HackerReposA FIELD GUIDE TO OPEN SOURCE
ProSponsor the shelf♧ 0
← Back to top all-time
microg
GmsCore
Java2015–2026
microg / GmsCore

GmsCore

Free implementation of Play Services

Security & PrivacyMobile & DesktopDevOps & CloudMaps & GeospatialCommunication & Social
Explore on GitHubRead Hacker News discussions
56Distinct people
71Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
15.3KGitHub stars
REPOSITORY AT A GLANCE

What to know before exploring

What it is

Free implementation of Play Services

GitHub

Where it is used

  • CalyxOS — CalyxOS uses microG to provide a Google Play Services alternative for core services like notifications. This integrates microG into the OS as a built-in feature. Source
  • /e/OS — /e/OS ships microG as part of the OS to run apps that require Google Play Services. The page explains microG provides these APIs through GmsCore, which /e/OS includes by default. Source

What people are saying

No recommendation phrase was found in the indexed comments.

No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.

Also in these discussions

No other repository is repeatedly linked in the same discussions.

This week on Hacker News

Nov 8–Nov 15 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/15/2026, 5:03:38 AM UTC.

No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.

Mentions over time

HN mentions by year71 dated mentions

Observed mentions: 2015-11-03 13:17:03 UTC to 2026-10-21 00:13:13 UTC.

0369122015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 2 mentions; 0 submissions, 2 comments20152016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 5 mentions; 0 submissions, 5 comments2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 7 mentions; 0 submissions, 7 comments2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 3 mentions; 0 submissions, 3 comments2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 2 mentions; 0 submissions, 2 comments2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 9 mentions; 1 submissions, 8 comments20202021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 9 mentions; 1 submissions, 8 comments2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 7 mentions; 1 submissions, 6 comments2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 5 mentions; 0 submissions, 5 comments2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 4 mentions; 1 submissions, 3 comments2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 6 mentions; 1 submissions, 5 comments2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2027-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 12 mentions; 3 submissions, 9 comments. Incomplete calendar period.2026*

* An incomplete calendar period is marked with an outlined bar. Its count is not directly comparable with a full period.

Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.

View mention counts and date ranges
UTC ranges include their start and exclude their end. Select a period to filter the source evidence.
PeriodStart (UTC)End (exclusive, UTC)MentionsSubmissionsComments
20152015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC202
20162016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC505
20172017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC707
20182018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC303
20192019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC202
20202020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC918
20212021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC918
20222022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC716
20232023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC505
20242024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC413
20252025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC615
2026 (partial)2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2027-01-01 00:00:00 UTC1239

From the project README

An excerpt from the repository, fetched Nov 13, 2026.

Read the project’s introduction
microG Services microG Services is a FLOSS (Free/Libre Open Source Software) framework to allow applications designed for Google Play Services to run on systems, where Play Services is not available. Please refer to the wiki for downloads and instructions Translations If you'd like to help translate microG, take a look at TRANSLATION. License Copyright 2013-2025 microG Project Team Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0 Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.
Read the full README on GitHub

