MicroG: Free-libre re-implementation of Google's proprietary Android user space
github.com342 points by theanonymousone 14 hours ago
342 points by theanonymousone 14 hours ago
I have never understood why people using MicroG can use apps like SNCF-Connect, while I cannot.
SNCF-connect is the largest online marchant in France. Since june, I cannot click the "pay" button anymore. It coincides with the new feature of Pay with Google.
So : is it because MicroG allows calls to Google services on e/OS devices, while my LineageOS refuses ? Or because MicroG implemented a try catch around this call, without any call to Google's servers ?
I think that's because /e/os also distributes App Lounge [1], which can connect to Google Store and handle payments (most of the time).
If it connects to Play Store, then isn't that the same as Aurora? Can people's accounts be banned? That would really suck to pay for something and lose it because Google banned you haha!
I have no Google anything installed on GrapheneOS and SNCF Connect works fine.
Some Play Services calls are stubbed out as no-ops and others are reimplemented either with fully free replacements (e.g. navigation) or else by calling proprietary Google remote endpoints (e.g. firebase)
MicroG is possible to run on GrapheneOS but isn't recommended since GOS has a sandboxing solution for running Google Play apps:
Graphene generally seems to feel that running official signed Google adware is more secure than using open source alternatives that might require signature spoofing or having root on your own device.
microG still heavily uses closed source Google services and even downloads executables run with the full privileges of microG. It downloads and runs droidguard with the privileges it has, giving that full access to the privileged access granted to microG.
Each app using Google Play still has the closed source Google Play SDK and libraries built into it in practice. It's extraordinarily rare to replace those libraries with the incomplete and buggy reimplementations from microG. Very close to zero otherwise open source apps are using those. The closed source Google Play SDK and libraries are therefore still part of the loop and have access to what the app can access. Many of the code paths in the Google libraries directly use Google services without requiring Play services including the full versions of the Ads and Analytics libraries.
The vast majority of data obtained by Play services is via the OS integration and permissions. Apps using it for push messaging, logging into accounts and many other features will send the same data to Google services regardless of whether you use it via sandboxed Google Play or microG.
GrapheneOS stubs out and reimplements APIs on the client side. That includes providing a complete implementation of the Google Play services location API not using on Google Play. These features are being expanded over time. They'll also be made available without having Google Play.
The GrapheneOS approach avoids giving an additional global service access to sensitive data from the OS and apps. microG has repeatedly had vulnerabilities leaking sensitive data to apps including location data. The approach of having an extra service sitting between apps and the OS which handles sensitive data means having to add all the same privacy and security checks as Play services which microG doesn't do in practice and it has caused severe privacy leaks. The main location leakage was eventually fixed but it persisted for years and there are still holes in the location service causing privacy issues.
Unlike microG, sandboxed Google Play doesn't get privileged access. That includes the executables (droidguard) downloaded by microG not getting privileged access. GrapheneOS also doesn't give privileged access to other apps such as Android Auto when those are installed as all the main operating systems using microG are doing. That privileged access gives access to highly sensitive data and doesn't require apps explicitly sending data to Google services, which will nearly all still go to Google services with a partial replacement of the middleware on the device.
GrapheneOS's approach is Sandboxed Google Play so the apps don't get special permissions. Without privileged access, Google apps get access to nothing more than what other apps can get access to on Android. So, for example, even if a device has microG installed, an app with a Google library would have virtually the same access as if Sandboxed Google Play was installed. And why would anyone need microG if not to provide compatibility for apps that rely on Play Services, aka apps with Google libraries?
Also, for some reason some people think that microG means deGoogling. That's not at all the case. microG still communicates with Google servers.
microG doesn't meet the project's requirements. If you look at the big picture, microG offers worse app compatibility and is less secure. The cons outweigh the pros by a lot. "Google bad" isn't an argument that works for us. App compatibility is very important.
"Sandboxed" Google Play still gets everything that the other apps in the same profile offer up to it / to Google. I don't understand how you're gaining any privacy as a practical matter. The issue isn't GApps' privileged access to the system, it's that other apps send your data to Google via Google Play Services.
