DeGoogle Yourself

TBH it really depends on your threat model. Yes grapheneos is great for privacy minded and secure smart phone options. However, just by having a sim card in your phone and connected to cell towers on your network and not in a faraday bag you are not at all private to state-backed entites. If you use sms at all your messages are not private. If you receive push notifications on your smart phone the metadata, and in many cases the content itself, is retrievable and not private.

I can’t recommend graphene for privacy, however if security is your main concern it will definitely do that well.

Like everyone else in this thread, I would strongly recommend GrapheneOS.

To give you a specific phone recommendation, I would suggest the Pixel 9a. At $500 before any discounts, it's the best value per dollar for a privacy oriented phone. Because it just came out earlier this year, it will also be receiving security updates for years into the future.

Your phone isn't supported by Graphene, but it is still supported by LineageOS. You'll lose the sandboxed play services, but still get monthly security updates. Fair trade off for your current device.

https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/blueline/

As others have said, look into an alternate OS as your best option. I only have experience with GrapheneOS, but it's super simple to install and functions pretty well out of the box.

Unfortunately your pixel 3 is too old and no longer supported. 6 is the oldest supported and they recommend 8 or newer because those have 7 year support cycles as opposed to 5 on earlier models.

That aligns with your wants though, as a pixel 6 is 4 years into its support cycle so oud only get another year out of it. Maybe you'd be OK with a 7 and 2 years, but if you went 8 then you'd have 5 years remaining. So it depends on how future proof you want vs your budget. General recommendation would be to buy a phone second hand.

Take a look at their FAQ for more info. It'll probably answer a lot of your questions. https://grapheneos.org/faq

I'll also say that even if you run GOS in a non private manner, its still more private than a standard android phone. I know somebody who runs GOS with google services on (gasp!) but that is still more private because it runs sandboxed and not with full reign of the OS. GOS also has a lot of options like turning your mic on and off and disabling Bluetooth. Even simple things like that are good first steps in getting into a private phone.

As others have said, look into an alternate OS as your best option. I only have experience with GrapheneOS, but it's super simple to install and functions pretty well out of the box.

Unfortunately your pixel 3 is too old and no longer supported. 6 is the oldest supported and they recommend 8 or newer because those have 7 year support cycles as opposed to 5 on earlier models.

That aligns with your wants though, as a pixel 6 is 4 years into its support cycle so oud only get another year out of it. Maybe you'd be OK with a 7 and 2 years, but if you went 8 then you'd have 5 years remaining. So it depends on how future proof you want vs your budget. General recommendation would be to buy a phone second hand.

Take a look at their FAQ for more info. It'll probably answer a lot of your questions. https://grapheneos.org/faq

I'll also say that even if you run GOS in a non private manner, its still more private than a standard android phone. I know somebody who runs GOS with google services on (gasp!) but that is still more private because it runs sandboxed and not with full reign of the OS. GOS also has a lot of options like turning your mic on and off and disabling Bluetooth. Even simple things like that are good first steps in getting into a private phone.

Pixel phones have been the general recommendation for de-googling, because they've been very friendly towards unlocking and running 3rd party ROMs, among other things. Graphene, Calyx, Iode, and e/OS are some of the more popular privacy/security centric ROMs. Lineage is another, but is more focused on compatibility for older phones. I'd try to run something that re-locks the bootloader, and to not run the device rooted.

Graphene is currently Pixel only, but Google has been making it more difficult to port to new devices, and to get the source to security patches in a timely fashion. They're looking to release their own phone in 2026 or 2027.

The Fairphone is another option that has Calyx and others support. But the Fairphone 6 is new and not really supported anywhere but stock and e/OS right now. You can actually purchase straight from Murena with e\OS. Lineage is developing for it, and I know Calyx plans to support it. A lot of us aren't fond of e/OS, but others love it. They do have their own ecosystem, which might make it easier to switch, but they don't contribute much upstream from what I understand, so...

Shiftphone is another option out of Germany. Calyx has plans to support them, and probably some others. But they're harder to get outside of Europe, and aren't the focus of as much development as the more known Fairphone.

Calyx is on hiatus until February, so you can't/shouldn't install on anything right now, and support for Fairphone and Shiftphone is likely a ways out.

Volla Phone ships with their own de-googled OS. They're also harder to get your hands on outside of Europe.

Finally, there are Linux phones that don't run Android at all. Sailfish OS with the Jolla C2 is probably the most mature. Volla and some others can run Ubuntu Touch from UBPorts. Furi just released the FLX1s with a Linux-based OS, though it's really an Android phone using the Halium compatibility layer. There are some other Linux phones as well, some of which are more hardware-centric with an expectation that people will target them with software, and Postmarket OS that supports running Linux on a number of phones.

