Hi guys basically as the title says. I have a pixel phone running GrapheneOS and I really don’t want to install Play Services. Is there an alternative for me? I need reliable notifications for Telegram and signal. Edit: Thank you all amazing people for helping I learned alot and found best setup for me

  • toastal@lemmy.ml
    3·
    7 hours ago

    FYI for the other commenters, UnifiedPush can work thru the Prosody mod_unified_push or any server with a up where Conversations (& its forks like Cheogram, Monocles, Blabber) can be a distributor. This has the added bonus of coming with an awesome decentralized XMPP chat server getting to reuse a single connection & single app to server instead of separate ones. Conversations is the most efficient chat client on Android in terms of resources (battery, network, RAM) so might as well keep it lightweight—which you are probably trying to get push notifications from the likes of Signal or Element, but what is the point when you have an efficient XMPP server for your chat needs?

    However, I think UnifiedPush might be a bit flawed—as if the startup that created ntfy is pushing others to try to adopt their standard instead of getting folks on board with the older & capable MQTT (which also can be ran thru mod_mqtt on your XMPP server). I am not yet sure if this is a tinfoil take or not.

      • fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.comEnglish
        2·
        7 hours ago

        Good choices. I take this a step further and bridge IRC, Signal, Gvoice, and WhatsApp from a plugged in device or container to Matrix. Then use ntfy for Matrix notifications. This gives me notifications for all of them in Matrix/Element and thus through ntfy.

        Example: Instead of Molly I use mautrix-signal bridge as the device and it feeds messages into Matrix.

        There’s also a Telegram bridge: https://matrix.org/ecosystem/bridges/telegram/

  • qweertz@programming.devEnglish
    31·
    1 day ago

    Most libre applications implement their own websockets for this. EDIT: some propriety spyware like WhatsApp use those too, can confirm myself, as I unfortunately have to use it on my GrapheneOS owner profile (which ofc doesn’t have the sandboxed GPlay services installed; I could technically use it on my profile for personal proprietary apps, but it would be a major pita) ENDEDIT
    (unfortunately Proton uses only Google FCM in most of their apps and doesn’t publish them on F-Droid or Accrescent)

    However, those can take a strain on your battery since every websocket maintains it’s own connection.
    This is where UnifiedPush in combination with either nfty or Sunup comes in
    (EDIT: I use ntfy myself, also Sunup seems to be quite new, so it might come with some quirks; EDITEND there is also a plugin for your own Nextcloud)

    Since Unifiedpush maintains only one connection for every app using it, this takes quite a bit less charge to upkeep
    (it’s explained quite well on their website, which is hyperlinked)

    If you are looking for Unifiedpush support on Signal: Molly is a hardened fork of the client and does support it through Mollysocket

    EDIT: If you use Telegram there is Mercurygram. As for Matrix clients, I use Element and Schildichat. All these support UnifiedPush

    • QuazarOmega@lemy.lol
      2·
      1 day ago

      Spot on response!
      Just a note: in my experience Mercurygram with ntfy is terribly unreliable, with notifications coming in days later, so I personally ended up enabling its background service anyways, it doesn’t look like it’s taking up much battery at least

      • qweertz@programming.dev
        2·
        1 day ago

        Thx for the kind words!

        I left the background service on for all the messengers, it’s not like the Unifiedpush ones have anything major to use anyway. This increased the reliability and peace of mind + they never show up as major battery users for me either

        • QuazarOmega@lemy.lol
          2·
          1 day ago

          You mean unrestricted battery usage? If so, I don’t exactly understand how it differs from keeping the unifiedpush integration off and relying on the app, does it make it so that it’s only “ready” to be triggered by ntfy when it would otherwise poll the server on its own very frequently (so you end up actually saving some battery)?

          • qweertz@programming.dev
            2·
            1 day ago

            does it make it so that it’s only “ready” to be triggered by ntfy when it would otherwise poll the server on its own very frequently (so you end up actually saving some battery)?

            That’s how I understand it, yes. You change the behaviour of the app by configuring it to use UnifiedPush, so there is less background usage to “restrict”

      • qweertz@programming.devEnglish
        3·
        2 days ago

        So you have set it up over Mollysocket? Do you use your own or a remote instance?

        I just haven’t got around to setting it up myself yet… (+ I don’t have my own server yet, so I can’t self host :/)

        • dracs@programming.devEnglish
          3·
          2 days ago

          Yeah, in self hosting MollySocket and my own Ntfy server. I’m in the process of moving it all to my NAS so I don’t have to leave my computer on all the time.

          I really wish Signal would support it natively.

          • qweertz@programming.dev
            1·
            2 days ago

            it’s rly cool that you’re self hosting this stuff! though I can imagine running your PC 24/7 just for that is quite annoying

            also yeah, upstream support for UnifiedPush in the clients for both Signal and Telegram would be great…

            But I can imagine that it’s not rly a priority for them.
            (I’m not actually skilled enough (yet) to help implement that though either)

  • illegalflyer@lemm.eeEnglish
    23·
    2 days ago

    Only thing I have a problem with right now is proton mail. Hopefully soon they will be implementing notifications that don’t rely on google play (they said they are working on it)

  • shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip
    4·
    2 days ago

    I don’t know about Telegram, but I know, at least with Signal, it should work with web sockets, and allow you to get notifications that way. At least that’s how I get my notifications on Molly, which is a fork of signal. While not many applications support it, you might also look into UnifiedPush and ntfy which is a UP app from F-Droid.