To take some examples, MicroG stubs out the analytics and ads APIs. Your "sandboxed" Play would send that data to the mothership and return with ads.
https://github.com/microg/GmsCore/wiki/Implementation-Status
https://github.com/microg/GmsCore/blob/32bc8954ff872d0e1a05d...
> I don't understand how you're gaining any privacy as a practical matter.
Exactly.
Being too focused on "Google bad" means you're not seeing the bigger picture. microG is only a thing to provide app compatibility for apps that rely on Google Play Services. Which apps do you think do that? Apps with Google libraries that often have fallback implementations and can operate without Google Play Services.
So, given those facts, if someone has microG installed, Google still effectively has the same access as a device with Sandboxed Google Play, except microG users are stuck with worse app compatibility and because of signature spoofing it's less secure and code runs in that privileged context.
GrapheneOS focuses on privacy, security, and app compatibility. microG fails at security and app compatibility. Also, there are apparently leaks (that I admit I don't know the details of) regarding location that make it worse for privacy too. There could be more leaks that I don't know about.
The apps that use Google analytics/ads don't need Google Services on the device. The libraries are embedded into the app, and have just as much fingerprinting capabilities as sandboxes Google services.
microG still heavily uses closed source Google services and even downloads executables run with the full privileges of microG. It downloads and runs droidguard with the privileges it has, giving that full access to the privileged access granted to microG.
Each app using Google Play still has the closed source Google Play SDK and libraries built into it in practice. It's extraordinarily rare to replace those libraries with the incomplete and buggy reimplementations from microG. Very close to zero otherwise open source apps are using those. The closed source Google Play SDK and libraries are therefore still part of the loop and have access to what the app can access. Many of the code paths in the Google libraries directly use Google services without requiring Play services including the full versions of the Ads and Analytics libraries.
The vast majority of data obtained by Play services is via the OS integration and permissions. Apps using it for push messaging, logging into accounts and many other features will send the same data to Google services regardless of whether you use it via sandboxed Google Play or microG.
GrapheneOS stubs out and reimplements APIs on the client side. That includes providing a complete implementation of the Google Play services location API not using on Google Play. These features are being expanded over time. They'll also be made available without having Google Play.
The GrapheneOS approach avoids giving an additional global service access to sensitive data from the OS and apps. microG has repeatedly had vulnerabilities leaking sensitive data to apps including location data. The approach of having an extra service sitting between apps and the OS which handles sensitive data means having to add all the same privacy and security checks as Play services which microG doesn't do in practice and it has caused severe privacy leaks. The main location leakage was eventually fixed but it persisted for years and there are still holes in the location service causing privacy issues.
Unlike microG, sandboxed Google Play doesn't get privileged access. That includes the executables (droidguard) downloaded by microG not getting privileged access. GrapheneOS also doesn't give privileged access to other apps such as Android Auto when those are installed as all the main operating systems using microG are doing. That privileged access gives access to highly sensitive data and doesn't require apps explicitly sending data to Google services, which will nearly all still go to Google services with a partial replacement of the middleware on the device.
MicroG is a good compromise between deGoogling and having things work. GrapheneOS is not.
At the end of the day, I need a functional smartphone that can run the apps needed for daily life. MicroG offers that while reducing my exposure to Google.
MicroG is a sloppy and ineffective reimplementation of google services that does not meet GrapheneOSs privacy, security, and usability requirements. MicroG does not make you degoogled and is not a compromise between being degoogled and making apps work. GrapheneOS, with or without google services, has far better app compatibility.
If you need a functional smartphone that runs the apps you need while reducing exposure to google, GrapheneOS is the best option for that by far.
That's very false. GrapheneOS is a better choice for deGoogling than alternatives.
Sandboxed Google Play isn't installed by default, so our users don't have to use it if they don't want to.
Sandboxed Google Play doesn't have privileged permissions and has no more permissions than other user-installed apps. This means that they have the same restrictions as other user-installed apps.
> This means that they have the same restrictions as other user-installed apps.
This isn't meaningful when the other user-installed apps are calling Google Play Services in the same sandbox.
