Alternative Phone Operating Systems - Privacyfags Unite

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I've actually given up on alternative OSes and I just use a debloated Samsung now.

Likewise.

Samsung isn't half bad once you have removed the metric tonne of bloatware (using ADB) that comes with it, and I actually like the physical bixby button as I have it remapped to take screenshots which is quicker than finger gestures. F-Droid and Aurora Store are good enough for me (to avoid having a Google account), I don't see the need for a privacy focused OS - I don't trust anything specifically designed for the privacy conscious because open source claims are largely bullshit, no-one is checking anything for the most part and it's full of glowies deliberately inserting bugs, so it makes sense to me they would be targetting this type of software.
 
Where are you located though? What I've found is that the Lineage Phone Quality scale goes roughly like this:

India
Germany/Scandinavia
Rest Of World
USA (AT&T/T-Mobile dominant territory)
USA (Verizon/Sprint dominant territory, God help you)
USA. I've used Lineage on AT&T and T-Mobile MVNOs without any significant problems, though that's based mainly on phone hardware choice, I believe.
 
Ran into this phone yesterday while looking for a new phone
https://support.thelightphone.com/hc/en-us (for more details on the features and planned updates)
looks interesting if you just want a utilitarian phone that has some basic tools (calls/texts/"directions" app/music player/hotspot/calendar) and nothing else (not even a browser from what I can tell). Looks like the OS is based on React and fully independent of Android. Although the price is a bit steep for what it is.
Turns out there's a niche market for "minimalist phones" (i.e. mostly flip phones that resemble the ones from mid 2000s, a couple like this one) so I'm hoping as the years go by more of these types of phones come to market at reasonable prices.
 
Like a feature phone? The models targeting 3rd world countries are pretty cheap/popular, and are compatible with some modern apps.
Yes, forgot we had a term for those. They didn't seem very popular when I was in a 3rd world country a couple years ago. Everyone I saw seemed to have a cheap android smartphone for the most part. Hope we start getting more of them here in the US (hopefully not based on android).
 
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