Privacy @lemmy.ml merlin @lemmy.dbzer0.com 4d ago

How to get push notifications in a degoogled phone?

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

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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
- 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
  
  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
- I'm using Molly with UnifiedPush for notifications and it works quite well.
  
  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 :/)
- Thanks for your awesome advice.
  
  Happy to help :)
  
  (especially when it comes awesome libre software :p)
Please update what you chose then, to help the next person.
- I went with ntfy.sh and installed molly and mercurygram.
  
  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/
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)
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.
nfty for applications that support it. your only other choice is microg
- your only other choice is microg
  
  Doesn't work on GrapheneOS, since it requires root access for signature spoofing. And it's not any better than Sandboxed play services.
  
  Are you talking about ntfy? And if so, could you give more context? I run a self-hosted ntfy and am thinking of switching to GOS.
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.
- So it's either a persistent notification or allowing the app to constantly running in the background. Does it have a significant battery impact?
  
  Doesn't have a significant impact. Using Telegram (though third party OSS client called Forkgram) and Signal without Play services on pixel as well.
  
  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".
  
  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.
  
  Depends on the App but generally no.
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.
- 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.
  
  Yeah, Molly does the same thing and doesn't cause me any problems.
It depends. Some apps have their push notifications system but may consume more battery.

You should list what apps
- You're right I need reliable notifications for Telegram and signal
  
  Telegram X works for me
  
  Signal does its own notifications
I use ntfy from fdroid
Why do you not want play services on grapheneos? Doesn't the sandboxing remove any issues with it?
Wtf would you want that for?
The irony of using a Google Pixel and degoogling it for use
- 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.
  
  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.

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