You're not seeing the big picture. Imagine every app with a Google library is basically the app & mini Google Play Services.
---
App & mini Google Play Services = access is restricted, like other regular apps.
App & mini Google Play Services + Sandboxed Google Play (unprivileged) = virtually the same access as above
App & mini Google Play Services + microG (privileged) = Google has the same access as the situations above, but with worse app compatibility, worse security (especially because of privileged access), and worse privacy (leaks).
---
You're worried about apps without special permissions to anything sharing usage data that they have access to anyway while ignoring the huge problems with microG just because "Google bad". That's hardly a sane approach to privacy.
Those apps still contain the closed source Google Play SDK and libraries with microG including libraries which connect to Google directly. microG still uses most of the same Google services and even downloads closed source Google executables which it runs with all of the permissions and privileged access granted to it. That code runs with access to Location and invasive privileged access to the OS with microG as integrated in the main operating systems using it while on GrapheneOS it doesn't have any of that at all.
GrapheneOS gives drastically less access to closed source Google Play code including the SDK, libraries and droidguard than the microG approach on /e/. It's strictly less, not more in any way. GrapheneOS does not allow it to access anything not already accessible to the SDK and libraries in the apps using those.
This Google service functionality also doesn't come as part of GrapheneOS. GrapheneOS has network location, geocoding and other functionality included in the OS via standalone implementations not tied to Google service compatibility as they are with microG.
GrapheneOS does reimplement the Google Play location service, but it does so inside of apps using it as a library to avoid needing a new service with location access and other privileges. It uses the OS network location when enabled but the OS network location is entirely independent from it.
That is the meaning. The point of sandboxed google play is to reduce google services to the same unprivileged access all other apps get on android. Normally, google play is incredibly privileged.
Okay, so lemme break this down real simple
(Correction from prior statement)
GmsCompat is a layer that runs the official google play services and store in the app sandbox which also strips it of all privileges and teaches it to function with only the bare minimum.
The app itself is sandboxed
But it is taught to run without the app panicking
The app sandbox is an OS feature: https://source.android.com/docs/security/app-sandbox.
Running google code sandboxed is far more secure than running google code with privileged access. MicroG downloads and runs google code in a privileged context and has had many privacy and security issues like leaking location to apps that dont have the location permission.
> MicroG downloads and runs google code in a privileged context
> many privacy and security issues
> leaking location to apps that dont have the location permission.
Could you share some details on these three points?
I started to try to answer your question, but I found that the GrapheneOS account gave an answer. Here are quotes:
> microG still heavily uses closed source Google services and even downloads executables run with the full privileges of microG. It downloads and runs droidguard with the privileges it has, giving that full access to the privileged access granted to microG.
> microG has repeatedly had vulnerabilities leaking sensitive data to apps including location data. The approach of having an extra service sitting between apps and the OS which handles sensitive data means having to add all the same privacy and security checks as Play services which microG doesn't do in practice and it has caused severe privacy leaks. The main location leakage was eventually fixed but it persisted for years and there are still holes in the location service causing privacy issues.
I also regularly try to explain to people why microG doesn't make sense. It's more of a big picture thing so it's hard to explain briefly. Consider why people would even install microG. It's only helpful for people who have apps that rely on Google Play Services. Those libraries can have fallback implementations and run even without Google Play Services or microG
Sandboxed Google Play is installed as a regular app. It has the same restrictions as other user-installed apps. If apps have Google libraries that don't need Google Play Services or microG are installed with regular apps, they effectively have the same access as Sandboxed Google Play. If those same apps are installed on a device with microG, Google effectively has the same access, big picture.
GrapheneOS's priorities are privacy, security, and app compatibility. There are issues with microG as far as privacy goes, as already noted. It requires privileged permissions to even work properly, and even microG admits that its reimplementations of Google Play Services features are incomplete, so it's worse in terms of app compatibility too.
They'll just flag you for asking.
By "they" I assume you mean GrapheneOS supporters? I can only speak for myself, but I only flag things when they clearly deserve to be flagged. Fair discussions are important. They help us grow as people and even in our case, GrapheneOS, but we encounter a crazy amount of misinformation here. Some members of our team are also targets for endless harassment. It's so unfortunate that people behave that way. There are also clear sockpuppets attacking GrapheneOS while promoting others. There was a brand new account participating in this thread that was clearly doing that.
