WingNews logo WingNews
top | item 14066768

(no title)

Esau | 9 years ago

I know this is about Microsoft but Apple and Google have been performing this tomfoolery as well - basically trying to trick/force people into creating an online account.

Google should be particularly called out for this dickish behavior - for forcing people to have a Google Account just to create a local ChromeOS account. (Hopefully, this has changed.)

discuss

order

grecy|9 years ago

I just bought my first smartphone running Andriod, and it's essentially useless as a smartphone unless I sign into the Google store with an email address. I can't download a single App.

So far, I have resisted, just using it to tether.

Pxtl|9 years ago

There are good 3rd-party app stores you can use instead if you're committing to that. F-droid for OSS, Amazon for other stuff, Humble bundle for cheap games.

yjftsjthsd-h|9 years ago

Try F-Droid! Not only does it need no account, but it's got a decent amount of software specifically designed to let you get around meeting Google (ex. syncing against *DAV).

Animats|9 years ago

You can install F-Droid, which lets you download open source apps.

At startup, there's an option to register with Google, which you can skip. It will keep popping up until you disable the "Google one-time startup" app. Also, without a Google account, voice input and voice dialing won't work; Google deliberately broke that about two years ago. There are alternatives, such as Samsung S-Voice, but it's hard to find a good one that isn't just a front end to Google's system.

userbinator|9 years ago

My brief experience with smartphones a few years ago is that you could just download the .apk elsewhere and copy it to the phone to install, like the good old days... or have Google thoroughly locked down that route too now?

(It does take longer and more effort, but IMHO you should really be doing more research on each piece of software you decide to use, than just reading a description in an app store.)

bobajeff|9 years ago

Actually I have a old phone right now that I've factory reset and have no Google account set up on.

I've still managed to install a few APKs I've downloaded via Chrome (for Android). One time I had to download one with my laptop because I kept getting an incomplete file otherwise but I think that was server issue.

askvictor|9 years ago

Plenty of people (in my experience, mostly older people) use smartphones without even knowing what an app is. Between the inbuilt browser, camera, email, IM and phone functions, a massive amount of functionality is covered off for a heap of people.

Dolores12|9 years ago

had the same issue, apkpure to the rescue