De-Googled Smartphone
Do you want to escape the clutches of Big Tech? But what options are out there, and what can you do?
TL;DR: Buy an Android phone and install /e/OS.
State of smartphones
There are two major ecosystems available today: iOS and Android. iOS is completely controlled by Apple, and Android is partially controlled by Google.
iOS
Since iOS is completely controlled by Apple, and is pretty much proprietary, only devices sold by Apple run iOS. Apple further enforces this monopoly via only allowing people to install mobile applications from the Apple-controlled App Store, and forcing application developers to only use Apple tools to develop for the platform. A great example of this is that even Google apps on iOS use the Safari browser -- Google Chrome on iOS is actually Safari.
Android
On the other hand, Google does not entirely control Android. The base operating system itself is open source, and can be copied by anyone who wants to build their own version of Android. Instead, what Google does is license its apps for use by phone manufacturers. For a practical example, Samsung doesn't pay to use Android, but they do pay to use the Google Services (Play Store, Maps, etc) on their phones.
In addition to Android itself being essentially out of the control of Google, Android also allows anyone to install apps on their device, no matter where it is from. There are some security controls around this, so that apps cannot be installed without a user knowing, but users can still override those security controls and essentially be in control of their own device.
Other systems
As a side note, there are some other systems out there, but they don't have the financial backing of a large company like the main two, and they are still largely relegated to the "geek" community.
Getting away from Big Tech
So looking at the current ecosystems, it looks like we don't have much of a choice. Where do you go to get away from Big Tech?
Well, maybe we can do something with Android, since the base system doesn't contain any Google-specific code?
There are two major problems with a vanilla Android phone:
- Google services
- Locked phones
Google services
As I noted above, Google licenses the Google services on phones, and most mobile applications for Android use these services for things like notifications, in-app purchases, and other critical functionality, so obviously a plain Android phone without these services would largely be useless. As usual, the open source community has a solution: the microG project.
The microG project implements a lot of the APIs that the Google services offer, but without Google, which means that many apps that wouldn't work without Google services now work without any Google code on an Android phone.
Locked phones
Many service providers in the US, and in other parts of the world, lock their phones to their network. This used to be a bigger problem before the advent of LTE (aka "4G"), but notorious players like Verizon still lock their phones so that you cannot install a different version of Android on your phone.
Unfortunately, the only real solution to this is to buy a new phone. The easiest way to do this is to look on eBay for a specific make and model of phone that is labelled as "unlocked" and "all networks". Since almost all phones made in the last 4-5 years supports 4G, you'll be able to use an unlocked phone with pretty much any service provider. For example, my Pixel 3 is technically a GSM network phone, but since it has 4G I was able to just insert the 4G SIM card from my old phone into my Pixel 3 and still use it on the Verizon network, despite Verizon being a CDMA network.
Of course, the next question is: which phone should I buy? We'll answer that in the next section.
Android distributions ("ROMs")
Pretty much since there were Android phones, there were custom builds of Android. In the community they are often called "ROMs", but I will refer to them using the technically correct term "distributions". One of the oldest and most well known of these Android distributions was CyanogenMod, which was renamed a few years ago to LineageOS.
LineageOS is a remarkable project, since it probably supports the widest range of devices out there. But you might be wondering why a custom build of Android would only support certain devices.
Device support
If you've ever used Windows, you're probably familiar with the concept of device drivers. You buy a new graphics card, and have to install the drivers for the card before it works properly. The Mac world runs into this less, but it does still happen.
Similarly, in order for the Android system to use the components in a phone, it needs device drivers. Unfortunately, many of these device drivers are proprietary and belong to the phone manufacturers, making it near impossible for an Android distribution to support those devices.
Having said that, not all devices have proprietary drivers, and some drivers are still freely available. And as usual, some of the open source community has stepped up and written drivers for some phones.
LineageOS
This brings us back to LineageOS, which supports a fairly extensive list of phones. This may be a good first stop to getting rid of Google on your Android phone, if your phone is unlocked and is supported by LineageOS. Additionally, you can look through the list of supported devices and see if there's anything there that you might find available on eBay in your price range.
Having said that, LineageOS is not privacy focused, so if you're looking for an Android distribution that truly tries to protect your privacy, one of the alternatives below may be a better alternative. It is also a little more hands-on, i.e. you would also need to install microG yourself.
/e/OS
A fantastic privacy-focused Android distribution that supports over 200 devices is /e/OS. It has an easy installer, and comes with things like microG pre-installed, and is based on LineageOS.
/e/OS is a great alternative for those who want an experience much like pre-installed Android distributions, but it does come with the down side of somewhat being forced to use the /e/ Foundation services (email, calendars, etc), which I personally don't like.
CalyxOS
My personal choice in Android distributions is CalyxOS. It supports a much smaller set of devices (mostly just the Google Pixels), but it also doesn't try to force you to use a set of services like /e/OS does. It also comes with microG pre-installed.
One of the things I like about CalyxOS is that they continue to support older devices, even when Google stops supporting them.
The one caveat to CalxyOS is that its installation requires you to download some tools and use the command line (shock! horror!) for installation. Having said that, the instructions on their site are very clear, and it is easy enough for a non-technical person to follow.
GrapheneOS
Another fantastic option is GrapheneOS. It features a web-based installer so that you don't even need to download some software to install GrapheneOS on your phone, it just works from your Chrome-based browser.
Which phone do I buy?
Back to that question: which phone do I buy?
If your current phone is supported by one of the above options (like LineageOS or /e/OS) then see if you can install one of them on your phone. This of course is the cheapest option, since you don't need to buy a new phone.
If you don't see your phone listed, or it is listed as having some major hurdles for installing an Android distribution on it (like being network locked), look at some of the other devices and choose one of those.
Personally, I really like the Pixel phones. Service provider lock-in withstanding, Google actually makes it really easy to change the operating system on the device. I found that a Pixel phone from a year or two ago can usually be found on eBay for an affordable price.
Conclusion
There are so many great options these days for a phone that doesn't report all your activities to faceless big tech companies and the government behind them.
But, at the end of the day, it is up to you. Do you care enough about your privacy to potentially move to an alternative platform?
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