I've had to buy an #Android phone for reasons and I decided to NOT setup ANY account. This means no properly working browser (as the preinstalled #Chrome cannot be considered properly working without #uMatrix and it doesn't let you install extensions without logging to chrome store) and no #Google Play Store, that require you to autheticate even just to download a #FreeSoftware #APK.
Well, with careful use of #FDroid, #HashDroid and #TorBrowser, #Firefox (obviously with uMatrix and proper tuning), #K9Mail, #Tutanota and few other tools... it's working like a charme!
I planned to root it and install #LineageOS (which is still an option) but not giving it any account and using TorBrowser (still with uMatrix) for anything that does not require authentication seems really... enough to get rid of Google!
Am I missing something obvious?
That was the original plan, but I thought: let's try something anybody can do without voiding the warranty.
So far I only had to download one apk from apkmirror (printer driver) and I double checked SHA-256 from several sources.
Ultimately everything is fine.
Which is very interesting: it's a very simple way to avoid #SurveillanceCapitalism that does NOT require much technical knowledge once you know how to do it.
Depending on the phone (what is it?) and its age, a big issue is that some components of Android are now updated via the Play Store
This is because many phone vendors release vital security updates months after they are made public
With these updates via Play, known as Project Mainline, folks using Play get them in a much more timely fashion, even if the device is no longer receiving operating system updates
@Shamar Then why are you not installing LOS?
LOS is basically Android without a Google account minus the annoyances and unuseful apps you get of a googlified Android.