(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:
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.