Fairphone Open OS – for unexperienced users

Hi everyone, great to be part of this community.

I have owned my fairphone 2 for close to two years and would really like to get rid of Google on my phone and have ‘more control’ over my data.

Unfortunately, I am an unexperienced user when it comes to these things and wary whether this is worth the hassle, as I don’t know what to watch out for if I do make the switch. How much protected will my data be in an OpenOS, what other things should I be aware of in terms of updates etc. to become a sensible user?

In other words, are there some users in this forum who equally had little to zero experience with OpenOs and found the switch easy enough and feel happy with their move – security/alternative apps etc.

Would really appreciate to hear a few opinions, before getting started messing with my phone :slight_smile:
Thank you all!

Right now, Fairphone Open OS cannot be recommended. It has not been updated for quite a while now and must be considered a security risk.

Currently, Fairphone is beta testing a new Fairphone OS based on Android 9 for the FP2. Whether or not this will eventually lead to a new Fairphone Open OS, too, remains to be seen.

For the time being, I would rather take a look at other alternative OSes like LineageOS and /e/. You will find a lot of information about both here in the forum. But you should definitely be a bit technically savvy if you want to use an inofficial OS.

If you do not want to take a deeper dive into your phone’s giblets, I would recommend to stick with the regular OS, set your Google account’s data sharing to a minimum and use alternative apps where possible.

Best wishes,
Thomas

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Have a read here
and start with installing F-droid.
Then you can read in this thread for alternative apps for mail, etc.

Just give it a try. And if you have any trouble, there are lots of people here willing to help you.
Perhaps if you are lucky there is an #fairphoneangels in your neighbourhood.

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I still use FP Open OS 19.11.2 on my main FP2 - without any problem at all!

On a sceond FP2 I am beta testing th new Android 9 version of FPOS, but with all the gougle stuff I actually do not want. There should be a new FP OPen OS based on Android 9, but nobody knows when.

Therefore I am also installing no /e/os Pie on a third FP2 to have a look. Concerning gougle, There is only microG on it. It is not very complicated to install but needs a few steps more than installing the FP open OS 19.11.2.

Just a hint:

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