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Using side-loaded apps without Google Play Services

I have a Samsung S9+ phone. NO Google account, disabled Google Play Store and disabled Google Play Services.

There are some apps that continuously attempt to contact the Google Play store and give me notices saying the app will NOT work without Google Play Store/Services; however, by ignoring the notice the app still works fine.

This is a NON-Rooted phone, just your standard factory ROM with most items/services disabled.

Last I had checked this phone cannot be rooted, but that is not the point of this question.

I have one recent app that I need to use for business that apparently has been poorly written and crashes when, I assume, it attempts to contact Google.

My question is, on a NON-Rooted phone, is there a way to "spoof" or "trick" an app into thinking Google Play services/store is available without actually making it available?

Thanks.

Kimputer

The program is written to call the Google Play Services. Since it's installed on your phone (even if it wasn't), Android is designed so that you can't take the place of it in any way (even with rooting it would be difficult), and even if you could take its place, you'd still need to be a core Google developer to create a service that responds correctly to the app's requests. I'd say your chances of a non-rooted phone are nill, but even with a rooted phone, it's still close to nill (because you need an advanced developer or hacker).
Isn't enabling Google Services smarter, to save your business? Or maybe just explaining this to that app developer?

Adam D

ASKER

Thanks for your quick response Kimputer.

Well, this app won't "make or break" my business it is just a tool that may or may not be useful (it is new). It is not "my" app but I have sent a note to the developer about it.

In my opinion, no, using Google Services is not "smarter" per se. I don't trust Google to handle my information privately nor securely which is why I avoid all of their services as much as possible. I don't trust other cloud services either; and no I don't use any social media and the few apps I do use that I have side-loaded are as restricted as possible. Call me cynical, but that's just me. :)

I am a old software developer as well (long before PC's were around) and should I want to spend the time reverse engineering their app I could but didn't really want to put that much time into it. I was just hoping there was a quick intermediary piece of software that could take the place and or "spoof" the service so this app at least thinks the service responded and move on. It is only during the initial startup that this problem occurs (probably to check for an update from the store) so if I could skip that part then I bet it would work.

Let me know if you have any other thoughts. Thanks. :)

Rob

Hi Adam,

i can only offer an opinion in that Samsung and Google are inheriently linked and to truely avoid using Google's services, you'd most likely be better to switch to another brand of phone. That said, it seems avoiding Google Play services can be done with a bit of work: https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/android-phone-mastery/

Aside from that, opening a line of communication with the developer as you've done is a good start.

Rob

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Jackie Man

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Adam D

ASKER

Thank you everyone for your help and information.

Jackie Man - I disagree about the countless popups and the play services being the core of the Android OS. It it were the core of its' existence then my phone would not operate at all. My phone works fine, no problems and rarely a popup for the Google Play Store. A couple of the limited apps I use do on occasion say it won't work, but it does anyway and it is only one popup.

Thanks.