Ilandar ,

Just be aware that everyone has a different idea of how much privacy they need and who/what from. Whilst it is absolutely true that there are more private custom ROMs available, that does not necessarily mean that /e/ is universally "bad for privacy". Depending on the extent to which you are attempting to deGoogle your life, it may be good enough.

idefix ,

I'd like to use a custom ROM on my S21FE, but options are very limited unfortunately.

GolfNovemberUniform ,
@GolfNovemberUniform@lemmy.ml avatar

Afaik /e/OS isn't completely Google-free. It just uses some anonymization stuff to make Google services a bit less invasive and I think it has proprietary software too. For a complete Google-free experience you probably want something like LineageOS or GrapheneOS

cyrus ,
@cyrus@sopuli.xyz avatar

It isn't google-free in the sense that it ships https://microg.org

Unless you enable SafetyNet, none of Google's code runs.

lemmyreader ,

/e/OS is based on LineageOS with microG. They did make a choice for Magic Earth as maps app which is not open source. For "normies" /e/OS seems a fine choice to me to De-Google.

jinwk00 OP ,

At least Magic Earth has good policy though, no?

jinwk00 OP ,

Aw shucks, the porter moved on from Lineage to develop more on e/os

Any alternative custom ROMs that are generally considered complete Google-free other than those 2?

GolfNovemberUniform , (edited )
@GolfNovemberUniform@lemmy.ml avatar

Idk about completely Google-free ones. Most of vanilla ROMs (such as crDroid, ArrowOS, CherishOS etc) do have some pre-included fixes for Google apps because most of the users flash them and I think they use the proprietary version of Monet theming (there are 2 versions of it). Usually LineageOS is what you go for if you want a completely vanilla ROM. I heard they're considering adding some fixes for Gapps too but I don't think it's going to be anything bad or proprietary

jinwk00 OP ,

Should I be concerned if I am not going to be installing Google Apps (or gapps) or microG?

GolfNovemberUniform ,
@GolfNovemberUniform@lemmy.ml avatar

Depends on the exact ROM (I think they're only really tested with Gapps) but usually you should be fine. It might be relatively easy to identify a user of ROMs like this because of mismatching device fingerprints (done to unlock Pixel features such as unlimited Google Photos storage and high FPS limit in games) though

lemmyreader ,

Have other comments made you dislike /e/OS ? microG, which /e/OS uses is not using Google but a replacement for the Google Play framework if you would for example need location feature for some of your apps.

jinwk00 OP ,

Not really dislike, but was wondering if there were any better choices

Tundra ,

DivestOS:

https://www.privacyguides.org/en/android/#divestos

https://eylenburg.github.io/android_comparison.htm

jinwk00 OP ,

Thanks, looks promising but unfortunately unavailable

Ilandar ,

Here's a comparison of the main ones. They are all good projects in their own right so take a look at their features and which phones they support. Some are focused more on hardcore security and privacy, while others are more casual in their implementation. Some only support Google Pixels while others support a pretty wide range of new and old devices.

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