Why YSK: A Google account is not the same as a Gmail account, and you don’t need to create a new Gmail email account to have a Google account.
I’ve spoken to many different people who equate a Google account to a Gmail account. This is not the case. Unfortunately, this leads to many new Gmail accounts being created, solely because they think that they need to have a Gmail in order to access other Google services.
Here’s the gist:
A Google account gives you access to Google services like Sheets, Docs, Calendar, Drive, Photos, Gmail, YouTube, etc.
A Gmail account is an email service account with Google. When you create a Gmail, you also create a Google account by default.
However, the reverse is not true. If you create a Google account (with a non-Gmail email address), it does not automatically give you a Gmail account.
If you already have an email account with another provider, you can use that as your Google account.
For example: Let’s say your email is jane@example.com. Rather than creating jane@gmail.com, you can opt to create a Google account with jane@example.com and avoid creating an account for Gmail.
Unfortunately, Google tries to get you to create a Gmail account during the process of creating a Google account. (see image).
It’s important to differentiate this and prevent people from registering new Gmail accounts unnecessarily.
Nice, are they linux phones?
Yes and no. All Android phones run some variation of Linux actually.
My more private devices are still on their original stock Android 11, I just never signed into Google, and never activated location services.
F-Droid for the win!
At this point, that’s kind of like saying Macs run a variation of BSD. It’s technically true, but not practically useful in most cases.
They still ain’t got my info though. Hell, their algorithm’s best guess still can’t figure me out.
I have two completely different isolated internet services, one for home and one for the road. Guess which one ain’t tracking me…