I’d say making a 2nd user for the apps that need Play Services (like banking and Uber/Lyft) is the move. This only allows Play Services to run when the 2nd user is on and also fully seperates it from the main user!

That’s par for the course my friend. But the response to these cliché statements is what can start to change perspectives! I like highlighting how Big Tech knows them better than they know themselves. Then get into how this means big tech has the ability to change how they view a topic based the specific search results. I then zoom out and explain how this happens for every user similar to them, as well as for every other “group” big tech classifies people under.

I often get something like “But what can we even do about it then?” in response, which more often than not, eventually leads to them admitting they’re lazy and things are too convient to switch away from or stop using lol

Cape.co alters a user’s IMSI daily, which helps to cover the IMEI. It’s a telco started by one of the old heads at CalyxOS and their main focus is “defense in depth.” But after the $30 initial month promo, it’s $99/month. However, the layers of protection they provide to obfuscate their customers maybe worth it, depending on your threat model. Here’s a fantastic interview they did with TheHatedOne: https://inv.nadeko.net/watch?v=ZsHZSbNu3CE

Well ya, you need at least two NICs to properly setup a firewall. Additionally, since NICs are the most crucial piece of hardware for routers and firewalls, it’ll only be as good as the hardware it runs on. Older NICs lead to regular crashes and/or slow network speeds. So swapping the original NIC out and adding another is VERY typical when repurposing old PCs as a router. The most common options for NICs I’ve seen are the Intel I350-T2 and I350-T4. Ironically, they cost about as much as a decent router, but going this route actually puts you in control of your home network!

Yep, but unfortunately it’s not always as straight forward as it may sound. Plus, with routers becoming more difficult to acquire, it’ll only get harder and harder to pull off. But there’s OpenWRT and dd-WRT that work with a pretty decent range of routers as well as ASUS Merlin for many ASUS routers. Then, if you want to get nerdy with it and build your own router from an old computer, there’s OPNsense and pfSense. Eventually it’ll come down to these two if the ban is longterm and you want any semblance of obfuscation online…

Why not start the OS swap process by assigning a new number to the Graphene phone or no number just wifi for now? This ensures your main phone will still work for work, while also allowing you to start hammering out any hangups with Graphene?! It truly seems like it’s just going to get more and more difficult to switch as time passes, so starting the process now could make a LOT of sense!

This is easy as I’ve been nerding out on privacy for more than a decade at this point, but privacy.com is the move here! It’s a phenomenal service (even their free tier) which lets you make one time use cards, cards locked to a specific business, or just general use cards. You can set spending limits on all of their cards, and you can set these limits for a defined period of time. Privacy.com is the bee’s knee’s, truly don’t know what I’d do without em these days!

LibreOffice works with LanguageTool, which is basically just open source Grammarly. So maybe give that a go and see how it works for you.