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!

  • LLMhater1312@piefed.socialEnglish
    2·
    2 days ago

    Yeah graphene is only on pixels because of the security standards of the pixel but this will change with the new motorola partnership with graphene

    My advice is always to get a new email account first and forward your old email to it. And use the new email for any new sign ups. Mayfirst.org is a cool low cost community of tech people that includes several google alterbatives including email service, cloud based office suites and jitsi (zoom alternative)

    I’m at the point where I’ve gone back and changed my old account emails and archived my old gmail account but that can be done later, gotta triage first!

      • LLMhater1312@piefed.socialEnglish
        1·
        4 hours ago

        Yeah they are! It’s more of a community membership with tech perks than like buying a product which I think is maybe how it should be? They still have a tech support team and all that though

      • moroninahurry@piefed.socialEnglish
        1·
        3 days ago

        Waterfox is an awesome replacement for Firefox on Android that strips out most of the built-in tracking, and it also gives you full access to all Firefox extensions.

  • gila [any, any]@hexbear.net
    2·
    4 days ago

    Lineage is privacy focused, not security focused (other than security through obscurity etc). Graphene is more secure but may require tinkering for NFC payment / banking. Graphene is partnering with Motorola for their new phones, but old/current Motorola phones won’t be compatible. IMO best bet for daily driver is a used/refurb older pixel or pixel A, like pixel 6a or pixel 7a are sub-$200 even brand new sometimes. e/os is another option but I haven’t used it (don’t have compatible device) so can’t comment on it.

  • Auster@thebrainbin.org
    42·
    4 days ago

    What I do is to have an old phone just for banking and other stuff that requires Google’s direct validation. Usually that solves the need of having Google Play services or MicroG installed on my phone, at most requiring Aurora Store, though that I barely used it in the past ~6 months.

    Cutting freedom at the source, in development, though, is far more complex to deal with. I remember when I was in programming university I tried looking for means for making apps without Google, but they’re rather manual, way too unpolished in comparison to what Google offers.

    • eternauta@lemmy.mlOPEnglish
      1·
      4 days ago

      Yeah, I kind of have the reverse now. My old but still pretty good phones with lineage at home, the cheap Google phone to carry. Unfortunately my work requires WhatsApp which is annoying.

      Thinking about maybe lineage on a oneplus phone at this point…

      • Auster@thebrainbin.org
        1·
        3 days ago

        From experience (also because of work), for better or worse, I can confirm at least Whatsapp works on degoogled phones.

        And if Whatsapp is part of critical infraestructures for you, and now looking at your username too, I have a guess as to where you’re from. And if I’m right, for banking on degoogled phones, Mercado Pago was the only one I found that works from the ones I have accounts on. Just, they pester about Google Play services missing, and not sure if camera not working for Pix QR codes is a me problem, or an “intended feature”.