What Hacker News says

9 sources
danShumway·Aug 24, 2021
> so you get to have vital security features like WebAuthn without giving up privacy. Yes, Chrome phoning home is a concern to me, but a much bigger concern is the lack of mobile extension and adblock support. Defanged Chromium doesn't solve that problem. Even desktop deGoogled Chromium is just an inferior browser when it comes to privacy right now; it has fewer extension APIs than Firefox and it's missing built in Firefox privacy features like containers. But on mobile, giving up the ability to run extensions entirely? I'm not sure I can substantively argue whether giving up adblocking is a bigger security tradeoff than giving up webauthn. But it's definitely a pretty big privacy tradeoff given the current state of the mobile web. I don't know, maybe this is a solved problem. I haven't really looked into CalyxOS. Does it patch mobile Chr
Read the rest
omium to support extensions? Can I trust the devs to do that securely? ---- Edit: so I did look into this, and it looks like MicroG just doesn't support WebAuthn at all: https://github.com/microg/GmsCore/issues/849, https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=997538 So if anything, that gives me a lot more confidence to claim that this is not widely supported yet and people shouldn't be calling WebAuthn a universal drop-in replacement for other systems. Not to say that WebAuthn is bad, I expect these problems will be solved over time and support will widen. I do think WebAuthn is the obviously correct long-term solution. But I think the "virtually all" language used here is not currently accurate. At best I'm seeing some (very small) repos trying to work around the problem, and I'm not convinced it's good security practice to entrust login tokens to under-audited 3rd-party services."
In How to bypass Sprint/T-Mobile 2FA in under 5 minutes
cdesai·Aug 6, 2021
I've said this in another comment, but I'll duplicate here: The microG creator goes into more detail about signature spoofing at https://github.com/microg/GmsCore/issues/1467#issuecomment-8... The concerns usually raised against that are due to the "default" patch included in their repository, which has a specific purpose. We don't use that, https://calyxos.org/about/tech/microg/ are the precautions we take to try and prevent "weakening overall package security" In addition, microG is optional and can be disabled on first install, see https://calyxos.org/features/microg/#1-microg-disabled
In CalyxOS – De-Googled Android Alternative
cdesai·Aug 6, 2021
The microG creator goes into more detail about signature spoofing at https://github.com/microg/GmsCore/issues/1467#issuecomment-8... The concerns usually raised against that are due to the "default" patch included in their repository, which has a specific purpose. We don't use that, https://calyxos.org/about/tech/microg/ are the precautions we take to try and prevent abuse. I made it a privileged permission because that's a standard Android thing to gate things (such as reading of IMEI) - My thought process being that if you somehow managed to get around privileged permissions, we have much bigger problems than signature spoofing.
In CalyxOS – De-Googled Android Alternative
brbsix·Mar 20, 2021
YouTube Vanced[1] for Android is awesome. It supports background playback and allows you to block all ads as well as community posts, surveys, premium movies, and just about anything else. They recently integrated SponsorBlock[2], which allows you to block in-video intros, outros, sponsored sections, and subscription reminders. However it uses microG, which has long had an open issue with v2 of Google's Cast API. The issue was recently closed however I don't believe it was solved. However it is still possible to work around this. I ended up writing a quick script on my phone that uses pychromecast to initialize the cast so that it can be passed off to YouTube Vanced. It's been a while since I've cast anything but are you certain that ads are blocked when casting from an app that blocks ads? In my experience with casting, the video is alwa
Read the rest
ys streamed directly from the content provider's servers (YouTube) to the cast receiver (smart TV) with ads intact. You would need to mirror your phone's display in order to block ads. [1]: https://vancedapp.com [2]: https://sponsor.ajay.app [3]: https://github.com/microg/GmsCore/issues/79
In Ask HN: Why there are so many ads on YouTube?
commoner·Jan 5, 2021
The biggest difference is that /e/ is one of the few OSes that has MicroG pre-installed, which allows apps to make use of some features of Google Play Services (e.g. push notifications, map widgets, and COVID-19 exposure notifications) through a FOSS client. MicroG lets users turn on/off some of these features, and does not support Google's APIs for ads or analytics. https://microg.org https://github.com/microg/GmsCore/wiki/Implementation-Status LineageOS does not support the mechanism (signature spoofing) that enables MicroG to replace Google Play Services. The developers of LineageOS consider signature spoofing to be a security risk: https://review.lineageos.org/c/LineageOS/android_frameworks_... It is up to users to select the OS that best meets their own privacy, security, and usability needs.
In Termux no longer updated on Google Play

MAKE YOURSELF AT HOME

A few shortcuts

/
Search the collection
?
Open this guide
Esc
Close dialogs and navigation

Your saved repositories and interests stay in this browser.