UPDATE: MicroG (a free and open source implementation of google play) on my e/os phone did finally sync my badges. Didn't know it could do that! It took a week or so for some reason, but all my badges are there now. Happy days!
So I guess most people on Lemmy will probably be aware of the plans Google has to restrict independent app stores and developers as a way to extract more profit, surveillance and control over people. Anyway if you're not, some links at the bottom.
Anyway, in light of this, I decided to buy a Fairphone and installed e/os. This is a great operating system and was easy to install. And no Google on my phone anymore. Hurrah!
Sadly, without Google Play Games, I cant get my badges over. Boo. I only have four more to collect and I just got my grandmaster scorechaser one last week, which took me ages (a very lucky run with huntress, chains, blooming bow and boots of nature!).
I did a search about discussion of alternative ways to export and import badges, and seems like there's been nothing on this for a while. I'm wondering if its worth revisiting the discussion about reliance on Google Play Games for sync?
When this was discussed last time, there were arguments that people will cheat but my view is... it doesn't matter, because if people want to cheat 1) they lose enjoyment so its their problem and 2) if people want to cheat then they can do it already by rooting.
I just think the way big tech is fucking over open source developers, not to mention the world, and given many people on this sub moved from Reddit because Reddit are also evil big tech, I think it would be nice to support people moving away from Google.
Also, also I want to say massive kudos to Evan for keeping this game going - and I think its an amazing real world example of what is achievable through small-scale open source projects and community building.
- ‘Your phone is about to stop being yours': anger brewing among Android fans as major Google app change draws near https://www.techradar.com/phones/android/your-phone-is-about-to-stop-being-yours-anger-brewing-among-android-fans-as-major-google-app-change-draws-near
- F-Droid says Google’s Android developer verification plan is an ‘existential’ threat to alternative app stores https://thenewstack.io/f-droid-says-googles-android-developer-verification-plan-is-an-existential-threat-to-alternative-app-stores/
- Keep Android Open Campaign https://keepandroidopen.org/
So I'm actually in a similar boat to you! I've switched to an almost completely degoogled phone over the last few months for largely the same reason, and have been slowly ditching google services over the last year or so.
Two things to note here:
Ah cool. And great that you are going to be working with F-Droid more! Really feel like its important to support their project. How about having a new badge that you can only unlock by downloading from F-Droid 😂 (kind of joking but also kind of not...)
Its good there are options to move SPD over to a new phone, although I don't really know how that would work technically... I guess I need to do some research. I haven't used Seedvault much and not sure how that interacts with e/os as the built in backup system uses Murena...
Ah, I wasn't aware that /e/OS didn't use seedvault by default =S. Hopefully there's a setting for it as making you use their cloud service for backups isn't exactly very good of them.
Seems like the absence of Seedvault is a bug in 4.1.1 so hopefully can be fixed in the next version
Happy days! MicroG managed to sync my progress 😀