delete below packages, just delete the apk files in respective folders):

o GoogleBackupTransport

o GoogleLoginService

o GooglePartnerSetup

o Phonesky

o Velvet.

Download an all called App Manager from F-Droid

 

[coinegue]

Thank you for this guide!

I have two new devices that I'm not using.
LG K50s and Tablet Lenovo M10
Would like to get them in shape before any use.
There's no Lineage for those or found a linux distro.

Is this the best way yo get rid of all the crap, bloatware, spyware, tracking?
Does it get clean of trackers?

Thank you!