Misinformation, harassment, and people who are using unfair methods to win arguments and damage the reputation of others is unacceptable. That's the kind of thing that I flag. What other people do with their permissions is up to them, but I would say that I wouldn't condone people flagging just because they disagree. I'd consider flagging genuine questions to be awful behavior as well.
I ask a lot of questions in the GrapheneOS community, I oppose a lot of opinions that are held there, but I have never been "flagged" for questioning or for debating something. The only time somebody is going to be flagged is if they are being outright disrespectful spreading misinformation or just being a general asshole.
de-Googleling is unfortunately not a priority for GrapheneOS.
GrapheneOS doesn't include Google Play (Services) on fresh install, user's explicitly can opt-in. It seems to be the only AOSP based OS that doesn't make any connections to Google by default [1], and is therefore the only true de-googled AOSP OS.
It's not a priority but GrapheneOS does better at deGoogling than other OSes, including adding features to the OS so people have fewer reasons to install Sandboxed Google Play. One big example is Network Location, so now users don't have to grant Google Play Services location permissions.
Sandboxed Google Play is never preinstalled, so people who wish to deGoogle can do so. And I'm sure GrapheneOS users who don't want to use Google devices will be happy to get a supported Motorola in the future.
GrapheneOS is incredibly focused on security. Privacy is clearly a second thought to them.
GrapheneOS is a privacy project and heavily improves it with important privacy protections including Contact Scopes, Storage Scopes, secure paste and much more. It preserves all of the standard privacy and security of AOSP while greatly improving upon both.
GrapheneOS doesn't connect to Google servers by default and avoids integrating any privileged access for either Google apps or partial replacements for those. The main operating systems integrating microG included always granted privileged access for microG, Google Play executables downloaded by microG (droidguard) which run with the privileged access it's granted and other Google apps including Android Auto.
The operating systems you believe are privacy projects greatly reduce both privacy and security compared to AOSP through not keeping up with standard patches, not providing important standard privacy/security protections and adding problematic services.
Lagging behind the already inadequate standard privacy/security updates by months and even years isn't compatible with providing reasonable protection for user privacy. Only a subset of the issues Google classifies as High or Critical severity are backported to the older releases of Android those are usually based on. Taking many months to move to newer releases is much more problematic than it appears. The backports to those older releases also get applied with a substantial delay. Firmware and drivers are usually not kept properly updated even when those are regularly released such as for Pixels. Many standard privacy and security protections are missing or disabled. An assorted of third party services are added too.
That's very false. GrapheneOS is primarily a privacy OS that also focuses on security to provide strong privacy.
Sandboxed Google Play has no privileged permissions, which means that those apps have the same permissions as any other apps you can install on Android, meaning the same restrictions.
All that plus the fact that Sandboxed Google Play is a better approach because it offers better app compatibility and is more secure. microG doesn't meet the project's standards.
GrapheneOS will have extreme difficulty being taken seriously while they are "you need to buy Google hardware to run this" project. This is why GrapheneOS has a tiny userbase.
GrapheneOS has 500000+ users, and that is with only pixels. Maby more are waiting for the compatible Motorola hardware.
GrapheneOS is not going to compromise on privacy or security, and so far, pixel devices are the only devices meeting the hardware security requirements. People have not had an issue taking that seriously.
We are partnered with Motorola, so people will have that option in the near future.
Also, GrapheneOS has plenty of users, and we're growing fast. People appreciate quality.
Motorola is launching a GrapheneOS phone direct to consumers next year. Getting picked up by a major OEM is about as taken seriously as you can get.
I guess this is submitted because of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50154624 ?
Why do the most recent commits all say "Merge commit from fork" without any description of what the changes do or what the fork is?
Lazy merge commits. The descriptions of the changes are in the commits from the merged branches.
