Review: iodéOS offers a frictionless de-Googled Android experience

Wherever in the world you go, the smartphone landscape is dominated by Android and iOS, and while this has always been problematic, recent events have made the dependency on two American tech giants for what is probably our most personal computing device even more problematic than it already was. We use our smartphones to keep our secrets, do our banking, interact with our governments, share our deepest thoughts with our friends and family, and a whole lot more. Having this invaluable tool the vast majority of us depend on tied entirely to Google and Apple is not just bad for the market, it's also a downright threat to the national security of anyone not living in the US.

Here in Europe, there's been an awakening lately, with governments, companies, and people alike finally realising that having our entire digital infrastructure controlled by foreign, adversarial interests is a terrible idea. Sadly, breaking free from our Android and iOS chains is not so easy. The most ideal solution would be a truly open source alternative smartphone operating system, but that's a hard sell for 99.9% of smartphone users who need the applications required to do their finances, talk to their friends, or interact with their governments. The cold and harsh truth is that with very few exceptions, these applications simply do not (yet) exist for smartphone operating systems that aren't Android or iOS.

The only viable alternative at this point in time is to take whatever's left of the Android Open Source Project, remove anything that ties it to Google and its services, fill in the gaps with alternative services and applications, and sell it as a Google-free or de-Googled Android platform. There's several projects in this space, and with Europe drunkenly stumbling out of the technological hole it dug itself into, it's no surprise that two of the more popular alternatives to Apple or Google-controlled smartphones come from Europe (and from the same country, no less). Today, we're taking a look at one of these: iodeOS.

Iode is a company based in Toulouse, France, which focuses on offering a Google-free Android called iodeOS, either preinstalled on phones you can buy, or as a ROM you can install yourself on supported devices. As a company, iode makes its money through selling devices with iodeOS preinstalled, through an optional premium subscription (that I didn't take a look at), and through donations, and all of their code is published as open source on their Gitlab instance hosted in France.

Iode loaned me a Fairphone 6 with iodeOS preinstalled, one of he many smartphones and tablets they sell through their online store for review. This isn't going to be an Android review; you already know what Android is like, and there's no need for me to rehash any of that. Instead, I want to focus on the things that make using de-Googled Android different from using Google Android.

Don't be afraid of microG

There are various ways to go about making a de-Googled Android variant, and iodeOS chose the LineageOS route, with microG installed on top. For those unaware, microG is a project which aims to replace the various proprietary parts of Google Play Services, required by many Android applications, with open source reimplementations. While it doesn't offer 100% compatibility, it works exceptionally well, and you'll be hard-pressed to find applications just don't work at all with microG. IodeOS updates its microG installation through a dedicated F-Droid repository that's obviously enabled by default, so you don't have to do anything yourself.

Using microG instead of Google Play Services doesn't mean you have to rely solely on whatever's available in F-Droid, since there are a variety of alternative Play Store frontends available. IodeOS ships with the Aurora Store, which is an open-source frontend to the Play Store that can be used with or without a Google account. If you use it with your Google account, you'll gain access to whatever applications you already own, including paid ones, but you won't be able to buy applications inside Aurora. You can, however, buy an application on the Play Store website, after which it will show up in Aurora as well, assuming you're logged in with the same account.

Aurora also comes with something something called FakeStore, which is sadly an important part of the puzzle; it's a stub application that has the same package name as the real Play Store. Some applications check whether the Play Store is available before working properly, so this is sadly needed to ensure maximum compatibility. The only issue I sometimes ran into with Aurora is that it would load up its listings, but then any application I tapped on said it was unavailable. When this happened, reloading the Aurora application always fixed the issue. Annoying, but not gamebreaking.

A few things did not work for me when using microG on iodeOS, and they're exactly the things you'd expect not to work. If you have a WearOS device, you're out of luck; WearOS devices simply do not work when using microG, but there is a bounty to add support for it. If you want to use a smartwatch with iodeOS, there are various options available, such as Garmin devices, which is what I used during my testing and it worked flawlessly.

Another feature from regular" Android that simply won't work is RCS. There's only one RCS client available on Android, Google Messages, and as you can imagine, Google is in no rush to allow devices without Google Play Services to register for and use RCS messaging. Tying to register with Google Messages will fail, and there are no other RCS clients available (save for a few China and India-specific clients). There's a microG bounty for this, too, but no luck so far. Of course, there are countless messaging platforms that work just fine on iodeOS - regular SMS, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Signal, and so on - and especially if you're European, it's unlikely RCS support matters to you at all.

I just don't ever think or care about RCS.

The big question mark hanging over everyone's head when they consider moving to a de-Googled Android ROM without Google Play Services is, of course, banking applications. Personally, I'm lucky in that my bank's application works just fine without Google Play Services, and the same applies to the various related applications and services here in Sweden, such as the BankID verification application (used to verify your identity for banking, government logins, etc.) and Swish, a popular Swedish payment platform.

