Using stock Android w/o Google account/ Play Store worth it?
Using stock Android w/o Google account/ Play Store worth it?
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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I bought a refurbished Pixel 4 over a year ago and am super happy with it. CalyxOS is running smoothly and the camera is amazing (all my friends are jealous!) GrapheneOS would be overkill for me though, CalyxOS feels like a good compromise.
How is GrapheneOS overkill? Its identical to the stockOS but hardened for privacy.
Well, that was my impression when I was reading up on the differences between GrapheneOS and CalyxOS nearly two years ago. I had to decide and people suggested that GrapheneOS would be more secure and private while CalyxOS would be a still private but more comfortable (= less apps are broken etc) solution. Especially with microG and such. But this might not have been true in the first place and/or might have changed since then.
Yeah a lot of substantial improvements have been made to GrapheneOS in the last couple of years to expand app compatibility. There's Sandboxed Google Play now, as well as things like the exploit protection compatibility mode toggle so that people can use apps with memory corruption bugs which are caught by hardened_malloc if they wish to. Back in the day, apps with memory corruption would crash and there would be no way to use the until they fixed their app. They now have a toggle to disable hardened_malloc per app when you want to use it regardless.
Ohhh nice! Well, maybe I'll move to GrapheneOS then. Thanks for letting me know :)
Would putting LineageOS or GrapheneOS on a Samsung phone eliminate the Samsung stuff and give you privacy?
You cant change the OS on Samsung devices
Really? You can't root it?
Root != GrapheneOS support. GrapheneOS does not require root, just an unlocked bootloader. Only compatible with Pixel devices.
Graphene doesn't support Samsung devices, but LineageOS does. So yes, you can change the OS on a Samsung device
Unfortunately because of how locked down Samsung is, you can't even unlock the bootloader to install a custom ROM. GrapheneOS and CalyxOS do not even make their software for any phone that is not a Pixel, and LineageOS is only available for much older,end of life Samsungs from 2017 and 2018. Samsung is just a major one to avoid if you want privacy and security.
Also, if you live in the US and have access to Pixels, the Pixel 6a is on a massive discount right now costing only $200. I just can't see how you could pass up on that offer as a Pixel with GrapheneOS will be the best compromise between security and usability.