Long story short : I started working in Machine learning 3 years ago and got really concerned by privacy related to big data. Then, I read 1984. The week after, /e/os was installed on my phone.
I have now proudly installed it on the phone of a dozen of friends 
So, I’ve been modding my handsets for years, trying to straddle the line of “having an Android phone” and “having control of an Android phone” since the 4.0 days. For some time, this was done with modded ROMs and XPrivacy/XPrivacy Lua. In theory, it was a great solution, and for the time it was, but as those programs became less actively maintained, it was worth the time to start exploring alternatives.
Pure AOSP ROMs were a bit too sparse for my liking. I did run LineageOS for a while with “only” the Play Store, but even that felt like “too Googled for privacy, not enough Googled for convenience”.
I think someone in a Slashdot thread mentioned /e/OS; it could have been an XDA thread as well - I don’t remember specifically. While Graphene and Calyx are purely privacy focused (and respectable projects in their own right), what drew me to /e/OS were two things:
The time spent on the ecosystem, not just the ROM. Other projects focus on the phone, and leave it to the users to figure out the e-mail/calendar/contacts/storage elements. Apple has iCloud and Google has…G-Suite, I guess? but the privacy ROMs left users to figure out how and where to store their data. /e/OS was the first one to address that need and fill it.
…and it’s (mostly) possible to self-host that solution in addition to the presence of a cloudy version. As most of us are aware, “there is no cloud…there’s only someone else’s computer”. Murena not only provides the sort of service Apple and Google provide to their end users, they do so at reasonable prices and with a far better privacy policy, but i’m unaware of any other mobile device OS that provides that much flexibility.
When that combination was seen, and it was possible to do it all on the phone I already had…it was a no brainer to switch.
Hello everyone, in my search for an alternative operating system for a cell phone, I finally ended up here.
Great work you are doing here.
Greetings Thomas
Long years ago i flashed an old HTC with cyanogen because i needed to try Android 2…
Later i got the Oneplus One and i tryed to flash the official Cyanogen Mod partnership with Oneplus. Next i tryed LineageOS too, normal for who that know.
My curiosity let me found a list on wikipedia, about alternative rom for smartphone. Like this i founded e/OS project.
I tryed it on my Oneplus 3, since i’m using e/OS/.
I’m specialized on Oneplus phone and i flashed every models, actualy i got the Oneplus9 and it work well very well and i convert people around me about that OS for data privacy.
I’ve been using Linux for over 30 years and about 10 years ago started to get into custom Roms. I had a regular android phone as my daily driver and a second one as a ‘test subject’ to install and try custom Roms.
Back then I would mostly work with xiaomi’s MI OS but I pretty much tried every compatible rom out there.
Around 5 years ago after trying cyanogedmod and lineage os I first heard of /e/OS. A Google free Android OS.
Long story short: I was hooked and haven’t looked back. Now I’m the main Spanish translator for this project 
been a long time follower of Brax, and decided to try it when I saw him mentioning about it.
Same 
Been following him for quite some time.
And I’ve been on other custom roms though started having a particular interest in /e/ as well as they seem to know the real meaning of “privacy” and microG in it by default being configured properly.
So I decided to give it a try and see. So far I’m liking it overall.
For a long time I wanted to add to this thread but I can’t for the life of me remember how I found out about /e/ (eelo). Maybe a mention on XDA but not sure.
Been using microG on various ROMs for years, even on KitKat (Mahdi). /e/ is probably the first actual deGoogled ROM I tried.
Started with version 0.1 (Nougat) on a ZTE Axon 7 multibooting with other ROMs, via Dual Boot Patcher. Phone is still around but battery problems caused it to be retired (too lazy to replace even though I bought batteries and tools). Sealed cases. Ugh.
Put /e/OS Nougat on an Essential PH-1. Moved to Pie and then stopped with 1.8.1-q. Various bits and pieces manually updated though.
Teracube 2e emerald has 1.14-r.
I’d better post my story here before i forget the little details 
So i had an iPhone 5s which was starting to bug (touchscreen had problems), so i wanted to change, and after a long time i finally managed to get an old android phone (my current S7). The problem was that i hated google. I never wanted to have anything coming from them, but i was tired of apple (plus i hate being stuck in their OS, you just have no freedom of movement) and i loved the android design. As i was interested in IT customization and i had learnt to install custom OS on computers, so i wondered if i could do the same on this phone. I remembered an ARTE documentary about data privacy (this one for people interested, it’s in french but may exist in english, really well-made) in which i saw an OS alternative for android which actually was LineageOS. I looked for my device in the supported devices page, but it was no longer supported. Firstly, i wanted to build it but my setup wasn’t strong enough… So i looked for an alternative and i found /e/OS. The fact that /e/OS promote themselves as a de-Googled OS seduced me. And here I am.
I have no regrets, as the devs are doing an amazing job and the UI is beautiful. Thanks for everything /e/.
was wondering about that ARTE documentary, seems to be now at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3BGpsq9f0M and Disparaître - Sous les radars des algorithmes | Educ'ARTE
Recently when looking for informations about the Fairphone and the state of the Android scene. The cool thing about it is how it permits to recycle device. I got a second-hand Fairphone and used the web-app that worked like a charm, than two tablets (one just with Lineage).
