However, be aware that their focus has mostly been on security and not so much on privacy.
What this means is they worry a lot about hackers breaking into your phone but they don't worry much about daddy Google tracking you all over the internet and into the real world.
Has anyone here looked at the security of Lineage? I know it's a rebrand/fork of Cyanogen, but I don't actually know much about it as a project.
It seems to be the only image that works with Waydroid (the Android environment for Linux tablets), but I am not super comfortable entering my passwords into a project I don't know much about.
I have gotten Lineage going on a couple of older phones for friends, I am skeptical that it and F-droid are inherently much more safe than stock + the Play Store - except that they're less tempting targets for exploitation. Which I suppose is worth something, still.
Honest question, what use would Lineage be on a pixel? I've used it a few times for older phones, but that was mainly to get rid of a bunch of the stupid restrictions and bloatware those phones had. Pixel phones seem like they wouldn't benefit too much from it. (Again I haven't looked into it in a while so I'm not sure of the benefits)
Lineage is pretty good (minimal without any bloatware), especially for increasing the device's life. But if you are looking for a secure OS, look no further than GrapheneOS
I've been using Lineage for about a month on my main phone. It's great to free up space from dozens of Moto and depreciated Google apps that I never found useful.
I personally use Lineage on a Samsung Galaxy S5 and love it. It's far better than the stock roms. It offers access to newer OS versions (currently Nougat) and quicker access to security patches. Better battery life, a cleaner less bloated experience, and options for tweaking settings to your liking. There are some downsides though. Mainly reduced camera performance.
Lineage is as much standard android experience as you can get after market without any gaming/styling mods. If google was series about AOSP and sustainability they should embrace lineage and at least give a non-rooted lineage with a relocked bootloader on pixel phones a safety-net pass. Lineage has been very careful to not piss off google by not including microg or alternative webview signatures or means to circumvent device attestation. This love is not returned. If supported it would be a way also for other manufacturers to give their devices extended lifetime support (and allow bootloader relocking with lineage). Without safety net, people cannot use it for e.g. banking if they do not want to get into the cat and mouse game of magisk or trust shady indian enthusiast custom builds (like me because I am currently lazy/busy).
(I am writing this on a Redmi note 10 with lineage 21)
Lineage is great. One thing I wish we had, though, is a repo (F-Droid?) where you could download individual Lineage apps for use on non-Lineage Android.
Lineage is more about convenience and longevity rather than security and privacy. As another commenter said, Graphene is most suitable for this task if it's a major concern.
Take a random device like Google Pixel [1] it runs on a 4.4 kernel, long outdated and no longer maintained by Google. You can explore the code [2] however you are not going to be getting critical security updates (such as those issued by Qualcommm or any closed source blobs/firmware etc, and those released as per the pixel/android security bulletins).
Lineage is more about 'hacking' a kernel and making it work with the latest AOSP when the official software support ends. It's more vulnerable to exploits than a continuously supported device (although even devices that are 'in support' by the OEMs can often be depressingly behind things like patches etc).
Google is trying to fix this within the ecosystem (GKI, Apex etc) but at least as far as custom ROMs go...yeah, don't store state secrets on such a device ;)
Sorry, wasn't ripping on Lineage. It's more the entire ecosystem. I mentioned in prior comments, but I think that in a few years we'll have a practical, open source, third party in the mobile phone os wars - one that has reasonable app coverage.
I don't care if I use google or apple services, btw, I just want the data flow to be on my terms.
However, be aware that their focus has mostly been on security and not so much on privacy.
What this means is they worry a lot about hackers breaking into your phone but they don't worry much about daddy Google tracking you all over the internet and into the real world.
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