This is why I always think emperor git wears no clothes. Hiding these kind of intermediate junk commits from history should not require rewriting and breaking the distributed history you all share. imho the correct solution would be a tag-like layer for annotating existing commits with metadata (additional signatures, hide-flags, retroactive comments, etc) or just a full 2nd dag, but whatever: git sucks at annotating history and annotating history is a core workflow in git.
The proper solution is that your merge commit should describe exactly what was merged and why. Git pre-fills it with a default "Merge branch-X into branch-Y" message so you can quickly exit the editor and still have a functioning DAG. It's just not ideal to leave it like that, precisely for this reason.
Fossil (https://fossil-scm.org/home/doc/trunk/www/index.wiki) doesn't fill out a default message, and sometimes that has annoyed me, but it does make you think about what you're doing. If you look in the Fossil and SQLite trees, almost all merges include a full description of what the merge was all about and why. Fossil also doesn't forget the entire history of the branch (including from which commit it was branched from), so it has that advantage too.
It's too bad you have to rely on signature spoofing to be able to use this as an alternative (but obviously I understand why). The spoofing looks narrowly scoped on LineageOS, but in general I imagine it creates some risk.
Why can't they signature spoof for those fundamental apps and prevent installing or uninstalling them, similar to how you can't uninstall google stuff on stock android?
Signature spoofing violates the android security model. It means giving privileged access to microG, which means giving privileged access to google. For a privacy project, granting 3rd parties privileged access is unacceptable.
MicroG isn't a 3rd party: it's auditable FLOSS code running on my own device. If you consider microG unacceptable you should never "apt install" anything.
microG uses many of the same closed source Google services, downloads and runs closed source Google Play binaries with Google access and exists to provide compatibility with closed source Google libraries used by apps. Using microG doesn't change that you're using closed source Google code on the client side and also on the server side for many of the services. It also still uses closed source Google Play code itself, including downloading and running droidguard which is highly obfuscated and dynamically changes on a regular basis. That code gets access to all the permissions and privileged access being given to microG including the Location permission and all the special privileged app access which is doesn't get when a user installs sandboxed Google Play on GrapheneOS.
microG has a poor privacy and security track record. They've repeatedly had severe privacy and security issues which are publicly discovered and then go unfixed for years. One of those which involved leaking location data to apps which weren't supposed to have access to it was documented on their wiki but yet not addressed for years. There are still privacy holes in the location implementation, although the most severe issue was fixed.
GrapheneOS does provide open source reimplementations of Google Play APIs including location. It provides those as OS libraries running in the apps using them instead of an extra service. That means location data access is restricted by the standard sandbox and permission model rather than needing to reimplement it in a service. Reimplementing it in a service means mistakes or failure to keep up with the modern permission model can create privacy holes, which has happened with the microG location service repeatedly and taken years to address.
I use it on LineageOS, works a charm
I dont get why some apps depend on Google Play functionality. Why can't I download Telegram on /e/OS
This about Play Services and not the Play Store. Play Services are a bunch of extra APIs/services that Google does not make available as part of AOSP. The non-nefarious reason is to make it possible to fix bugs and roll out features faster because the OEMs are terrible at rolling out new Android versions. The possible nefarious reason is to make more of Android closed-source.
At any rate, microG is a reimplementation of Play Services.
You can directly download the Telegram APK from: https://telegram.org/android
(Or using the app store that is part of /e/OS and serves as a front for both the Play Store and F-Droid.)
They could also have it decoupled from the OS with an open-source version, these are two different subjects.
The real reason to me is that they want to avoid Android forks outside of their control.
Yes, which is why I also mentioned the more nefarious reading of it. Making a large API surface use closed-source code gives them control.
Telegram is a Russian spy app, it needs remote attestation you are not a bot because collecting bot data is not valuable.
Telegram works on my /e/OS device. I am using Obtainium to download it, but you can also download it from the website: https://telegram.org/android
Is it too late to rename to "MindTheGapp"?
Considering that MindTheGapps is a distribution of the real Google Apps packages, yes, it's too late.
Note that MindTheGapps is distributed at https://github.com/MindTheGapps/. The dot-com domain looks like unaffiliated SEO squatting and could change download links to malware anytime.
