DeGoogle Yourself

Yeah graphene is only on pixels because of the security standards of the pixel but this will change with the new motorola partnership with graphene

My advice is always to get a new email account first and forward your old email to it. And use the new email for any new sign ups. Mayfirst.org is a cool low cost community of tech people that includes several google alterbatives including email service, cloud based office suites and jitsi (zoom alternative)

I'm at the point where I've gone back and changed my old account emails and archived my old gmail account but that can be done later, gotta triage first!

Do it in stages by shifting services one at a time from a google phone to a non-google device.

(In my experience):

Easy: pics, docs Intermediate: calendar, contacts, maps solution Most difficult: email

I've been trying to de-google for more than 5 years, and email is the surprise for me. It's quite incredible how deeply interacted google and apple have made us. Once that's done, google account will be terminated.

Sounds like you already know what you have to do, you just have to do it.

In my own de-googling I've learned the more you de-google, the more perceived "conveniences" you have to give up. Unfortunately, there really aren't a lot of all in one NFC payment solutions on F-Droid/Foss.

LineageOS is good enough for privacy/security assuming you practice good digital hygiene. Its kind of a double edged sword there.

A cool bonus with foss apps and OSes, is generally, their software are more optimized and not resource hungry. Meaning, you can run older devices without any issue. You could probably find an older pixel and run Graphene on it no problem.

If you want to completely de-google, you have to leave their walled garden behind. There isn't really a one leg in, one leg out solution.

It'll be awkward and frustrating for a couple of months but then you'll never go back.

Yup, GrapheneOS only on Pixels for now, Motorola sometime in the next year-ish. Banking apps may or may not work in a fully degoogled state (gOS lets you install and uninstall Play Store / Services, by fully degoogled I mean uninstalled) or even with Play Store active, it's hit or miss by cases, but you can use a bank website just fine. Same with NFC (but I just put a credit card in my phone case for most of that use case). Google Pay does not work to the best of my knowledge, but we're trying to degoogle...

You can set up a main fully degoogled user and a second user with Google Play where pretty much everything works fine (except some banking stuff as mentioned) while you find google free replacements for your main. You can install many Play store apps in main via Aurora store, and then revoke their network permission so the don't phone home / show ads. You can also install many paid apps in your degoogled main by installing Play, installing the apps and then uninstalling Play Store. E.g. Poweramp and MoonReader work for me but Tasker has some draconian verification BS going on and I decided to give up on it and use a combination of Automation and Termux.

All up not really that bad for me.

What I do is to have an old phone just for banking and other stuff that requires Google's direct validation. Usually that solves the need of having Google Play services or MicroG installed on my phone, at most requiring Aurora Store, though that I barely used it in the past ~6 months.

Cutting freedom at the source, in development, though, is far more complex to deal with. I remember when I was in programming university I tried looking for means for making apps without Google, but they're rather manual, way too unpolished in comparison to what Google offers.

I recommend GrapheneOS on a 2nd hand/refurbished mobile. Most banking apps run fine (provided you installed Google Play). It is very clean and secure.

What's wrong with using the banks website? I think you are describing using bank apps, no?

Imma be the problemXY guy - how often do you need to interact with your bank that you need to carry that attack vector always on your person? you managed to live without that thing for a huge percentage of your life, maybe try limiting your exposure. if that works out, your options for a degoogled life rise dramatically.

get a used supported device that ain't a pixel, if you haven't already got one lying around and carry it in parallel - you still got all your shit on your main device and you have the luxury of offloading one by one use case onto the new device without downtime.

maybe you'll make do with just bare lineageOS. maybe you'll need the intermediate step - lineageOS with microG which implements a subset of play services.

hopefully, in the process you'll throw out a buncha consumerism shit you don't actually need. good luck.

Lineage is privacy focused, not security focused (other than security through obscurity etc). Graphene is more secure but may require tinkering for NFC payment / banking. Graphene is partnering with Motorola for their new phones, but old/current Motorola phones won't be compatible. IMO best bet for daily driver is a used/refurb older pixel or pixel A, like pixel 6a or pixel 7a are sub-$200 even brand new sometimes. e/os is another option but I haven't used it (don't have compatible device) so can't comment on it.