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?