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Can you make a de-Googled phone feel like a Pixel? This custom ROM wants to
/e/OS is a promising start to a Google-less smartphone software experience
Google will have gathered a bucketload of your private data, especially if you use Android. What's worse, if you ever do something the company doesn't approve of, you might get locked out of your account and lose access to years of emails and photos in the process. If you want to mitigate these risks and stay more private online without leaving Android behind, you might want to turn to an emerging custom ROM that de-Google-ifies your phone: /e/OS.
This company will sell you a modified Galaxy S9 without any proprietary Google software
Previously available in Europe, two refurbished models running /e/ OS are now shipping to the US and Canada.
We're big fans of Google, obviously. But we also live in the real world, where Google does a lot of stuff that's unambiguously bad. If you want to use open source Android without getting its parent company involved, then you have a few options. Previously only available in Europe, the eSolutions shop is now selling versions of the Galaxy S9 scrubbed clean of all proprietary Google software to the US and Canada.
Fairphone and /e/ are teaming up to sell a Google-less Android phone
Made possible by Google’s EU anti-trust fine
The Fairphone 3 is the perfect choice for somebody who values a repairable, environment-friendly phone, but just like most other handsets, it runs an Android version with Google apps out of the box — not ideal for someone who is additionally looking to take the Californian company out of the equation. That's where a new cooperation with /e/OS, the de-Googlefied Android version based on LineageOS and microG, comes in. The foundation behind it will start selling the Fairphone 3 equipped with its Android fork on May 6.
Android and Google often go hand-in-hand, but for users who would prefer to not expose all their data to Google, privacy-focused distributions do exist. Now, one organization is looking to sell users popular phones pre-loaded with one of these Google-stripped Android forks.