Like I don’t have space in my life right now to do a whole lot of actual tinkering but google is pissing me off and I just remember in middle school just being able to change the boot order in the bios and plug in a usb stick and a few hours later having mint installed. What’s the easiest way to get a clean de-googled os on my phone?

Since it keeps coming up, I have a unihertz atom, a moto g 2022 and one of these monstrosities

Extra bonus question, if I do wind up buying a new phone in the future what brands should I look out for? (But I’d like to keep using what I have until the hardware breaks if possible).

  • Zak@lemmy.world
    36·
    2 months ago

    It depends on what phone you have. Some phones have bootloaders you can’t unlock, and you can’t do much at all with that. If you can unlock the bootloader, your options are determined by which third-party Android builds support your hardware.

    LineageOS is a popular option with pretty broad device support; GrapheneOS is a privacy/security focused option that only runs on Pixels.

  • brokenwing@discuss.tchncs.de
    331·
    2 months ago

    In my opinion, the worst Android flavor among the popular ones is the Samsung’s One UI. Notoriously bad in terms of tracking and telemetry. Yeah these Chinese ROMs are certainly bad, but where I am from, these are few and far between.

    The worst thing about Samsung is the inability to install any Custom ROM despite it being a Snapdragon chip. Other manufactures like Xiaomi or OnePlus sometimes let’s users do that (albeit the process might be a little difficult).

    But to answer your question, look into LineageOS’s supported device list. Pick a device from there and install LineageOS. Or better still by a Pixel (there are talks about a partnership with an unknown OEM and GOS, but no clear news on that as of yet) and install GrapheneOS.

  • alk@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    20·
    2 months ago

    Getting annoyed with the attention economy and swapping to this (I love it)

    edit: it’s a uniherz jelly star green edition

  • FLD@retrolemmy.com
    17·
    2 months ago

    i can’t unlock bootloader of my phone, and can’t install custom rom, im cooked asf

    knowing that the android’s ability to sideload/install apks is going be removed next year I feel like there’s no way out from the corporate greed

  • monovergent@lemmy.ml
    5·
    2 months ago

    Two problems:

    1. Locked bootloaders: if you’re not given the option to unlock it, you can’t boot anything other than the stock ROM
    2. Proprietary drivers: even if you can boot a custom OS, many Android phones have very unique and obscure hardware and the drivers for them are only distributed through their stock ROM.

    The closest thing is LineageOS. If your phone doesn’t support it, there’s Generic System Images (GSI), but there’s no guarantee of getting cellular service after installing a GSI due to proprietary drivers.

    If you want something that just works, GrapheneOS is great, but you’ll need an unlocked Google Pixel.

  • Truscape@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    4·
    2 months ago

    If you list your phone model I can research your options for you. I know overall that Samsung phones are the worst offenders for restricting your options though, along with iPhones OFC.

  • MrSulu@lemmy.mlEnglish
    3·
    2 months ago

    Everyone has their own use case, needs and preferences My thought is that you have the following options - not in any order as you will have your preferences

    1. Buy a Pixel and install Graphene
    2. See if you can install Linage OS, or buy another phone that can
    3. Universal android debloater / ADB (not as tricky as it seems) https://github.com/0x192/universal-android-debloater
    4. Search and disable apps you don’t want (limited at best)
    5. Install RethinkDNS & Firewall.

    What did I do? On my Samsung tablet, I used Universal Android Debloater AND run RethinkDNS & Firewall. Not as good as Graphene, but cheap / free and 90% of the same.

  • atmorous@lemmy.world
    2·
    2 months ago

    The real answer is PostmarketOS. Look at all the phones supported. They add new phones every 2 weeks/month as more people volunteer to help get phones they own supported. The Fairphones are an amazing option with PostmarketOS. Can switch to different distros too (Not the same as it is for laptops yet for switching distros but the overall function works as daily driver. Just pick phones that have full support)