E/OS, android without google
Mobile phone operating systems don’t fare well when it comes to giving users freedom over their expensively bought devices but luckily there are still alternatives like e/os
I used cyanogenmod a popular custom android rom before it was discontinued many years ago. Since then I used the stock android on my phone as there was no other option.
Until now I managed to limit myself to owning one phone at time but the fear of what would happen if I would lose it given how central to our daily lives phones have become (think of two factor auth, bank account access etc) I decided to get a second backup device.
New, shiny and expensive is not my thing so a second hand samsung phone was just fine, and since I did not spend a ton of money on it I decided do try and swap the os with a more privacy conscious one; that’s how I got acquainted to e/os
After using it for more than a half of year I can say i’m pleased with it. While not without its little issues it does offer a way out of the google web and still have an almost 100% functional phone, which is quite remarkable I would say.
E/foundation and e/os
The company has its roots in europe (France I believe) and offers a google free android experience. They offer the OS, which is a tweaked version of the open source android, they also sell phone with the os preinstalled, and have a cloud based solution as equivalent replacements for common google products; and they are privacy focused.
The os is open source, can be downloaded and installed on the more common android phones (ex the samsung s series). A list of supported devices is here. Prerequisite for installing the os is unlocking a phone which requires a bit of tinkering but the process for every device is well documented.
Eos comes with its own app store here as the google app store is gone from the phone. While the more common apps are in there it’s definitely a subset of the apps in the google store, but this too can be worked around using other 3rd party app stores. Os updates and security patches are published regularly.
To get more familiar with what it offers in terms of feature and privacy i recommend reading this page , and for the details of what de-googled means this page
Other noteworthy candidates
While doing my research on the topic I found a bunch of other similar products, here’s the list.