Study reveals scale of data-sharing from Android mobile phones:
Even when minimally configured and the handset is idle, with the notable exception of e/OS, these vendor-customized Android variants transmit substantial amounts of information to the OS developer and to third parties such as Google, Microsoft, LinkedIn, and Facebook that have pre-installed system apps. There is no opt-out from this data collection.
I happen to be using /e/ OS for the last ~2 years on all my #android phones and quite pleased to read it.
Not by default but on the other hand LineageOS doesn't strip any of the code planted by Google in AOSP sources like 204 connectivity check. To have fully de-googled ROM you need to actively strip these and replace with services you run on your own or Mozilla does. This was reported as one of the issues in early /e/ ROM releases and they have implemented their own replacements since.
@xerz @kravietz it's unfortunate that the authors don't separate stock LineageOS from LineageOS with the "Optional" (but usually recommended) GApps. /e/ did get a lot of crap (validly) for not removing all traces of Google connections from their forks of Lineage, which they eventually dealt with.
https://web.archive.org/web/20210303061041/https://infosec-handbook.eu/blog/e-foundation-final-look/
I guess if you use /e/ you already do - I assume they do donate to LineageOS as they heavily rely on it. The point is that LineageOS is a bit like Linux kernel, with no other services, which in turn /e/ provides (cloud services, documents, data sync, pre-installed phones etc). So it all forms a nice ecosystem in my views - and I'm myself using Fairphone purchased from /e/ and quite happy about it.
@keverets @xerz
There’s one important point to that which I only recalled as we started talking about it (I haven’t used Lineage for a couple of years).
The original LineageOS #Android doesn’t have signature faking patch and its devs consistently reject it, so unless you want to stick to apps from F-Droid only you only have two choices - either install GApss, or use Lineage4MicroG, which is a fork of LineageOS.
On the latter you could freely use F-Droid apps and mainstream apps from Aurora Store, but it had more limited hardware support as compared to original LineageOS.
With /e/ you don’t really even have to think about any of that, it just works.