I’m looking into dumping googlified android with the upcoming lockdowns.

I’m a beginner-intermediate with FOSS tech: I use Ubuntu as my main machine at home, and have Lineage on a couple of old phones that I use for things at home. I use Fdroid a lot, and have things like newpipe as well on my basic Chinese handset, along with google services.

I can’t really handle bleeding edge things very well, and I’m aware that even stock android isn’t perfect. Just looking for options/advice.

I understand some banking apps etc will be difficult to run outside of google, and this is something that will be tough, but I’m prepping for it.

Graphene seems to be the most popular, but at this stage my understanding is it only works on Pixel phones. I’m also aware of fairphone. I know that lineage is supported on some Oneplus phones, but I don’t know how safe/secure that might be.

I know that most things aren’t really ‘secure’ in the sense that companies all snoop, but I’m thinking about things like banking or NFC payment, which I sometimes do use.

Any advice would be helpful, even if it’s just confirming that the price of escaping google might be giving up a lot of this functionality right now…

Thanks in advance!

  • turbofan211
    5·
    2 days ago

    Sounds like you already know what you have to do, you just have to do it.

    In my own de-googling I’ve learned the more you de-google, the more perceived “conveniences” you have to give up. Unfortunately, there really aren’t a lot of all in one NFC payment solutions on F-Droid/Foss.

    LineageOS is good enough for privacy/security assuming you practice good digital hygiene. Its kind of a double edged sword there.

    A cool bonus with foss apps and OSes, is generally, their software are more optimized and not resource hungry. Meaning, you can run older devices without any issue. You could probably find an older pixel and run Graphene on it no problem.

    If you want to completely de-google, you have to leave their walled garden behind. There isn’t really a one leg in, one leg out solution.

    It’ll be awkward and frustrating for a couple of months but then you’ll never go back.