Well, there’s an ugly but sometimes working “hack” if someone really needs a payed app: you can temporarily login using a Google account, buy it, install it and revert to an anonmyous account.
Yes, and some apps offer paying them outside the GPlay world. This obviously also works. 
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@Volker thanks, I probably will try again and describe what I run into - no time right now but when I have the time I’ll try again and ask for help if needed. It’s ages ago that I was used to installing Android mods, that doesn’t help There was no mention of the easy installer when I tried, so I must have used an old guide.
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Fairphone and eOS: please show us a more complete upside, like the comparison of battery life and data usage for a Googled FF5 vs. an eOS FF5. If I don’t see better day to day performance, reduced data consumption and a lower total cost of ownership, then I am going to be tempted to stick with my secondhand good as new iPhone 11 - for a bit longer!
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Which would also be the more sustainable choice, so thanks!, 
Murena wins, BTW!
just FYI, there hasn’t been any research that has proven that phones are actively listening to conversations, and there actually has been proof of the contrary: Is My Phone Recording Everything I Say?
I know the post doesn’t explicitly mention listening, but I’ve heard so many anecdotes about it that I reflexively replied to it. and of course data is mined in various other ways, and Google as well as the rest of ad companies should go heck themselves.
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Reminder that /e/OS is still shipping a highly insecure version of Chromium Browser & System WebView from December of 2022 with 296 known security issues: https://divestos.org/misc/ch-dates.txt
Has numerous other issues, such as phoning home directly to Google out of the box: https://divestos.org/misc/e.txt
And generally doesn’t even stack up against the rest: Comparison of Android ROMs
Also of note: their cloud services do not use end-to-end encryption and already leaked user data to other users once: Service Announcement : 26 May - #27 by arnauvp - Forum - /e/OS community
They even had this removed from their Wikipedia page
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And they qickly reacted in the incident and fixed and improved their system. So what’s the use of this information for the future?
Please don’t use this platform for negative propaganda against other OS groups.
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@Volker
kindly that is not hate speech, that should be known as part of its track record for a service marketing itself as secure.
Nextcloud themself even states how server side encryption isn’t very useful: Encryption configuration — Nextcloud latest Administration Manual latest documentation
The encryption app does not protect your data if your Nextcloud server is compromised, and it does not prevent Nextcloud administrators from reading user’s files. This would require client-side encryption, which this app does not provide.
Note also that SSL terminates at or before Apache on the Nextcloud server, and all files will exist in an unencrypted state between the SSL connection termination and the Nextcloud code that encrypts and decrypts files. This is also potentially exploitable by anyone with administrator access to your server.
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What’s the use of this information here for the future, for example (while we’re at Wikipedia) …
The use for me is showing that “the cloud” is somebody else’s computer, which as a user in the end I don’t control, which can have unwanted consequences for me, which I should factor in any decision about using or not using such a service.
Leaking user data to other users is as serious as it might get, it’s arguably worse than “mere” data loss (which e.g. Google, Microsoft and Amazon as major cloud vendors all had to admit under their watch in their clouds at some point in time). It should be known that this really happened, at least.
While Wikipedia was edited, a statement about the incident can still be found in the forum … E Foundation/ecloud Security Notice June 15, 2022 - Security Announcements - /e/OS community
I almost forgot:
It is worth mentioning that /e/OS can be used without using its cloud (which I do), and the cloud can be self-hosted if the user wants to (and is able to).
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Same here. I don’t have any Google issues. I revoke all permissions, turn off location logging and logout of Google.
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Still, supporting Murena helps weaken Googles monopoly. Everyone should be able to get behind that.
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yes you should
never has someone the right to know all about you
who is all but transparant about themselves
there is enough going on because people are not what they seem
have a great healthy sane day anyway
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I have been using Black Berry since about 2006, they are the most secure phone so I thought. Or least they were secure until the Key 2 came out with Android.
During the COVID scare there was a website from the local health authorities showing locations there COVID had been detected, when and how many cases. Since I am over 30 and starting to get forgetful I started using a tracking app. One day I received an email thanking me for visiting Walmart. !!?? Notice it didn’t say shopping at Walmart. For me that would be maybe 2 times a year. Checking my tracking apt showed that I had been parked close to Walmart for about 10 minutes a few days before. Imagine if I had been parked close to a crime scene. Now I use a Fairphone 3+ with e/OS just in case.
Who was the sender of that mail? Are you sure it wasn’t just spam that doesn’t have anything to do with your parking behavior? If I took those spams seriously I must have parked my bike in locations of which I don’t even know where they are.
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that’s got nothing to do with the ‘tracking’ app. Those only use bluetooth low energy to exchange temporary keys with nearby devices.
But since you had to enable location services to make the app work (i think this got changed in later versions of android and now you should be able to enable ble without all location services), google got all your location data. And google definitely uses those for targeted ads based on your locations. You can disable ad targetting in your google account online. That prevents getting targetted ads, but does not prevent google from collecting all the data.
Sorry for the confusion. The apt I was using only tracks the cell phone position and uses GPS. You could later see your movements for a given time period on Google Maps. This apt would show the route I took, duration, if you stop how long in that location. This is simular to Trackbook. Trackbook uses open maps and avoids Google spyware.
The one you are thinking about, warns you if you were in certain distance of another person with that apt who had been registered that they have tested positve. That used blutooth. That apt would give off false positives since blutooth, since blutooth has a 10 metre range. You don’t have to be in the same room, just in blutooth range. Blutooth can be received through a wall.
It was sent from Walmart. I traced it back and also sent the email to Spamcop.
I do not own Fairphone yet, but I’m planning to buy Fairphone 5.
Yesterday I have received a response about my inquiry about getting a Google-free version and I as disappointed to learn that there is no such thing. Even Murena comes tainted with MicroG.
Still, I’m not giving up that easy, because I think about buying it and then rebuilding the stock firmware myself.
I have ceremoniously deleted my Google Account years ago, I don’t want any of their APIs on my device and I exclusively use apps that come from F-Droid.
I will never install any banking or government app.
I have had a FP3 for about 18 month. 3 months after I bought I installed e/OS. A Google account is NOT required to install or up date any apps and I do not use a google account. e/OS uses something called App Lounge which is similar to Aurora Store. F-Droid which I also use does not offer banking app, or at least apps for the banks I know of, I use the ones on APP Lounge.
There are advanced privacy settings where you can block trackers, block location or fake an IP address. Some apps may not work properly with these setting enabled.
Naturally Googles Spyware will not work if you do not sign into Google. I am quite happy so far with e/OS. I haven’t received any Thank You for Visiting Walmart emails. Which is a relief.