lemmysmash

No need to wait, get a secondhand pixel and enjoy GrapheneOS already.

And all three of them (the original shitter, fake shitter aka bluesky, and the new shitter — this one) are loginwalled shitholes.

Block it, them spam your manufacturer with support requests. Make it their problem.

Unfortunately, there’s no alternative to a GrapheneOS phone nowadays.

• Linux phones: good privacy and good customization, but poor security, poor hardware support and poorish software support (e.g. android apps that require play verification)
• iOS: good security, almost okayish privacy, but you basically don’t own your phone
• Mainline Android: good compatibility, good hardware support, but poor to abysmal (depending on the make) security, poor to abysmal privacy, you almost don’t own your phone
• Lineage OS / iodeOS / etc: goodish privacy, adequate support for a lot of hardware, control over your phone, but poorish security, poorish software support (e.g. android apps that require play verification), lack of hardware support (e.g. the very S21)
• Fairphone & similar — they fall somewhere in the middle between mainline Android and LineageOS stuff — better privacy than mainline, more flexibility than mainline, but still dependency on Google whims, and poorish security.

That said, IMO there are two directions:

• Pixel phone (or Motorola in the future) + GrapheneOS — good software but new meh hardware —
• Current phone, maximally decrapped (ideally, almost everything but very core services disabled, e.g. via universal debloater or manually via adb) — much more private than mainline Android, relatively stable and with at least some baseline security + critical security patches from the OEM

Great OS comparison (Android-based only): https://eylenburg.github.io/android_comparison.htm

Unless they completely ditch (or be forced to ditch) the developer notarization crap they’re pushing for, all these talks and “registered appstores” will stay just pure bullshit to distract you from what’s important: https://keepandroidopen.org/

No worries @sbeak, I just wanted to add a bit more to your comment for the people who don’t have experience with GrapheneOS or other FOSS ROMs. Also, now CalyxOS is back which it great :)

The problem with regulators is that they a) gladly suck corporate dicks, b) gladly opt-in for the same authoritarian methods of population control, and c) gladly ignore common sense altogether.

Great overview! One thing to add here is this amazing comparison of the afrorementioned options: https://eylenburg.github.io/android_comparison.htm

Regarding GrapheneOS, there are a few things that distinguish it from the rest:

• the devs are really paranoid in the good way: it’s to receive security updates even before official pixel OS, a lot of OS level security hardening, a lot of features developed specifically to reduce attack surface (e.g. ability to completely disable USB, periodical reboots etc)
• it supports some exclusive privacy features (e.g. full per-app network kill-switch, contacts & storage scopes, location rerouting for play services etc) aimed to protect your data from crapware you might be forced to install
• it supports official play store and play services but in the most restricted way possible — they’ve developed a shim that allows to run it without any privileges and any permissions; you can also install it only under a completely separate user to fully separate it from your data
• in terms of being barebones, it is like this out of the box but you can install absolutely anything on it (unless it depends on “strict” play integrity protection)