progressiv.dev blog

Per: https://fsmi.social/notice/A8NW54RhOJRKMguIL2 by Free Software Movement of India.

Using Android Debug Tools it is possible to remove Google applications from Android OS on the smartphone with ease.

To proceed, first you need to install Android Debug Tools on your computer. If you have not set up the tool, I would recommend to install it on Debian virtual machine, because you can install the required tools with one liner and safely remove the whole environment if you will no longer need it. You can set up the virtual machine with VirtualBox.

After setting up the virtual machine,

1. Install Android Debug Tools and enable Enable USB Debugging on Android, following https://linuxconfig.org/how-to-install-android-debug-tools-on-debian-10-buster
2. Connect your device to the computer via USB
3. adb devices
4. adb shell
5. Run pm uninstall -k --user 0 <package_name> to remove the packages from your device

The post above lists up Google applications you would like to remove.

• Maps: com.google.android.apps.maps (alternative: OsmAnd+)
• Photos: com.google.android.apps.photos
• Docs: com.google.android.apps.docs
• Duo: com.google.android.apps.tachyon (alternative: Element)
• Chrome: com.android.chrome (alternative: DuckDuckGo Privacy Browser)
• YouTube: com.google.android.youtube (alternative: NewPipe)
• Play Music: com.google.android.music
• Play Videos: com.google.android.videos
• Play Games: com.google.android.play.games
• Play Books: com.google.android.apps.books

You can also list all of the installed packages on your device with: pm list packages -f, and search bloatware installed by the smartphone's vendor. With grep you can look for packages which include the query string in their name. For example, pm list packages -f | grep com.asus gives you the list of packages pre-installed by Asus.

Remove Google Play store

If you want to #degoogle your smartphone a little bit more, remove com.android.vending (Google Play store UI), and install Aurora Store via F-Droid instead: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.aurora.store/.