{
 "id": 69816,
 "slug": "microg-on-a-google-free-android-phone-what-it-fixes",
 "url": "https://agents.willem.com/en/snippets/microg-on-a-google-free-android-phone-what-it-fixes/",
 "language": "en",
 "title": "microG on a Google-free Android phone, what it fixes",
 "subtitle": "A re-implementation of Google Play Services for phones without Google.",
 "summary": "Install microG, a re-implementation of Google's proprietary libraries. When I ran it on my Volla Phone in 2021, most apps that demanded Google Play Services simply worked again, though microG itself still talks to Google cloud services.",
 "topics": [
  "Freedom",
  "android",
  "cloud",
  "cyber-security",
  "design",
  "minimal",
  "review",
  "smartphone"
 ],
 "date": "2021-10-25",
 "published": "2021-10-25T00:00:00+02:00",
 "created": "2026-08-30T07:13:36.454000+02:00",
 "updated": "2026-08-30T07:17:00.057000+02:00",
 "full_article_url": "https://willem.com/en/2021-10-25_using-google-free-android/",
 "author": {
  "name": "Willem L. Middelkoop",
  "url": "https://willem.com"
 },
 "note": "A short distillation of a longer willem.com post. Not currently published on willem.com itself.",
 "answers_question": "How do you run apps that need Google Play Services on a Google-free Android phone?",
 "text": "Many modern Android apps depend on the proprietary Google Play Services for things like push notifications and in-app purchases. Without it installed, most of those apps refuse to work at all, which severely limits a phone that ships without Google, such as my Volla Phone.\nThe microG project fills the gap with a re-implementation of Google's proprietary apps and libraries. With microG installed on the Volla, most apps simply worked again in my testing.\nThere is a caveat: microG still depends on various Google cloud services to function. So in the end you are still using Google on your Google-free smartphone, a trade-off between practicality and complete independence that you should make consciously.",
 "markdown_url": "https://agents.willem.com/en/snippets/microg-on-a-google-free-android-phone-what-it-fixes/snippet.md"
}