I keep my old smartphone precisely so I can install banking apps and other annoyances.

Feel free to track the burner phone that stays on the same location, turns on once a week, is got tape on the cameras and never uses the browser.

I use Shelter to enable the work profile. It permits to copy apps between standard and work profile. So it is possible to have google services (with an account set I mean) in the work profile.

Apps like for Banks can't be copied though. But most of the others can.

Keep in mind GMS does not need to run as a system app. On GrapheneOS it does not.

At least for me only about 15% of my apps need GMS and I only run GMS in my private space which most of the time I lock.

So yes I do not like needing GMS but it is not so doom and gloom.

Yeah, stop using shitty googol.

Realistically, change your approach to how you use your phone.

A majority of apps are not actually apps. They are a web app packaged in an apk so they can get elevated permissions and more data. Dont download apps, instead just install them from your browser as the web app they are. This is far more secure and far less invasive as generally a web app is containerized, at least thats my understanding in regards to firefox.

Instead of google maps, explore the world of open source navigation apps. Osmand has worked great for me, and tends to provide better info so im not panic merging at the last second. Theres a lot of them out there, and google maps has stagnated for so long that many of them are caught up in features. While its not open source, ive sesn a lot of people praise Magic Earth as well.

Buy phones on the premise of being allowed to use a custom rom. As much as i dont want a pixel because it is google, graphene os is battle tested and much more secure than stock android. But theres also lineage OS, eOS, and a few others out there.

If you need google play services, containerize it. I keep all apps i dont want having special permissions on a work profile. Funnily, i also keep my work apps on that profile, so if google wants my works data then they can handle the lawsuit if something bad happens lol.

I think a lot of people have forgotten that phones are tiny computers. The only real difference is the cell network, but we already have devices that can use those networks that arent phones, so it isnt an exclusive feature to phones. Android can be forked, but also we can emulate android on linux and there are already linux phones out there. If we grow the linux space for phones, then we effectively lose nothing of value while gaining increased freedom. For now, change how you use your phone, and only download apps if you have no other choice.

You can stop using Google and Apple... It's that simple. But it seems that you, like many other, want their cake and eat it too...

Mainline linux on mobile is solving this problem as we speak: https://postmarketos.org/

I expect a full collapse of the Google Android behemoth about the same time we get Half Life 3.

There is microg which can replace GMS. But we really need an alternative, not based on some company's shit.

Would “containerizing” GMS in Android ever be possible? Like it’s running in a docker instance, almost.