I just hope the late 2024 outrage didn’t compromised their long-terms goals because it’s a great thing to have a “bootlocked” alternative with Murena and Fairphone, rather than just the raw software. It makes it easier to advise it to tech normies.
In about 2008, I tried Ubuntu 6.06 and decided I preferred it to Windows. For a while, I used both Linux and Windows, until I had found replacement Linux apps for all my Windows software. For years, I provided IT support in my local community, over time, encouraging some of my customers to move to Linux as well. But, Linux was terrible for business because I never heard from those who I had migrated to Linux - they had no software problems and their hardware lasted much longer without the frequent and large windows updates.
Today, I use a mixture of Fedora, Linux Mint and Raspberry Pi OS on my various devices.
But, up until a month or so ago, I have had an Apple IPhone & IPad. I have never had or used an Android phone. Then, when Apple decided to remove ADP from UK users, I decided to replace my mobile devices to e/os - so far, just the phone but, soon my tablet too. I am very happy with my phone and I wish I had bought a Murena phone a few years ago, when I first read about them. But, thanks Apple for helping me to decide to make the leap.
Long time GNU/Linux user and supporter. Found the kickstarter site, liked the idea. Gaël Duval sold the idea I had used Mandrake in the past.
I had to wait Murena phones, Fairphone , to make it to the USA.
Love my Murena ecosystem.
Greg
I had an old Samsung phone for years. It stopped at Android 11. I’m not a big phone user so I don’t really need much and I could get by on it. I finally had to get a new one. The Samsung just got too old, mainly the battery was shot.
The new phone came with Android 14. I was immediately appalled by the level of garbage software on it. I could tolerate Android 11, but Android 14 was off the rails. I knew about alternative ROMs and had thought about it in the past, but I didn’t look into it a whole lot. So I did my due diligence and decided /e/os was the best option. I bought a used entry level phone to try it on and found the difference to be cavernous.
Right now I have this high end phone that’s stuck on OEM Android (model is not supported by /e/os), but once I feel I got my money’s worth I’m going to replace it with a phone from the /e/os support list. Then it will be good riddance to spying Google and the all the crapware that comes with it. Just too bad I didn’t know about /e/os -before- I got a new phone.
Some very influential things can be done in this regard on most stock vendor Android OSes already as a user:
That already takes care of a lot.
If you really want to get into it further, you can of course try to reproduce certain technical steps that get incorporated into /e/OS, at least as far as your stock vendor Android OS allows, it’s documented what /e/OS is and does … https://doc.e.foundation/what-s-e (which also includes a link to this white paper).
I understand and I’ve done a lot of that kind of thing, but honestly the settings on this phone are like an endless ream. There’s just mountains and mountains of settings for garbage apps I don’t need but still have to manage.
I’ve even run into recursive selections, settings that drill down several levels then loop back to the top. That’s just the most confusing thing that can happen. Also lots of duplicated settings that appear in two even three places. Truly awful design.
When you look at the list of apps including system, there’s almost five hundred of them. You can try to debloat, but good luck with that. You have to trial and error and I refuse to spend that much time on it.
The thing is I don’t want a chore like that in the first place. My goal is a phone that’s as least time consuming to maintain as possible. /e/os does a good job in that regard. OEM Android is untenable. To make matters worse it installs software I don’t ask for and covertly changes settings.
Which model? Is it supported by LineageOS - Devices | LineageOS Wiki? If so, then LineageOS for microG will work on it also.
You could search on XDA Forums to see if there are other custom ROMs available for it
Thanks for the suggestions, but I’m just not going to mess with it. The phone is a carrier locked Motorola Razr+ 2024 (aka Razr 50 Ultra). I mean it’s a super nice phone and runs like a rocket, but I’d have to carrier unlock it then jump through some hoops to OEM unlock it. It’s not terribly hard to do, but then I’d have to find a ROM if any even exist. Way too much hassle. I could sell it, but I’d get half what it retails for and that would also be a hassle.
Had I known I wanted to run /e/os before I got the new phone I would have bought a carrier unlocked phone off the support list. I’m just going to get my money’s worth out of the phone I have and buy another one at some point to run /e/os. Not the first time I’ve gone the wrong way on a consumer electronics purchase, probably won’t be the last.
Not only that. Before we decided to stop using our our iphones, I also went through all the settings and turned off as much as possible. But, every time there was an update, I had to check every setting again to ensure that none of them had been changed, and check for new settings, as well. One example is icloud backups which are set for individual apps. Post updates, I had to check each app and reset back to “off” any that had been turned on. I kept the phones logged out in the end until an app stopped working. But, then had to log back in and do the updates, and do all the checks again. And log back into the accounts on a PC to delete any uploaded data that had got through. It was just too much of a headache, and a great relief not to have to do it all, now we have our e/os phones / tablet. I came to realise that Apple had developed a system that was only ever going to work the way that they wanted it to, fighting it was practically impossible.
It sounds like Android is even worse, in this respect.
That’s exactly it, I feel like I’m fighting my phone all the time. It’s really aggravating. I’ve not used an Apple phone, but it sounds like stock Android is just as bad if not worse than Apple. It comes from the attitude your phone is an extension of the corporation. They change what they want when they want…and you’re going to be happy about it.