this post was submitted on 27 Oct 2026

21 points (92.0% liked)

Android

android@lemmy.world

35,002 readers

933 active

36 users here now

DROID DOES

Welcome to the Android community on Lemmy. Here you can participate in amazing discussions and events relating to all things Android.

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules

1. All posts must be relevant to Android devices/operating system.

2. Posts cannot be illegal or NSFW material.

3. No spam, self promotion, or upvote farming. Sources engaging in these behavior will be added to the Blacklist.

4. Non-whitelisted bots will be banned.

5. Engage respectfully: Harassment, flamebaiting, bad faith engagement, or agenda posting will result in your posts being removed. Excessive violations will result in temporary or permanent ban, depending on severity.

6. Memes are not allowed to be posts, but are allowed in the comments.

7. Posts from clickbait sources are heavily discouraged. Please de-clickbait titles if it needs to be submitted.

8. Submission statements of any length composed of your own thoughts inside the post text field are mandatory for any microblog posts, and are optional but recommended for article/image/video posts.

Community Resources:

founded 3 years ago

moderators

Rooki@lemmy.world

L3s@lemmy.world

L4s@lemmy.world

Setting up an Android phone with FOSS applications. (sopuli.xyz)

submitted 2 weeks ago by qyron@sopuli.xyz to c/android@lemmy.world

22 comments fedilink hide all child comments

My intention is to buy the cheapest smartphone I can reasonably get as I need to use a phone for professional reasons; the company uses Whatsapp and other applications I do not want to have occupying space in a smartphone I use for my personal life.

I've been loading my phones with FOSS applications from F-Droid for years now but I am aware the loop is tightening and continuing to do so is becoming more and more difficult.

Ideally, I would like to keep this phone as much as possible exempt from connecting with Google. This means I don't intend to load an account on the phone and instead load F-Droid and Aurora to get the software I want to use.

all 22 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 9 points 2 weeks ago (10 children)

You can also have a look at the table of supported hardware of your favorite aftermarket ROM. And pick a cheap (current) phone from that list. At least WhatsApp runs just fine on my GrapheneOS phone and my other device with LineageOS. Some other proprietary apps break in weird ways, though. But I think replacing the operating system is kinda necessary to properly make it stop forwarding data to Google.

hideshow 10 child comments

[–] qyron@sopuli.xyz [S] 4 points 2 weeks ago (9 children)

I'm looking at spending less than €100. Moving into a degoogled phone for my personal use is an objective but not now. Can't afford it. Hence my question for how to keep running FOSS applications on any android phone.

parent

hideshow 9 child comments

[–] Zak@lemmy.world 7 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

I don't understand your question. You write that you've been running FOSS applications from F-Droid for years, and you ask how to do that. It seems like you already know how to do that.

parent

hideshow 3 child comments

[–] qyron@sopuli.xyz [S] 2 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

To what I've read, Google will be locking access to users installing non App Store applications.

My current personal phone is already as much customized as I can manage but needing to buy a new one, although for work reasons, I want to keep using the same software I already use.

parent

hideshow 2 child comments

[–] Zak@lemmy.world 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 child)

Google plans to introduce restrictions on installing applications by developers who have not proven their identity to Google, which is neither

"Locking" in the sense that you can't turn it off. The process they describe is obnoxious, an unreasonable imposition on your ability to use your device as you see fit, and likely to result in some open source developers abandoning the platform, but "locking" is too strong. The link answers what I think you're asking, which is how to allow installing whatever apps you see fit.
A requirement to use Google's store. Many FOSS apps for Android are from developers registered with Google. If it's in the Play Store as well as F-Droid or the developer's website, they're already registered.

parent

hideshow 1 child comment

[–] qyron@sopuli.xyz [S] 1 point 2 weeks ago

Thank you.

parent

[–] hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 2 points 2 weeks ago* (4 children)

I suppose you could try to buy some of those phones second hand, or refurbished?! Or maybe ask one of the friends who get a new phone every 2 years if they sell their old phone to you... I mean it's not easy to get a halfway decent phone for less than 100€. Something like a Samsung A52 should do, though? They're 75-100€ and LineageOS claims to support the device.

Other option is to not get a second phone and use Android's work profile to confine the work-related apps to a seperate "container".

parent

hideshow 4 child comments

[–] qyron@sopuli.xyz [S] 2 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

My next words are going to sound as obnoxious but what does define a phone as decent?

Used market in my country is simply ridiculous; people are asking for used phones as if they were new. The people I know all use their phone until end of life.

I need something that can take a visible picture from less than a metre away, has a flashlight function, can handle WhatsApp and a screen large enough I can use to read documents on it and look at aerial photos. Nothing special. And I need it cheap. It is going to be outside, going in and out of pockets, handled with dirty hands, etc.

I have a Fairphone in my eye for personal use, hopefully sooner than later, but that is a purchase I want to make to last me for as much as possible. This is not the case.

parent

hideshow 3 child comments

[–] hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 1 point 2 weeks ago* (2 children)

Sure. You define what is decent enough for you. I mostly wrote that because there's very old phones in those lists and some don't support recent Android versions, which might be a problem if an app requires a somewhat recent Android version. Also something like a very old Motorola will be shuggish, not support 5G, have a potato camera by today's standards... It's a bit tricky to hit the sweet spot and then also get something with good support by some custom rom.

