(Please when answering, assume I’m not a beginner at privacy/programming :) I know where the good stuff at)
First off, shameful confession: I’m writing this on a dying yellow iPhone XR I bought second-hand three years ago (189€). I absolutely love the look of it: the screen, build quality, are all amazing. The only problem was the locked ecosystem (sideloading Spotify/Torrent client was sooo hard).
I saw the android phone of my mother dying really fast. She currently has a Xiaomi phone that’s ridiculously big for my hands, there’s advertisements in the stocks apps (?!!), the UX is janky and everything. It looks like a bloat, privacy nightmare.
So… because it’s impossible to find a jailbreakable phone nowadays I need to buy an android and ideally I would want:
- Good screen (vivid colors)
- Good build quality (not shitty plastic)
- Don’t care about the camera (I don’t want those ridiculously big cameras they make nowadays)
- Would want to install either GrapheneOS/LineageOS
The things that scare me off:
- I really need my bank app and I need it updated so I have to use Google Play Services but I don’t want it to plague my phone with privacy bullshit (I want to be degoogled)
The things that excite me:
- Customization possibilities
- Learning experience
- Even more privacy than a de-googled IOS phone :)
- F-Droid!! (Maybe I’ll find a beautiful IRC client)
- More choices for Mastodon & Lemmy clients
- Freedom of free software.
- client for open-source git providers :)
But to get all of that, I don’t want Google, I need shitty apps (non-free software) I have to install:
- Instagram (for non-technical friends)
- GitHub (job & open-source)
- No-Ad Modded Spotify from Balatan
- Discord (gamer friends)
- Telegram (cryptobros friends)
- Steam (because I still love gaming)
Any advices? Phone ideas? I’m so lost in this ocean of choice (freedom ✨)
My current phone:
everyone keeps mentioning Pixel Devices, but I’d personally never use one for the same reason I won’t wear branded clothes
you should check out OnePlus devices, the bootloaders are easily unlocked and they’ve major LineageOS support, the phones also have a high quality build, if you like the form of your XR, definitely check out the OnePlus 8/8 pro or 9/9 pro
another option is if you can get any of the Samsung S10 models with an exynos chip, they also have strong build and are supported by lineageOS as well
You can unlock the bootloader on OnePlus devices, but you can’t re-lock it afterwards, permanently leaving your device in an insecure state. This is a really bad idea, and definitely shouldn’t be recommended.
The S10 came out in 2019 and hasn’t been supported by the manufacturer for a long time, it’s not a good idea either.
And lastly, LineageOS itself is pretty insecure. It is much weaker than stock Android or even iOS. You can read more about this here: https://madaidans-insecurities.github.io/android.html#lineageos
or here: https://eylenburg.github.io/android_comparison.htm
It also has much worse app compatibility than GrapheneOS, because it doesn’t use the official Google Play services binary (which GrapheneOS puts in a sandbox to restrict its access), except you install it as a system application, which kinda defeats the whole purpose of using a custom ROM in the first place. GrapheneOS is the easiest, best and most secure choice for degoogling.