Android on falkp.no/blog

Android with as little closed source as possible - part 2

Thu, 26 Feb 2015 00:00:00 +0000

# Overview

Read part one of Android with as little closed source as possible, Life without US cloud services and Androids privacy invasiveness if you’re wondering why I’m doing this.

This is an update on how to live with a free and open (Android based) phone.

Some time during 2014 I went all-in, and removed Google Play. My previous article (Android with as little closed source as possible) left a list of closed source apps I was still dependent on:

Google Maps
Yatse
Youtube
TinyCam monitor free

When dropping Google Play I had to drop Maps and Youtube. They can’t work without. Maps is replaced with OsmAnd, which even can work totally off-line (no data usage, lower battery usage). Youtube can be used via a web browser.

I still have a folder of proprietary apps on my phone, installed via a APK downloader. There’s even an app to let you know when there are updates: ApkTrack. These apps are due to services hard to avoid (Spotify/Wimp for music streaming, Ruter for public transportation, NRK for public broadcast TV, Tesla/Airtame/SeekThermal for special hardware). These apps doesn’t bother me, and the OS with privacy guard has them locked down.

# Firmware

There is still no phone with open firmware in sight. Even FirefoxOS comes with binary blobs. But getting rid of the three big ones, Apple, Google and Microsoft is a good thing, no matter what you’re running.

Nogapps - A replacement for gapps

Thu, 16 Oct 2014 00:00:00 +0000

I recently discovered nogapps, and it’s working great! Here’s an intro and how to use it.

# Background

When installing Android on a phone, one first flashes the ROM, i.e. Cyanogenmod. Then a package called gapps, which contains Googles proprietary Apps. This is necessary to get Play, Youtube, GMail, Maps, etc. And lots of apps from Play requires Play and it’s services to function.

Someone has started the project Nogapps which aims to replace some of the gapps services with open services.

As an example, you can only use GPS for location if you don’t have gapps. The other methods, wifi and cell tower id, comes from Google. Nogapps replaces this with “Network Location”. An app and a database which gives off-line location lookup.

# Installing Network Location

Before you even consider this: you need root, you need to tinker with your device. A full backup is always adviced.

Start with a phone with root access and i.e. Cyanogenmod installed. Probably works with other ROMs as well.
Download the Android SDK from Google to your PC.
This should give you access to adb, the tool to communicate with android via USB. For me the path became $ ~/Downloads/adt-bundle-linux-x86_64-20140702/sdk/platform-tools/adb
You need developer mode enabled on your phone, and to approve the computer. Not covered by this guide.
Make sure you’re connected:

$ adb devices

List of devices attached
014nnnnnnnnn800F    device

Get root access to phone, this must first be allowed in phone settings: $ adb root
Make system partition writable:

$ adb remount

remount succeeded

Download Network Location apk from the Nogapps project website and push to phone: $ adb push NetworkLocation.apk /system/app/NetworkLocation.apk
Download the cells.db for your continent from the Nogapps project website and and push to phone: $ adb push cells-europe.db /sdcard/.nogapps/cells.db
Reboot phone.

# Usage

If you’re using Privacy Guard you will be prompted the first time your phone tries to look up the location. Now make sure you’ve activated non-GPS location:

And enjoy. It works in every app:

# Contributing

If you want to contribute to the cells database, use apps like MozStumbler and OpenWLANMap.

# Further on

Nogapps consists of more that this feature, but it’s the one most important to me, and the only one I’ve tested so far.

Edit: updated 2014-10-21

Car-logger - part 2

Mon, 29 Sep 2014 00:00:00 +0000

# Overview

Read part one of Car-logger first, if you haven’t.

I chose to go with outdated Android phones in the previous article. Phones with CyanogenMod and no Google Play. This means that they run all free software, except for some firmware blobs and drivers. No background services driving up data or battery usage, no third party tracking my location.

I tried out Traccar. The app worked fine, but the backend was a big, horrible java thing. Poor UI, overkill for my purpose, and too much for me to get hacking on.

After trying out a few different ones I finally found BigBrotherGPS. It was half of what I wanted. An app that simply makes a http request with a few parameters in post-data. The backend wasn’t more than a proof-of-concept, but http requests are easy to work with and language agnostic.

So I created BigBrotherGPSweb (a better name is needed). See github for a proper description, but the basics are:

Receive http/https requests.
Store requests and devices in mysql.
Display results in a map.

It still need some work, and I’ll be working on it until I get bored or find a new project. But it currently serves the purpose.

And of course it can be used to track more than cars.

# Edit 20140930

This requires a SIM card. My operator supplies a twin SIM for NOK 20 / month, so it’s a low cost for me.

Android on falkp.no/blog

Android with as little closed source as possible - part 2

# Overview

# Firmware

Nogapps - A replacement for gapps

# Background

# Installing Network Location

# Usage

# Contributing

# Further on

Car-logger - part 2

# Overview

# Edit 20140930

# Pics, or it didn’t happen!