With the recent changes to how Google is doing things with Android, is it even worth it anymore? Should I just accept whatever version of Android comes with whatever phone or are custom ROMs still worth it? Assuming they still exist after all of this, idk what’s going on.
The alternatives are:
Pinephone - which is, IMO, insecure because it lacks a user relockable bootloader with a custom key for verified boot (making it suceptable to evil maid attack and malware would persist through reboots)
Librem 5 - which is sold by a shady company (search “Louis Rossmann Purism” and you’ll see why), and it also has terrible specs for the price.
Well, I already own a Pinephone and I can tell you it’s not a viable alternative. It’s awesome and great for tinkering. But try and use it for 2 days in real life and you’ll buy another Pixel and fit it with GrapheneOS, just to get on with your day. At least that’s what I did. It has minor hardware woes, major software issues, there is no modern standby and you just won’t get a notification if your friends change plans. And it’s 50 more annoyances like this each day. You need to work around things like not being able to buy a train ticket. And the browser is as sluggish as on a first/second gen Android from 18 years ago. And a Librem isn’t substancially better, just 3x the price.
I tired to use my pinephone as a spare while my phone was getting fixed. I can’t wait for a Linux phone. Just trying to use spotify ended with me rebooting the phone and being required to login again. I couldn’t figure out why when I locked it my earphones disconnected, so I ended up just plugging it in so it wouldn’t hibernate.