Provide a fully featured webapo, or publish the Monzo .APK to allow installs on non-google play service devices

[Lav64 (Chris Lavender)]

I am currently in a phase of de-googling my life. Replacing Google apps with open source alternatives is actually fun (for me anyway).

The transition is going well until I’ve got one particular stumbling block: Banks.

Not one bank serves their .APK on their website - and for obvious reasons. Fortunately they all have a functional web app, so as long as I have a browser and internet connection, I’m fine. Monzo, however, with its “a bank as smart as your phone” philosophy means that my bank is about to become as smart as a Nokia 3310.

With Monzos reluctance to make a functional webapp (other than the emergency only one), is providing an all a viable solution if it’s done properly for those who don’t want to use Google play services?

[Chalky (Daniel White)]

I believe that this has come up in the past and even if Monzo did provide the APK, it wouldn’t work because it relies on Google Play Services under the hood.

[RichardL (Rich)]

Similar question answered here:

@simonb

At the moment we do use Google Play Services, so unfortunately distributing and maintaining on other Android-based operating systems that don’t use Google’s frameworks isn’t possible. It’s a lot of work that we don’t have the resources for, and that wouldn’t be of benefit to a significant amount of people, especially since Amazon don’t make phones themselves. The target market would really only be Amazon tablets (and we don’t officially support tablets) or people that have flashed modified Google-free versions of Android onto their phones, which is a very small amount of people.

[kris1]

I’ve recently been considering de-googling too and have previously flashed LineageOS on to another device recently. It was banking that caused problems then and its banking that’s stopping me from doing it again sadly.

I’m not a monzo customer but have been considering going back to legacy so I can fully de-google.

[gmclean]

So as well as working with two, supported, mobile operating systems, Monzo should divert resources to something like this as well?

I applaud your ‘de-googling’ but I hope this isn’t every taken forward, at least not until the Android and iOS apps are more complete and stable.

[JIMMWX (Village Idiot)]

I could be wrong, but isn’t the answer to this an APK emulator within Chrome?

[Lav64 (Chris Lavender)]

I’ve tried LineageOS with Gapps installed, and it’s fine. But kind of defys the point if I need to sign into Google to get started.

Recently looked into /e/ which offers a very close app store of sorts. MicroG is available to communicate with Google but is completely optional.

My latest experience is with GrapheneOS. This has no store and I am relying solely on F Droid or APK downloads online - which comes with its own risks.

My main gripe is the requirements for Google play services - to deliver notifications and track usage. Something I’d rather not rely on.

[anon75875116]

Related thread: Official F-Droid repository

As an alternative to providing APK downlaods (which Monzo might feel looks bad), they could run an F-Droid repository.

[thom_horne (Thomas Horne)]

I’ve “de-Googled” as much as I can but I think it’s totally impossible to rid Google completely, I use DuckDuckGo for search, ProtonMail for email etc…

However I can’t for example easily stop using banking apps and many now include maps showing where you’ve spent (mostly powered by Google) and Barclays even uses Street View in app. I know from experience Metro Bank doesn’t use maps in app but I’m unsure who else also doesn’t. Also this is all before the discussion on Google Pay.

I’ve also hit stumbling blocks in decent maps and transport apps; Citymapper is awesome but uses Google Maps data.

I think the best way forward is to maybe limit what Google knows by setting the best privacy options that can be set for each app/handset.