this post was submitted on 05 Aug 2023
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DeGoogle Yourself

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I hope this is not considered a low-effort post, but I wanted to ask if using stock Android without signing in to your Google account/ using Play Store is worth it. It should be more private, right? I'm planning on buying the cheapest Samsung phone there is (probably the A14). I currently have a stock Android Oneplus phone. I bought it before I had my "privacy epiphany". I knew that you shouldn't use Huawei phones as those "definitely" were spying on you; I read that Oneplus phones are safe because they use Western hardware, but they can still gather your data via the software, right? But I digress.

The reason I'm planning on buying a cheap (Samsung) phone is because I realized I don't need a fancy phone (for me "fancy" is a 400 local currency mid-ranger). I considered getting a dumb phone as they are definitely private, but the utter lack of features is depressing. The main reason is I can't give up the camera. So I'm willing to go with the cheapest smartphone, because it's still miles better than the best dumb phone.

As I understand it, most cheap phones are not supported by GrapheneOS and besides I'm worried I might brick the phone. I'm willing to use APKs (from official sources and I only need a few apps). To return to my question, is stock Android without a Google account/ Play Store better than using an account/ Play Store?

EDIT: Thanks all for the useful replies. I'm still not sure what I'll end up doing or what my current financial situation will allow me to do, but I'm pretty sure I'll be moving away from Google anyway. Thanks again!

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Friend of mine runs his phone this way and is pretty happy. He had roughly the same goal. So yeah it's definitely doable.

I would suggest F-Droid as AppStore due to play store being unavailable without Google.

Also grapheneOS is more or less a Pixel only ROM but there different other ROMs out there. The most popular ROM currently is Lineage OS wich is, what i read, degooglefied and you have to actively install the Google apps. Wich OnePlus do you have ?

I have an OnePlus 8t and the experience rooting and flashing it was not so bad.