    • oldfart@lemm.ee
      1·
      12 hours ago

      Telegram just sits in the background and works, I don’t understand OP’s problem. The only downside compared to gplay version is that there’s a persistent notification.

  • WreckingBANG@lemmy.ml
    8·
    2 days ago

    It depends for what Apps you need them. Often Apps like Signal or Element support getting Notifications via a persistent Server connection or asking every so often for Notifications. Even tho i could not find any source, i found that this works with Whatsapp(sadly have to use it) too.

    • merlin@lemmy.dbzer0.comOPEnglish
      4·
      2 days ago

      So it’s either a persistent notification or allowing the app to constantly running in the background. Does it have a significant battery impact?

      • shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip
        2·
        2 days ago

        On my device, I let the app just constantly hang out in the background with a persistent notification that I have turned off, but it does not have a significant battery impact for me at all. So your mileage may vary. Some people say that it has significant impact, and some people like me, it doesn’t impact hardly at all.

      • merde alors@sh.itjust.works
        3·
        2 days ago

        yes, it has a “significant” impact on battery. i don’t know why the other comment claims otherwise.

        it’s worth it for me, so i accept that “impact”.

        • shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip
          2·
          2 days ago

          For some people it doesn’t, and for others it does. So your mileage may vary. For example, with me, I have seen no significant battery impact, and I’ve been running it this way for several years.

      • FrostyPolicy@suppo.fi
        4·
        2 days ago

        Doesn’t have a significant impact. Using Telegram (though third party OSS client called Forkgram) and Signal without Play services on pixel as well.

      • ReversalHatchery@beehaw.orgEnglish
        1·
        2 days ago

        as I know its the persistent notification (that you can hide on most phones, but do not swipe away) is what lets it run in the background

  • Cris16228@lemmy.today
    8·
    2 days ago

    It depends. Some apps have their push notifications system but may consume more battery.

    You should list what apps

      • VHS [he/him]@hexbear.net
        3·
        2 days ago

        There’s a fork of Telegram on F-droid called “Telegram FOSS” that runs a background service for notifications. I’ve used it and the effect on battery drain is pretty minor, like maybe 2% per charge. Not sure if something similar exists for Signal.

        I use MicroG on my phone, it’s a basic FOSS replacement for GMS and makes push notifications work for all apps. It gets push notifs from Google’s servers but you don’t need an account. It doesn’t use Google at all for location, which is nice as that’s a highly invasive aspect of Play Services. Not all ROMs are compatible with it, I use it on Lineage

        • Cris16228@lemmy.today
          2·
          2 days ago

          I use MicroG on my phone, it’s a basic FOSS replacement for GMS and makes push notifications work for all apps. It gets push notifs from Google’s servers but you don’t need an account. It doesn’t use Google at all for location, which is nice as that’s a highly invasive aspect of Play Services. Not all ROMs are compatible with it, I use it on Lineage

          Does it work with WhatsApp? Its the only app that drains my battery like crazy. I had it installed but didn’t work

          • VHS [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
            1·
            2 days ago

            It’s a drop-in replacement so it should provide push notifications and location functionality just fine for every app. Other functionality such as IAPs will probably be unsupported.

            From the data I see on Plexus for WhatsApp, the core functionality and notifications work just fine on MicroG, but backing up chats to Google Drive is broken.

  • Fusty@lemmy.mlEnglish
    1·
    2 days ago

    For Signal, use F-Droid and add the repoaitory for Langis which runs without communicating with Google servers, and notifications for Langis are immediate, without a delay.

    In F-Droid have a look at Forkgram and Telegram FOSS as a solution.

    • ivn@jlai.lu
      141·
      2 days ago

      I don’t know, if your goal is security Pixels have the best hardware and GrapheneOS the best software. It makes a lot of sense.

      • SatyrSack@feddit.orgEnglish
        11·
        1 day ago

        Sure, but it’s still ironic. I’m not saying that it’s a bad thing to buy a Google device just to degoogle it, but I think that does fit the definition of irony.

    • ReversalHatchery@beehaw.orgEnglish
      61·
      2 days ago

      It’s truly ironic, but its really a good choice, if you don’t care about repairability and removable battery

      • Bullybeard@lemm.eeEnglish
        2·
        1 day ago

        Holy shit I just commented it was ironic, didn’t even say it was bad or good and I got 12 down votes? I suppose the reddit hivemind mentality carries over to Lemmy as well

        • ReversalHatchery@beehaw.orgEnglish
          2·
          1 day ago

          that, or bots. Apparently it’s possible to view the list of downvoters, somehow (like through mbin I think), so you may be able to check what sort of content do they post, if any