this post was submitted on 25 Feb 2026
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Privacy
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Thank you for detailing in one paragraph what I was unable to understand after reading articles about it all last evening.
It is also largely questionable.
/e/OS has MicroG, and that runs as a system service. You can disable most of it, and if you're not using any App that needs Google services, I doubt it really does much.
It is possible to use Graphene without using any Google at all. However... Doing so will break almost every app out there. Anything that needs push notifications, AndroidAuto, a thousands more things. So you end up using Graphene with Sandboxed Google services.
And we get into the debate. Is it better to take the official Google Play Services, which we all consider malicious, and run it in a sandbox, or take an open source private, and trusted implementation (MicroG) and run it as a system service?
It is at the very least largely debatable.
It is best to run GOS or Lineage OS completely Google-free.
LineageOS is not "Google-free". The OS still connects to various Google services by default, even without Google Play Services installed.
https://lineageos.org/ https://www.kuketz-blog.de/lineageos-weder-sicher-noch-datenschutzfreundlich-custom-roms-teil4/
Obviously Graphene OS is the current gold standard for privacy, but you can run a Lineage OS device without Google Play Services, with only free/libre software installation sources, and without the telemetry for those users who can't or won't use current GOS. This is obviously a considerable improvement over a Chinese or other commercial manufacturer.
But, yes, if you can run GOS rather than LOS, you should.
This pretty much not adressing what I said at all. I use LineageOS myself and it's miles better than the Stock Operating Systems of most if not all devices they support. But we shouldn't mislead people, LineageOS is not fully "degoogled" and uses some Google services, even without the Google Play Services installed.
You're engaging in a strawman. Privacy is not a boolean choice, there are degrees. Making a few connections to some Google servers is not the same as having stock Android.
You seem to be unable to understand simple English, so I'll end the conversation here.