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Help with a simple and private phone (lemm.ee)

submitted 10 months ago by loopy@lemm.ee to c/foss@beehaw.org

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Hi everyone, I’m looking to possibly simply my smartphone setup. I would really love to keep it as a utility: phone, text, camera, GPS, web browser, notes, email, music player. Im think of switching to local NextCloud backup system as well. I currently have an iPhone but used to flash ROMs on Android phones, so I would be willing to do that again for more privacy options and less unnecessary changes to the OS.

I have looked a little into it, and I’m wondering about getting a couple year old Pixel and putting GrapheneOS on it. I also searched a little and came across the Purism Librem 5 that has physical kill switches and sounds neat; a little pricy but I’d be willing to pay if it lasts a while and has good privacy options.

What are your thoughts? Are there other hardware suggestions or setups that you like? The idea of FOSS is appealing because it seems like the money aspect seems to skew the priority of smartphones.

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[–] smileyhead@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 10 months ago

I think the route will be:

Switch to services that work across many systems
Switch to an Android phone that has support for CalyxOS/GrapheneOS/LineageOS/DivestOS (note that last two can be more or less polished depending on device)
Switch to open source apps on Android
Switch to open source ROM

This is to not get a total shock in amount of learning after which would get you immediatly back.

I can recommend some first of second hand Google Pixel devices, OnePlus up to 8T and Fairphone(s).

As far as I love the idea of mobile Linux like with Librem phone, right now you need to be very tech saavy and take many sacrifices above just switching services you use.