While I think the problem of broken banking applications is a little bit overblown, it's still a real issue and you should do some research before making the jump. Even if your specific bank's application is listed as broken, though, you can usually still access the same functionality through your bank's website, even if that's probably a little less smooth and more cumbersome. Look, nobody said ditching Google wouldn't come with difficulties and annoyances.

While my banking situation was fine on iodeOS, the same can't be said for NFC payments. I use Google Wallet to pay with my phone and smartwatch at stores, and it won't come as a surprise that Google doesn't make its Wallet application work without its Play Services installed. If you're in the same boat, you may be able to circumvent this problem through your bank's application, as some banks offer NFC payment functionality of their own. If not, you're out of luck - unless you happen to have a Garmin watch with Garmin Pay, which works without Play Services or even a smartphone at all, like I wrote about extensively a year ago.

The worry about losing access to banking applications and NFC payments is probably the biggest worry people have when considering switching to a de-Googled Android ROM like iodeOS, and while that worry is valid, I do think most people will be surprised by just how many banking applications work just fine even without Google Play Services. Before making the jump, some online searching will yield several maintained lists of working and broken applications so you know what you're in for.

That being said, this is not an ideal situation, and one that most likely needs remedying in a regulatory manner. Access to basic and often mandatory services like banking, online government ID systems, messaging, and more should not be predicated on buying a locked-down, user-hostile American device.

Relying on the community

Usually, custom Android ROMs, de-Googled or not, ship with some Chromium browser by default, but iodeOS does things a bit differently by opting for a branded Firefox fork instead that has telemetry, trackers, and so on disabled. For its other Google application replacements, iodeOS relies on various proven open source applications, like CoMaps, Thunderbird, Fossify applications, and more. The end result is a complete offering where everything you'd find on a Google Android phone has been replaced by solid, capable, non-Google offerings from the open source community.

Of course, this is Android, so you can install whatever other maps, mail, or application you want if iode's choices aren't to your liking.

An important feature of iodeOS is that it ships with an operating system-wide analysis tool that provides insight into with to what and whom, exactly, your phone and its applications are connecting. A system-wide adblocker is part of this, as well, with sensible defaults sourced from various open source blocklists. Of course, you have full control over what is and is not blocked, including the ability to block entire applications or websites if you so desire. While I personally didn't try out their optional Premium subscription service, this service provides even more control, such as various parental control features.

IodeOS also has some nice, smaller touches that I really appreciated. During the first boot and initial setup, it showed a screen where you could select which default applications to remove, something I've never seen before. Sadly, many of the supposedly removable applications ended up only being hidden", which is Android speak for system applications that can't be removed. I'm not sure what the exact reasoning is to make some applications system applications, but I would definitely prefer if all of the preinstalled applications, or at least most of them, were actually removable. This would seem to more closely align with iodeOS' stated goals and values.

The default installation also comes with what is essentially a really barebones, basic changelog application. It shows nothing more than a list of recent updates with includes fixes changes, and additions, and it's really nice to have this information easily accessible. I'm quite tired of the modern trend of empty or entirely missing changelogs, so it's nice to see iode putting this front and centre. The application itself could use some touching-up, but at the same time, I understand why this is probably not high on the list of priorities. It shows a changelog; it doesn't need to win design awards.

Speaking of updates - during my use, iodeOS was never more than one month behind on Android's security updates, which is not a bad showing compared to many much larger big-time Android OEMs. Still, I would prefer the monthly Android security updates to be available within the same month, so this is an area where iodeOS can improve and put themselves even farther ahead of most OEMs. People who are most likely to switch to a de-Googled Android are probably also going to be people who care about being up-to-date and as secure as possible.

Boring is good

Beyond the well-documented problems with WearOS, RCS, and some banking applications that are outside of iode's control, using iodeOS is simply boring and uneventful, and in this case, boring" is exactly what they should be aiming for. For the vast majority of people, switching from Google Android to iodeOS will not be a particularly jarring experience, as all their favourite applications will still be available, running on the same underlying operating system they're already used to. IodeOS does an excellent job of being inoffensive, unobtrusive, and frictionless - exactly what you want from something that aims to be a drop-in replacement for Google Android for as many people as possible.

IodeOS offers a solid Android experience to those who want to de-Google, and assuming you're not deeply dependent on WearOS and/or RCS, it's easy to recommend. It's really just Android", and if you're already used to Android - and statistically speaking, you are - buying a phone with iodeOS preinstalled is no different than buying any other Android device, just without all the Google baggage.

And as we realise a little bit more every day, that's a massive value-add over Pixels and Samsung phones.