Thank you. I wouldnt have known this if it wasn’t for this post. I’ve never seen these sites. Good post.

This does not solve the Play Integrity API issue. This would make app compatibility even worse lol.

Only a few apps enforce Play Integrity so it is still the best option for a casual user. Cash App enforcing it is my biggest hurdle.

Nostr must be a bigger tree

You can always connect a USB stick or card reader with an SD card via USB-OTG

I will recommend you do use a phone that still receives security updates (Not EoL) because I don’t want you to lose out on security just to deGoogle.

If you are strict on having an SD card slot and your phone is still receiving support, you should use StockOS to receive firmware updates as soon as possible. If the phone you decide to get is EoL, the least bad option would be DivestOS (fork of LineageOS)

Again, I would advise not using an EoL phone.

microG runs Google Play code just like Aurora Store. It is not fully open source. Here’s more information.. It is still connecting to Googles propriety servers.

microG requires Signature Spoofing and alternative OSes usually ship with microG as a privileged system app. This increases the attack surface as it is not confined by the regular sandbox rules.

Now you’re using a privileged component, which downloads and executes Google code in that privileged unprotected context, and which talks to Google servers because otherwise, how would FCM work for example?

Despite doing both of those things, MicroG doesn’t have the same app compatibility as Sandboxed Google Play despite the extra access it has on your device. Even in some magical universe MicroG worked without talking to Google servers or running Google code (again, in a privileged context), the apps you’re actually using it with (the apps depending on Google Play) have Google code in them.

I recommend you purchase a Google Pixel 6a or above (minimum security support ends July 2027) and flash GrapheneOS. (Pixel 8/pro preferred)

Aurora Store doesn’t avoid Google since a lot of the apps from the play store include Google’s SDK and libraries. microG also doesn’t avoid Google as it is still running proprietary Google code and has more privacy/security weaknesses

Sandboxed Google Mobile Services is a much better implementation which is featured in GrapheneOS. The services are not privileged and is treated like any other app. They don’t downgrade privacy or security unlike the other alternatives.

There are much more privacy and security benefits using GOS. Here is a 3rd party comparison between different mobile OS.

End of Life date was 4 weeks ago 😔

I’m not sure about pizza but I’ve heard a guy putting a casserole in his oven and forgot about it because his coworker was begging him to hang out with him. When he walked back home, his house was burned down to the ground and the firefighters told him “Some knucklehead left a casserole in the oven.” He was super devastated after that.

Been using this open source app for a while now. AirGuard

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.

You cant change the OS on Samsung devices

How is GrapheneOS overkill? Its identical to the stockOS but hardened for privacy.