[er888kh]

Just look for a phone on which you can easily install a stable custom ROM. I previously had a Samsung device and installed Lineage OS and was happy-ish. It was clean and free of bloatware, fast, and had a good battery life. The downside was that it wasn't stable (probably never got an uptime above 48h) and the major updates were too buggy and too late.

I recently bought a Xiaomi device. The moment you turn it on you notice it's filled with spyware and bloatware. I thought I couldn't be more surprised after seeing the clock app ask for permission for "personalized experience", but they got me, in the calculator app. Other than that, the hardware is great, the themes look good, and overall it's a good experience. It's a pity I'd have to switch to a custom ROM because of this "personalized experience" MIUI nonsense.

[kelnos]

The problem is that anyone who wants to use Google Pay or banking apps, or anything that requires the phone to pass SafetyNet, will not be able to use an alternative ROM. Right now that's the only thing stopping me from getting a phone with a shitty "skinned" version of Android, as I can't replace the factory OS without losing a ton of functionality I rely on.

[nh2]

I think that's outdated information in many regards. Most apps seem to have turned off the SafetyNet requirement; I suspect that may be due to a larger amount of Chinese Android phones that don't have it.

I'm using a Play-Store-less microG LineageOS on a Google Pixel 1, and all my banking apps work (Revolut UK, German Post Bank authenticator), as well as a Swiss online health care app.

I haven't found an application yet that I couldn't use on LineageOS due to lack of SafetyNet.

[alfiedotwtf]

Yep, works here too - LineageOS using microG with Australian banking apps

[Tijdreiziger]

Google Pay doesn’t respect your privacy anyway, as the terms state that Google can use your transaction data to profile you.

[kelnos]

The answer to "I can't do X because I use Y and Z" is not "You're wrong to want to use Y and Z". Understand that not everyone prioritizes the same things you do.

Regardless, Google already has enough information on me to profile me quite well; avoiding Google Pay will not meaningfully change that, and I get enough value out of it that the trade off is worth it to me, at least for now.

[Tijdreiziger]

Of course everyone is free to have their own priorities when it comes to privacy.

However, for people who want to use Google Pay despite the privacy implications, I'm not sure running a privacy-preserving Android distribution is even meaningful. At that point, why not just run stock Google Android?

[kevin_thibedeau]

You realize that all electronic payments are used to profile you.

[Tijdreiziger]

Even if that’s true, why would you add another party (i.e. Google) to that chain?

[kevin_thibedeau]

While pervasive tracking is insidious, Google is the least problematic actor since they don't sell their data.

[alfiedotwtf]

> Google is the least problematic actor since they don't sell their data.

Isn't that like 99% of their revenue i.e selling user data?!

[contravariant]

Huh I've not experienced much instability with Lineage OS, other than a nasty bug that was fixed in the next update. Certainly not to the point that I couldn't get an uptime >48h. Actually I don't think the phone has crashed at all, maybe an app might have crashed at some point.