Also keep in mind that a lot of these phones have limited bands supported, and so may not work well on your preferred carrier, or at all in your country. A lot of Linux phones also won't support VoLTE or wifi-calling well or at all, just yet.

Oh, and there's the Brax3, though I have no idea what to think about it.

Despite all of the critisism, I can vouch for murena with /e/OS.

Yes, you're replacing one corporation with another but I naiivly believe that murena is less invasive than google or apple.

Phones come preinstalled and are ready to use out of the box with no hassle.

Ironicly, the pixle is actually a good choice, because you can put GrapheneOS on it. Its a deGoogled android project with a very security focused dev team behind it.

As others have said, look into an alternate OS as your best option. I only have experience with GrapheneOS, but it's super simple to install and functions pretty well out of the box.

Unfortunately your pixel 3 is too old and no longer supported. 6 is the oldest supported and they recommend 8 or newer because those have 7 year support cycles as opposed to 5 on earlier models.

That aligns with your wants though, as a pixel 6 is 4 years into its support cycle so oud only get another year out of it. Maybe you'd be OK with a 7 and 2 years, but if you went 8 then you'd have 5 years remaining. So it depends on how future proof you want vs your budget. General recommendation would be to buy a phone second hand.

Take a look at their FAQ for more info. It'll probably answer a lot of your questions. https://grapheneos.org/faq

I'll also say that even if you run GOS in a non private manner, its still more private than a standard android phone. I know somebody who runs GOS with google services on (gasp!) but that is still more private because it runs sandboxed and not with full reign of the OS. GOS also has a lot of options like turning your mic on and off and disabling Bluetooth. Even simple things like that are good first steps in getting into a private phone.

For now, everything is speculation and there's no way to know how google will implement the new restrictions, for example, google could disable installing apk from the OS, but still allow sideloading from adb, and then f-droid and helper apps could somehow use adb to go around it. It's still too early to tell.

One thing I can be somewhat certain is that custom roms won't have this restriction so if you get a phone that supports graphene OS, lineageOS, /e/is, etc, you shouldn't have to worry with it.

Which leads to another question, do you need google services? I personally don't but some people are tied to it for some reason, banking apps? Gladly my bank works on the web browser, or else I would just switch banks.

Alternatively you can keep your iphone as a banking/government machine on your other pocket.

As for what phone to get, if you can afford an iphone, you can afford the latest pixel and install graphene OS on it, graphene OS offers the most privacy and security, in certain cases a slightly older device can be cheaper, but note that newer devices offer 7 years support, rather 5, so you have to calculate the cost by dividing the price by the remaining years of support.

Alternatively if you can't afford a pixel the cheapest (but not so good) solution I think it's a nothing CMF phone one with /e/OS, but do your own research.

Google Pixel with custom ROM

These will probably be updated quickly if there is any relevant new information: https://www.privacyguides.org/en/mobile-phones/ https://www.privacyguides.org/en/android/ https://www.ifixit.com/repairability/smartphone-repairability-scores#smartphone-scores

As others have said, look into an alternate OS as your best option. I only have experience with GrapheneOS, but it's super simple to install and functions pretty well out of the box.

Unfortunately your pixel 3 is too old and no longer supported. 6 is the oldest supported and they recommend 8 or newer because those have 7 year support cycles as opposed to 5 on earlier models.

That aligns with your wants though, as a pixel 6 is 4 years into its support cycle so oud only get another year out of it. Maybe you'd be OK with a 7 and 2 years, but if you went 8 then you'd have 5 years remaining. So it depends on how future proof you want vs your budget. General recommendation would be to buy a phone second hand.

Take a look at their FAQ for more info. It'll probably answer a lot of your questions. https://grapheneos.org/faq

I'll also say that even if you run GOS in a non private manner, its still more private than a standard android phone. I know somebody who runs GOS with google services on (gasp!) but that is still more private because it runs sandboxed and not with full reign of the OS. GOS also has a lot of options like turning your mic on and off and disabling Bluetooth. Even simple things like that are good first steps in getting into a private phone.

You are good at least as high as the Pixel 9 for certain, and likely the Pixel 10 will be fine.

In a few months CalyxOS should be up again. Personally I m waiting for that

The https://furilabs.com/shop/flx1/ looks like a decent option for a phone not controlled by corporations

A Pixel 3 is a very insecure phone due to the lack of security updates from Google.

The only way Google can block side-loading of apps (installing apps from F-Droid app store for example) is to use Google software. Likely this will be the Play Store or Play Services. If you install a degoogled OS, such as GrapheneOS (GOS), onto a newer Pixel you will not be blocked from side-loading.

GOS can be installed on Pixel 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 when it's available. Here is a page that tells you how long the various Pixel models will have security updates https://endoflife.date/pixel so you can weigh the cost v number of years of security updates.