And new phones below 100€ tend to be very basic, have the cheapest display available etc...

parent

hideshow 2 child comments

[–] qyron@sopuli.xyz [S] 1 point 2 weeks ago (1 child)

I'm used to bottom shelf phones.

Again, risking sounding as obnoxious, it gets me a bit miffed with the near obcession, when discussing smartphones in Lemmy, regardless of the community, with recommending flagship models or otherwise at least quite expensive ones, stating that anything else is garbage. I'm not shooting full lenght movies or taking the next prize winning wildlife photo with my phone.

My current personal phone is a Blackview BV5300+. It cost me less than 150€ and it gets the job done. Before that, I had an Oukitel WP8 Pro, another excelent phone, for less than 175€. Loaded with FOSS applications, they go the extra lenght, something I fear I won't be able to do as easily with Google twisting the screws on Android. It is said you spend a little more to save a little more but this isn't the case. I only need a basic phone and the hability to keep loading the applications I want and use on it.

parent

hideshow 1 child comment

[–] hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 1 point 2 weeks ago*

Idk. All I got is two people who said they own a Pixel 8/9. But I don't think that's Lemmy's obsession with expensive phones... It's more due to the amount of computer nerds here. A Google Pixel combined with GrapheneOS used to be popular amongst that kind of people. Because it was one of the select few options to get rid of a good amount of all the spying and tracking by Google. In the future we'll get the cooperation with Motorola. Maybe that's going to provide us with more options. But they said "high-end smartphones" so it probably means just more expensive phones.

You do you. Just pick whatever phone satisfies your requirements and you'll be fine. I usually pay something like 250-330€ for my phones and they last me about 5 years. I think that's an acceptable price. But I wouldn't pay that much for an additional phone, either.

(And by the way, a flagship phone is like 1000 bucks these days. Crazy pile of money for something like a phone, if you ask me.)

parent

[–] LeighWeighTacoma@lemmy.world 9 points 2 weeks ago

My work provides me a phone. If yours doesn't and you need one, keeping 2 separate phones would be ideal. I'm not sure if your work requires any IT access on your phone but, I refuse to allow a company to have remote control of my personal phone.

My personal phone is a pixel 8 with Graphene OS. I use sandboxed Google play with an gmail specifically for my phone. In a private space I have my gmail that has my Google drive that I still need occasional access to. Otherwise almost everything else is FOSS.

[–] artyom@piefed.social 3 points 2 weeks ago (8 children)

If you need your phone to do your work, the company needs to supply it to you.

hideshow 8 child comments

[–] qyron@sopuli.xyz [S] 1 point 2 weeks ago (7 children)

Oh, the stories I could tell you.

parent

hideshow 7 child comments

[–] artyom@piefed.social -1 points 2 weeks ago (6 children)

I can tell you one as well.

parent

hideshow 6 child comments

[–] qyron@sopuli.xyz [S] 1 point 2 weeks ago (5 children)

Go on, then. Now you got me curious.

parent

hideshow 5 child comments

[–] artyom@piefed.social 2 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

Not really very interesting. Got new job. On 1st day of job they tell me I have to download a bunch of apps. I said my phone is Degoogled and their apps won't run on my phone so they'll have to get me another one. And they did.

parent

hideshow 4 child comments

[–] qyron@sopuli.xyz [S] 1 point 2 weeks ago* (3 children)

Where I currently work they aren't the worst but they don't give phones easily to employees.

I've had one but the thing - and I nearly coddled it - simply malfunctioned and it took nearly three months to be replaced. Then we all had our phones recalled in order to have the service provider renew the fleet; the brass got theirs quickly enough but not the grunts.

I regularly have to check aerial photos and read documents and maps when I'm working. My coworker gladly uses his phone for work but I refuse. I will not mix private life and work. Hence my option to get a cheap phone. The company can give me the SIM and pay the bill but I control what phone I use.

parent

hideshow 3 child comments

[–] lka1988@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 point 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (2 children)

The company can give me the SIM and pay the bill but I control what phone I use.

Is it a monthly stipend? If so, and it's enough to pay for a decent plan, then IMO that is a fair alternative.

I wholly agree with you about not using personal devices for work. I've had a work-issued phone for almost 15 years in varying forms. I set up an automation to turn on DND mode 5 minutes after my shift ends.

What I would do is find an older iPhone, like a 15 or something, and use that for your work device. My current work device is an iPhone 17e, and I just got it like a month ago from our IT dept to replace my aging-but-still-perfectly-functional iPhone 12.

parent

hideshow 2 child comments

[–] qyron@sopuli.xyz [S] 1 point 2 weeks ago (1 child)

The company has a standing contract with am operator and they pay in bulk several numbers; we don't get an added value to our paychecks.

parent

hideshow 1 child comment

[–] lka1988@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 point 2 weeks ago

Even better. You supply the phone, they pay for the plan. No more thought involved.

parent

[–] Squizzy@lemmy.world 1 point 1 week ago

Fyi whatsapp have had to open up their enviornment have two alternate distinct apps that you can use whatsapp through currently. Like messaging people on whatsapp but you use signal.

Get graphene and use a microG sub profile to facilitate work.