Threads keep popping up asking for PG to recommend something other than pixels with GOS, and the suggestion is always that the alternatives are “worse” than stock. It seems true in terms of security. But since most vendors drop security updates fairly quickly, most of the worlds devices on Android stock are actually no longer supported. Billions are still in use. So the security argument doesn’t really make sense. And certainly not for most people who (maybe wrongly) don’t see themselves as a target of Israeli spyware.
Lets talk privacy: recommending a spyware-based OS over calyx, /e/, iodé, lineage etc is terrible privacy advice. Come on team, lets figure out which of these we can give a silver medal to that is good enough.
At the very least it seems time to consider the privacy aspect. Perhaps a guide to install a GSI (iodéOS?) or use UAD to remove the spyware from stock Android for the billions of unsupported devices out there?
Privacy requires good security. We will never settle for bad security as this fundamentally undermines any meaningful way to protect ones privacy. You cannot use a terrible secured system and expect to have your data save from invaders. This is a very problematic narrative in privacy spaces that really is outright dangerous advice.
– ph00lt0Privacy Guides is about balancing security and Privacy with usability/convinience in mind, If you really want this approach then this is what techlore is for: Techlore
– anon39279085Privacy Guides should not lower their standards to accommodate products which cannot be bothered to implement proper security practices. CalyxOS has the resources to compete with GrapheneOS if they had any genuine desire to do so, and I imagine many of us here would be very happy if they did so. Unfortunately, it seems that for the foreseeable future, GrapheneOS will remain the only sane recommendation.
– phnxI fail to see the balance. The insistence that only a level of security that will stop israeli defense contractors is "good" and everything else is "bad" and therefore no privacy recommendation aside from pixel is possible is divorced from fact that the vast majority of users in 2025 without a pixel or even an updated android device actually do banking operations every day on their phones without losing money. By refusing to make any recommendation for second place, we ignore that privacy is a team sport billions could play, not just the lucky few (250,000?) that have a pixel with GOS.
– brinerustlealso, one of the criteria of PG is: Cross-Platform Availability: We typically prefer recommendations to be cross-platform to avoid vendor lock-in.
– brinerustle