F-Droid is a decent replacement for the play store. Lots of FOSS and less-enshittified apps available.

So… we are nearly there but unless you have a very VERY minimum usage of your phone, basically a dumb phone with a bit of CLI to remote connect to your own server from time to time, it’s probably not practical for now.

....and, that's me.

I gave up on my phones. There's no way to remain connected to the modern world and my own without just keeping everything off of my phone and using it entirely in stock NPC mode. Trackers? Adware? Malware? Doesn't matter, I only use it for calls, banking apps and cash apps. How do I access my personal, more 1337 haxxor shit?

Laptop, although I can do a lot of work over ssh on phones and use things like syncthing and nextcloud to get around the ecosystem, still, but for the most part, I'm back in 2007, baby! We're carrying messenger bags! We don't care!

the ecosystem is so weak at this time, So maybe in the future it will improve?
Ik you can run Android apps via a container or smth

Yep, didn't use it much but I have studio headphones that I lliked to plug from time to time.

EU only

Ebay it is. Bands are what matter. If it picks up Tmobile, Tello and the like, who cares who's market it's for?

But really, for me, it's still Android. It's just a band-aid on the bigger problem of reliance on Google.

it's not "mostly", it's only available for several latest Pixel generations.

Android has always taken the approach of it being developed in private and then having the full sources and commit history published for each stable release.

We're going to be moving forward under the expectation that future Pixel devices may not meet the requirements to run GrapheneOS.

Many companies and individuals are trying to mislead people about the future of GrapheneOS to promote their insecure products and services.

European authoritarians and their enablers in the media are misrepresenting GrapheneOS and even Pixel phones as if they're something for criminals.

It's the year of the Linux phone!

MS keeps making Windows worse but that is not a problem because Linux is great on PCs. The reason is that PC is made out of standardized plug&play components that you can make generic OS image for.

There is no such thing in smartphone world. Each chipset is it's own Linux fork that gets only most crucial bug fixes while in warranty. Same is true for ARM SBCs where I believe the only board that supports generic image are new RPis.

I loved my Lumia 1520, but it just doesn't hold a candle to a modern Android phone with LineageOS installed. Both in functionality and in privacy.

European authoritarians and their enablers in the media are misrepresenting GrapheneOS and even Pixel phones as if they're something for criminals.

Spanish authorities*. Not really European-wide thing, but a local one.

PostmarketOS using Waydroid for the neccessary apps, anyone has experience to share?

But is it even slightly better? It's debatable. Both are completely awful, but I guess iOS is just terrible in different ways.

Tried to rely fully on F-droid several years ago. That experiment went just fine until I needed up update the apps. Turns out, there wasn't a simple one button solution to that. I had to manually update each and every app one by one. Is it any better these days?

We're all trapped. If you're not using either Android or iOS, you're pretty much screwed.

Technically, you can use one of the alternate phones, but the software support still leaves a lot to be desired. You can get most basic things working, but when it comes to crucial deal breaker apps like anything involving payments or banks, it gets a lot trickier. The world has become increasingly dependent on mobile phones, and if your phone can't handle train tickets, mail deliveries, restaurant reservations or pay your bills, it suddenly becomes very difficult to live in the 2020s.

More and more hardware is also depends on specific iOS or Android apps, and those apps may also require GAPPS or some OEM Android. At some point, it just isn't worth the hassle, and it becomes easier to pick either one of the toxic platforms everyone else is already using.

Unattended updates for everyone, 1.19 is here
https://f-droid.org/2024/02/01/twif.html

That happened in 2024? About time! Sounds like F-droid is actually becoming viable.

one of the best products Microsoft ever produced. I absolutely LOVED my old Lumia. great phone, the OS was perfect, just an awesome all around phone. wish I still had it.

Try the Droidify app. I find it better than the main FDroid app.

I could be completely wrong as it's outside of my areas of competency, but my understanding is that the functionality was harder to achieve because of some technical reason due in part to Google/Alphabet fuckery. So another day ending in "y".