Which OS is privacy-friendly and convenient?

Dear Community, since last summer I am using my FP2 with Android. I am satisfied but wanna take the next step towards an OS that does not give my data to a big cooperation. Is there someone who could recommend an OS that balances safety and service. My ideal plan would be to create an image of my current phone in order to safe what I have now. Than i would try the new OS for a while and decide if the effort for privacy was worth it. Could anybody assist me on my quest. I also speak German. Do not hesitate to reply in German if you are not comfortable with English. I am looking forward to hear from you.
Peace

My recommendation is Lineage OS. I use it since before it became an official build and I’m 100% happy with it.
I also tried ubports for a short while, but didn’t try whatever you need to do to get support for android apps, so there was not much you can do with it.
Then there is also Sailfish OS, which afaik doesn’t have support for android apps yet so there is also limited availability of apps you can install. Also if you have a relatively new FP2 then you can rule out Sailfish for now, as the new screen is not yet supported.
Open OS is also a possibility, but it has some disadvantages to Lineage OS and no advantages.

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Well, if you go for UbuntuTouch, you obviously have decided against android. And you can do quite a lot with an ubuntu phone.
If you want an os that uses android apps, you should stick to one of the android branche, be it Fairphone open or Lineage.
Although the next ubports release (16.04) is said to have android apps support, if I got it right.

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LineageOS with microG provides an ample amount of privacy options, but remember that only protects against Google, not privacy hungry applications you decided to install. It has a Privacy Guard to protect you though.

If I understood correct in order to use Alien Dalvik that requires a paid license from Jolla? I heard that this year they’re going to increase the API level (currently API 19 (Android 4.4))

Thanks Paula, that sounds great. I was already reading about lineage and your arguments convinced me. Which is the best way to install it? I guess i have to rearange all my settings and Data anyways. Most important for me is that i can transfer my contacts from my google account.

Best follow the official guide:

https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/FP2/install

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Sorry but i dont understand how to Install the “ADB” it asks me to:

Download the macOS zip from Google.
Extract it somewhere - for example, ~/adb-fastboot.

Add the following to ~/.bash_profile:

Do you know that that means, Paula. Sorry for not understanding.

That seems like a strange instruction to install fastboot. Back when I still had a mac it was easier.

One thing you could do to avoid using fastboot altogether would be:

  • install Open OS (which comes with TWRP)
  • download the latest version of TWRP (linked in the guide above)
  • update TWRP via TWRP
  • install Lineage OS via TWRP
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If you wanted to use that flavor, you could download it here:
https://download.lineage.microg.org/FP2/
The installation instructions are basically the same as @paulakreuzer linked.

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Paula, what are the disadventages from Open OS to Lineage OS you mentioned?
There’s a lot of discussion about Lineage. I might have missed it on the Forum, but do you know if there’s a comparison of both OS’'s. It would be great…not only for me!

Lineage OS is built on Android 7 and I bet it will get an upgrade to Android 8 before Open OS will be upgraded to Android 7 (if that ever happens at all).
Lineage OS comes with some special features that on standard Android you can only get with XPosed modules.
Battery life and performance is much better I’d say

There is no comparison, but this discussion + poll might interest you:

> If you wanted to use that flavor, you could download it here:

https://download.lineage.microg.org/FP2/8

Dear Marco, what is the difference between using lineage with or without microg?

Microg is a free software project that replaces some proprietary G%§$e services. One part - the location services - can be used without any integration into the system, you can just download the unified NLP + backends from the F-Droid store. For other services you need to flash the microg services core. The main reason to do this is to trick the system and other apps to believe you have G%§$e services installed. If you don’t plan to use apps that need that you don’t need microg integrated in the system.
The microg LOS flavor also comes with the F-Droid privileged extension integrated. This gives the F-Droid store the ability to act like a system app and - if you set it up that way - update apps on it’s own. Also you can disable the security setting “allow unknown sources”, because F-Droid will be a known source to the system.

If you want only one of those things (microg or F-droid privileged) you can use standard LOS and easily flash the thing you want. I for example only use F-Droid privileged and have no use for microg as I am blocking G%§$e sites via hosts file which messes with microg too. Also I use no apps that are on the Play store but not on F-Droid.

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Thanks Paula for your swift reply! I will get into the discussion and considering it further.

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This statement is no longer correct. :slight_smile:

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