Given the mission of the /e/ project, is there any interest in providing a guide for those with unsupported devices or locked bootloaders that can’t be readily unlocked, to de-google and protect their privacy and data as well as reasonably possible without flashing a new rom. I’m thinking it should be possible to:
install /e/ app store (allow install from alternate sources and via browser or sideload from dev options and usb debug with ADB/FastBoot).
root the device and/or flash customer recovery (TWRP) to enable backup to image files, or achieve the same results using only dev options and usb debug w ADB/FastBoot.
install microG and uninstall most/all google services, google apps, bloatware.
Add /e/ account to device to use /e/ cloud services or self-hosted /e/ services.
That sounds like it would be an interesting and useful article. I agree withmost of what you suggest, except
I don’t think this adds any value: users of any phone can already install F-Droid for Open Source apps and Aurora Store for proprietary apps. Any app that is in Google’s Play store can be installed by Aurora Store.
Both F-Droid and Aurora Store are open source, privacy-friendly, and mature apps, with few serious outstanding bugs. /e/OS’s Apps doesn’t do anything very much that those two apps don’t and, unfortunately, at the moment is not as mature and has more serious bugs.
Thanks for the additional insights on the /e/ app store and the available alternatives. I feel that any app, including the app store app, should be replaceable based on user’s preference, and should coexist with alternatives if that’s what the user prefers.
I like that the /e/ app store provides privacy ratings. I would like to see it leverage these ratings more by allowing filtering and sorting by both privacy rating and overall rating. In general, I haven’t seen any app store that offers full sorting and filtering features.
