https://eylenburg.github.io/android_comparison.htm This is a nice overview
But in the end of the day, there is no intended way to turn off Telemetry fully.
I stopped using every messenger besides signal and Matrix. Even my not tech savy parents are using signal now - its in my opinion the better solution to stand your ground and may push others into using the better apps
If you want to keep it simple, just go with Gentoo
As soon as there is a full feature native signal App i would switch to Linux phone. axolotl or Android emulation didnt work for me :/
I allways symlink(ln -s) some folders from my HDD(Pictures, Movies, Documents, Music) since i dont want to have all my home folder on my slow HDD. May this is an Option for you.
Some Fdroid Version may have less trackers or replace Google Services(Signal-FOSS/Molly or Telegram for example use a own push service)
My first step is always to add the Molly and Bitwarden repos.
Few years ago(maybe 10) it was still recommended or even necessary to use IE for a lot of goverment Internet Services here in Germany. The online Zoll handling for example. I think a lot of goverments are not really into accesibility optimization.
I will allways go for used Thinkpads. Best value
From shell
winget install --id=Mozilla.Firefox -e
For example
https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iId=2505