It has been quite a long time (3+ years!) since I last shared info on my personal experiences with MicroG, the free and open source software that provides a replacement for Google Play libraries that most apps that are practically required to exist in today’s society rely on, but with the bonus that 1. they don’t spy on you and relay creepy info back to Google, and 2. also come with just enough instability to make using a new app equal parts exciting and dreadful (bonus if the app has anything to do at all with payments, finance or some sort of security).
A lot has changed since then. When I first published the article in 2022, the pandemic lockdown was just receeding for me. I was yet to even join college, so at home, I rarely used my phone. However, once I stepped out of my house, I had to keep this device on me almost at all times so that I could keep updated with whatever was happening at home and at college, and also be able to pay for travel, food etc on my own, mostly cashless in the form of UPI.
This meant installing more apps, using those apps more and generally being steered to use apps that relied on Google Play Services more.
In addition, Google themselves started tightening the screws, most recently with Play Integrity, which acts as a replacement for the outgoing SafetyNet API. This is a draconian, pathetic attempt at security which ends up stating that anything the manufacturer and Google ship the phone with is secure. This is completely incorrect. The current system deems a phone with an older Android version but a passing Play Integrity check more secure than one running the latest Android but on a custom ROM. The only thing Play Integrity is able to say that I also agree with is that if it passes, the phone is in a “stock” mode and conforms to the Google standards and thus can be shipped with Google services out of the box.
Play Integrity, sadly is being used in a wide variety of apps, the most egregious of which includes McDonald’s. Apparently those fast food deals are just worth the extra protection from malicious apps I guess.
So, given all of this, how has my experience fared? Fairly decent, I would say. I’ll give some up-to-date info on the apps first and then detail my personal history.
Let’s get this one right out of the way. My banking apps work, but your mileage may vary. This will depend on your bank, though! Mine were fine, though interestingly enough one started to stop working after an update on my old phone, though installing a ROM and MicroG on my new phone did not yield the same result even though both were aftermarket operating systems that did not pass Play Integrity. Maybe it was using some other integrity measure? I don’t know.
As for UPI payment apps, I use:
Also, when setting it up on my new phone, it did in fact prevent me from signing up, but downgrading the APK to one from circa May or June 2025 worked, and updating did not kick me out either.
Cred: works without any issues
BHIM: used to work until the big redesign update, after which it needed Play Integrity. (I ended up spoofing Play Integrity and it works fine, though it seemingly can’t generate a QR code for others to scan)
I have tried to use:
These apps did not kick me out immediately upon trying to sign up, and so may or may not work:
Additionally, while I did not try it for what should be obvious reasons, Google Pay (both the Indian UPI version and the global version, if they aren’t the same app anymore) usually won’t work on custom ROMs + MicroG.
Most other apps are not nearly this finicky. Special mention once again to McDonald’s who, for the greater good, have painstakingly implemented seemingly one of the most advanced client attestation tooling into their app so that the chosen ones (running spyware and ad-ridden software) can securely order fast food at a seemingly cheap price.
Usually, if you enable everything in MicroG and still don’t log in, it is usually enough to get apps to work. Location and embedded maps used to be an issue but no longer.
Until their switch to their own mapping provider, Ola Cabs did not work.
The trick I described in my old article about getting Google Maps to pick up my location still works if Maps did not pick up my location. Also I have yet to find a good alternative to Google Maps :(. Whenever I go to a new city, Google Maps ends up being the single most useful app on my phone to orient me efficiently.
Last time, I mentioned how I used some apps like GMail in the web browser. I still do this for GMail on one or two accounts, but for rest I am now using Thunderbird for Android, which allows me to quickly read and send email from a nice interface and a privacy-friendly client. For other apps like Uber, which I used to use in the web, I now use the app since a lot of their blockers (like the map API) have been resolved by MicroG.
Some apps (shown above or below) will not work. For this it helps to have friends ;) or an older phone that can run stock operating systems that you can get your small task done on and then power off.
These are very hit or miss, like banking. I haven’t used every single app out there, but this is my experience with the ones I have used:
DigiLocker: complains about developer mode being on, but after disabling it, it works fine. The website is also fine if you need to just download docs, but the app is useful to show in place of a physical ID.
mAadhaar: complains about custom ROM and doesn’t work. The website works fine enough to lock/unlock biometrics etc, although there is a 2FA option that uses mAadhaar app as a TOTP replacement to log in as opposed to SMS-based 2FA.
UMANG + Aadhaar FaceRD (not to be confused with mAadhaar): I had to use these two apps to create a UAN number. The Aadhaar FaceRD app does not work on MicroG, even with Play Integrity spoofing. I had to borrow someone else’s phone for this step. However, the UMANG app seems to work fine.
As always, I recommend checking out Plexus for a lot of these apps to see if it is just you experiencing issues or if there is a genuine app incompatibility. Once again, I cannot recommend MicroG for an average user since it doesn’t cover every single use case in every single scenario. However, if privacy is important for you and you can’t or won’t give up using some of the big apps that most people use, then MicroG strikes a really good balance between privacy and normalcy. For me, it makes me feel a lot better about using a phone whenever I have to, knowing that there is far less creepy data being sent around about my usage.
This is a tumultuous time for custom ROMs, MicroG and other modifications in the Android app ecosystem. Just yesterday, Google detailed how it planned to disallow apps from unverified developers from running on certified Android devices, taking one more step towards the growing iOS-ification of Android, a trend where Android increasingly becomes more locked down and more power rests in the hands of Google, a sharp contrast from the olden days of maybe 10+ years ago when Nexus phones ruled in the minds and hearts of Android enthusiasts, almost every phone’s bootloader was promptly unlocked and a Cyanogenmod ROM was flashed.
It is going to be interesting for sure to see how things turn out, but I am glad that some people are doing their best to fight back against this trend.
This website was made using Markdown, Pandoc, and a custom program to automatically add headers and footers (including this one) to any document that’s published here.
Copyright © 2025 Saksham Mittal. All rights reserved. Unless otherwise stated, all content on this website is licensed under the CC BY-SA 4.0 International License