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What OS to run on fp4 (self.fairphone)

submitted 1 year ago by HumanPerson to c/[email protected]

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I am looking at getting a fp4. (Pretty seriously, I am typing this on an older phone because I listed my newer phone on eBay to switch) I want a good, privacy focused operating system to run on it and was wondering what you all run and what your experiences have been. My main concerns are:

Support - I don’t want my operating system maintained by just 1 or 2 random people on github.
Features - I want the basic stuff to work but am concerned about the fingerprint sensor and cameras.
Privacy - I want something ideally completely degoogled.
Stability - I don’t know much about android but I use Debian lts if that tells you anything about the kind of update schedule I want.

I know this is a lot to ask of an os but do you have any recommendations?

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (6 children)

I personnally run /e/os on my FP3 and my experience so far has been pretty seamless! Completely De-Googled, and the FP4 is one of the most well maintained build as far as I know. Would recommend!

[–] HumanPerson 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)

I am getting mine from Murena, so that would be an easy option, but I have heard bad things about stability, I don’t like their iOS inspired design, and they have their own cloud stuff which makes me a little suspicious of them. I will definitely try it for a little while but right now I’m not sure I like it. It sounds like stability hasn’t been an issue for you, because no one recommends an os that crashes every day. Do they try to push their cloud storage and stuff and can you change the look of it?

Edit: Also, how has your experience been with it lately on fp3? I want to use mine for a while and that would probably be a good indication of how well they will support fp4 when fp6 comes out.

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

I've been using Fairphone 3 with /e/os manually installed for about two years. Here's my experience:

Stability wise there's been two issues. Once after a big version upgrade, the GPS stopped working. It turned out the mozilla location service was somehow disabled. Switching it back on fixed that.
The other issue is that I've noticed lately it's opted to not play my ringtone for sms and calls. I'm not sure if that's a bug or some odd default behavior in Android 12.
Also I should mention how the Google Play apps in the App Lounge can be a bit random in when they are available to be installed. I'm not sure if that's a stability/bug issue or just Google Play being uncooperative. Overall, I'd say stability has been pretty good. I don't remember last time I had a crash. There's been maybe 1 or 2 crashes in total.

As for the cloud based apps and IOS styled launcher. I'm not a fan either, but just using alternative apps and switching to Neo Launcher has been great.

Overall I've been really happy with the phone. It's offered almost exactly the balance I want between out-of-the-box android compatibility/ease-of-use vs degoogled privacy & customizibility.

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