As someone who has been using Pixels (and Motos and Nexuses) for a while, I was getting them largely because they were pretty hassle free to crack the bootloader and sideload a ROM that lets me actually modify the interface (and other root-access shenanigans). That said, I recently learned about graphene and I intend to give it a try when I have the time to mess with things.
Consider looking into graphene-os. I haven’t used it yet, but it purports to force google’s apps back into the sandbox, and replace most of their methods with reverse engineered ones that don’t phone home.
GrapheneOS is basically stock Android for Pixel phones, but more privacy features baked in. If anything was to go wrong, you aren’t touching the recovery partition, so you can revert to stock easily.
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I am surprised you didn’t install graphene on it? Seems to be the only reason to buy a pixel imo
As someone who has been using Pixels (and Motos and Nexuses) for a while, I was getting them largely because they were pretty hassle free to crack the bootloader and sideload a ROM that lets me actually modify the interface (and other root-access shenanigans). That said, I recently learned about graphene and I intend to give it a try when I have the time to mess with things.
Consider looking into graphene-os. I haven’t used it yet, but it purports to force google’s apps back into the sandbox, and replace most of their methods with reverse engineered ones that don’t phone home.
Install Graphene, free yourself from the tentacles
calyxos is another option if you don’t want to go the grapheneos route
Since you have a Pixel you can install GrapheneOS on it which excludes all of the Google from Android.
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GrapheneOS is basically stock Android for Pixel phones, but more privacy features baked in. If anything was to go wrong, you aren’t touching the recovery partition, so you can revert to stock easily.
I got an openmoko back in the day. I know the feeling.
I eventually did have fun with it but it never became a phone for me.