said Thierry de Coulon via tde-users:
| I'm currently trying to "degooglize", in particular as Google is turning | Android to another closed system (no more side-loading).
The solution, imho, is getting a Google Pixel phone -- really -- and flashing GrapheneOS onto it. I'm running a 6a, but on or right after Black Friday I'll switch to a 10a, which has satellite capability and gets cheap at that time. (Also running GrapheneOS on my Pixel tablet.)
Then I'd poke around FDroid to see if there's a secure addressbook. There might even be something on the Aurora Store, though you'd have to watch the permissions.
Last week GrapheneOS cut a deal with Motorola (now a Lenovo thing) for GrapheneOS as the stock OS on its phones in the future.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/motorola-to-preinstall-grapheneos-on-2027-phon...
If you use the Proton stuff, most of which has free versions, you can readily d/l and use. https://protonapps.com/ keeps you from having to use any app repository. I see -- just discovered, in fact -- that there's now a native ProtonMail app for Linux. It's basically a webapp, but it's a secure one. So now there are native Proton apps for every OS, meaning that you could have access to all your contacts everywhere. Combined with ProtonPass password manager you could handle pretty much all you want.
fwiw, I've been pushing the privacy thing a lot lately. When I found out the extent to which my "smart" TV was spying, I took away its internet privileges and am now using it as a very big monitor and an audio handler/switcher, and put together a little Raspberry Pi rig running IPTVnator and free .m3u lists. Get more than I got from paid services, over VPN, for free and also privately.
Just two days ago I called the phone company and told them that their services would no longer be needed. There is no cellular service here and the internet choices are few, but . . .
The Starlink dish really *is* giving me 200mbps. Cleaneast internet I've ever had and has been reliable over the last couple of weeks of wildly varied weather, from snowstorms to blinding rain, without a hiccup. Ah, but a phone?
Mint Mobile offers unlimited voice and texting plus 5 gigs of data for $15/month. (Additionally, there is no data limit when you use it over wifi.) It is extremely clear and deliable over wifi, which is to say Starlink. And with Proton stuff it is as secure as we mortals can make it.
But there's more. I got a gadget called Cell2jack that replaces the wall jack for plugging in landline phones. It connects to the cellular phone by Bluetooth. It's fairly cheap and using it the Pixel phone rings and otherwise works with every phone in the house (I have it plugged in to a 20-year-old Panasonic base station with four handsets). One phone number. And I have the Starlink, which so far has used a maximum of 35 watts, plugged to a good, lead-acid battery powered, UPS, so unlike the phone company that dies at every power glitch, I have phone and internet even when the weather is awful (radio just announced a tornado watch here; a tornado could, I suppose, blow the dish away, but the power going out in an associated thunderstorm is more likely, thank God).
So good alternatives are out there.
And sorry I strayed so far off topic.