There's also https[//]microg.cc and https[//]microg.net, both masquerading as homepages for MicroG, and Duckduckgo finds several more. I actually reported the latter to Namecheap a year ago, but got no response back.
Is there a good authority to report these to? Clearly registrars aren't interested in taking them down, and they're probably not serving malware right now, but fake download sites for software running with elevated privileges is a security incident waiting to happen.
Go home! Goober!...
I mean Google!
My main device uses MicroG with LineageOS. It works really well, and I recommend it. It is a Murena phone from here: https://murena.com/
Murena? Didn't their CEO say that security is only for pedophiles lol. Can't trust that guy with our data.
Murena also sent data to Open AI, right? Didn't tell their users.
Also mixed up sessions on their service and users got other users' data downloaded on their devices.
We can't trust your judgement.
The founder and leader of /e/ and Murena has repeatedly claimed highly private and secure devices primarily benefit criminals and pedophiles. He has also falsely claimed that GrapheneOS is mainly used by criminals. /e/ and Murena heavily mislead users about what they provide. In reality, they lag incredibly far behind on standard privacy/security patches and protections. They set a fake Android security patch level despite having many patches missing. They even miss a large subset of the AOSP patches. Drivers and firmware are rarely updated and lag far behind the official releases. Linux kernel updates are barely provided.
/e/ adds many privacy invasive services to the OS including tracking users with random identifiers for updates. They sent user speech data to OpenAI for years without obtaining consent beyond it being hidden in a massive terms of service but have finally moved away from doing that in newer versions. They still have a bunch of other privacy invasive services and still add many more Google services compared to AOSP by default along with giving those privileged access. microG on /e/ downloads and runs Google Play executables with highly privileged access by default and they give highly privileged to Android Auto and other components as their way of getting those running.
https://clubic.com/actualite-604786-murena-e-os-interview.ht...
Like many people, my concern is not the hypothetical possibility of a security threat; it is the completely certainty that my data is being collected and monetized by private entities who have access to it "legitimately" (i.e., the technology is designed from the ground up to transmit it against my will).
So, sincere question - how is GrapheneOS superior to /e/ in protecting personal privacy against large corporations?
GrapheneOS is a privacy project and heavily improves it with important privacy protections including Contact Scopes, Storage Scopes, secure paste and much more. It preserves all of the standard privacy and security of AOSP while greatly improving upon both. It has major improvements to both privacy and security, but it's also starting from the point of the standard privacy and security being intact.
GrapheneOS doesn't connect to Google servers by default and avoids integrating any privileged access for either Google apps or partial replacements for those. The main operating systems integrating microG included always granted privileged access for microG, Google Play executables downloaded by microG (droidguard) which run with the privileged access it's granted and other Google apps including Android Auto.
https://grapheneos.org/features
/e/ greatly reduces both privacy and security compared to AOSP through not keeping up with standard patches, not providing important standard privacy/security protections and adding problematic services. It lags behind incomplete backports to older releases by many weeks or even months while not fully providing all the patches. They set an inaccurate Android security patch level across devices so users believe they have a lot of patches they don't. Users are also led to believe those are all the Android privacy/security patches when it's a minority of the overall patches due to most not being backported. Firmware, driver and kernel updates are largely not provided by /e/ even when those are available from the vendors including for Pixels. Those have extreme delays when they are provided, often being years behind for Pixels.
/e/ also doesn't keep all of the standard security model intact due to the changes made by LineageOS and /e/.
/e/ also adds a bunch of privacy invasive services along with rolling back privacy and security in many other ways.
https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/24134-devices-lacking-stand...
There is a huge list of issues with /e/OS. Let me just give you a few examples:
Android 17 introduced a local network permission. GrapheneOS ported to Android 17 months ago. LineageOS, which /e/OS is based on just recently started releasing Android 17 updates. /e/OS may not be on Android 17 yet, I haven't checked. So, imagine for months apps have had access to the local network. What can they do with that?
That's just one example of how being far behind on updates can affect privacy.
/e/OS is far less deGoogled than GrapheneOS.
/e/OS lacks features like Storage Scopes, Contacts Scopes, Secure Paste, and sensors permission.