1. Element or SMS.
2. …
3. …
4. Yeah, manually. Osmand, Organic Maps (both have public transport now)
5. No
6. OnePlus line sucks in hardware (digitizer & fingerprint are shit, no jack or SD). Get something else.

edit: fuck auto-ordering lists.

Google Pixel 8a is probably the best and most cost effective at the moment and flash GrapheneOS. Typicically a recent “a” series phone is a good choice. Google now supports them for 7 years from release. Divide price by remaining support to get annual cost estimate.

Regarding mobile phone choice you could always go all the way and get dumb phone. :D

What do you usually use and offer when people ask you for contact?

Ask your family/partner/friends to use signal, it is idiot proof enough for most people. You can provide your email and phone number for acquaintances who you don’t speak with enough to justify installing signal.

I’m not in any student groups, but you can make a dummy Facebook account and only login using their website from behind a VPN.

Banking app I used has blocked me from app after few years of using it when they realized I have it from “unofficial” source - Aurora store.

Just use their website and carry a physical credit card in the back of your phone case.

What’s your way of transport after having few beers in pub? Do you use taxi via calling it directly or use that weird Telegram taxi addon?

We literally just drive drunk here. Is public transit an option? Again, you can sandbox these apps or use their respective websites.

Is there a way to convert google map pins to open source solutions and vice versa? What’s your recommended software for directions? What do you use for driving?

Organic maps is good if you have an address and only need directions. If you need complete records of where local businesses are and traffic info, google maps is your only option. I’d set it up in a sandboxes container though, at the very least.

Do you track fitness activities?

No, and I’d argue that nobody other than serious athletes need to. That being said, you can get a tracker that does not connect to your phone or the internet.

Do you have good phone recommendations? I know that GrapheneOS+Pixel is one, but what about others?

Graphene+pixel is head and shoulders the best option, especially in places like the US where you have to worry about illegal searches. Privacy requires security. That being said, there are alternatives if you cannot afford a new device: https://eylenburg.github.io/android_comparison.htm

For communication I just tell them I have signal or other close apps or they can text me. Rather have regular texts than Messenger.

Banking apps works fine for me even if they complain about the lack of google.

I use Organicmaps but I really wish they could make it so it could accept gmap links without me having to use another app as a medium.

I’m trying to find the best apps for fitness. I have a wear watch with Fitbit that I use, but I would like to integrate the Fitbit stats with a calorie tracker and an exercise app.
Right now I have all apps on a separate profile on my GrapheneOS. Except Waistline but that can’t integrate, so I’m looking for alternatives.

As you and others have said, privacy is just much harder on mobile than on desktop. Mobile hardware and software is generally closed-source and locked down. On a tiny screen web apps are also at a genuine UX disadvantage to native apps, which offer much weaker privacy protection.

The pragmatic not-quite solution is to do roughly what you’re doing already. NB: maps are actually pretty easy - many people find that OsmAnd and Organic Maps are superior to the corporate options.

But the optimal solution is to move some of your computing back to desktop, i.e. probably to a laptop. This way you get more control over the hardware and software. And it’s already some kind of privacy win just because the thing is not in your pocket all day. It’s really not that hard and you might even find you appreciate the change! I did.

IMO the big sticking points are the messengers and transport tools - these are where you get genuine convenience from corporate spyware in your pocket. For all the rest, I’m not convinced, personally. For mapping and fitness etc, there are F-Droid apps which work great offline. For everything else including banking, just do it in your web browser while seated comfortably at home. As far as I know, no bank except Revolut insists that you use its app. If you want to do NFC payments, that may require a locked-down OS but not an app and it can be done in airplane mode (I do it regularly).

There are ways to get better privacy on mobile but nothing approaches the benefits of just using your mobile less and your laptop more.

I only have a smartphone because a job gave me a monthly stipend to have it in the past and I don’t currently have a plan for it. that being said I am deeply in bed with google. I actually am more concerned with the fact that google could just drop all the services one day than the privacy so I am and advocate for government email (not as much in the last week or so) that would be guaranteed to not go away and allow for in person support maybe run by the post office (and run with similar independence and rights) or at the state level the secretary of state. Maybe both. Would it be my main social email? No, but I could rely on its stability. Most people are aghast at this but I really don’t get how having some corporation, no matter how well their current safeguards are, is better than a government one run similarly.

The alternative is a discord server, which in privacy terms is questionable choice too.

I use a Discord-Matrix bridge to communicate with some groups that are only on Discord. Of course it still all goes over Discord’s servers so the messaging itself isn’t private, but you at least don’t have to use Discord’s proprietary client, and the only data Discord will have is the data you send it from the Matrix bridge (plus identifying data on the Matrix server you’re using).

What do you usually use and offer when people ask you for contact?

Signal as a preference—not because I think it’s the best chat app (I dislike its centralised nature; not being able to self-host is a near-on dealbreaker if not for the fact that everyone I know is on Signal; and it requiring a phone number to sign up is also bad for privacy)—but because it’s the one the most people have. All my friends are on it luckily, by nature of my friends largely being communists or young queer people (or both). I also offer SMS and email. If someone asks a pretty open-ended “how can I contact you”, I might also mention Matrix and Simplex as options in case they have those.

Do you use ba[n]king apps?

No, and I really don’t understand why people do unless your bank requires it and there isn’t another appropriate bank that doesn’t require it. I’ve tried my bank’s app (which works fine on GOS luckily) and found it didn’t offer anything the web UI didn’t offer, other than the option to use the app as 2FA for banking stuff, but I just get SMS 2FA from my bank.

What’s your way of transport after having few beers in pub? Do you use taxi via calling it directly or use that weird Telegram taxi addon?

I don’t use taxis; I use public transport. But if I had to get a taxi, I would probably either use my GPlay profile on my GOS phone to install Uber, or I would probably just ring a taxi company over the phone.

Is there a way to convert google map pins to open source solutions and vice versa?

I’m not aware of a way. I’ve just told people to either give me an address or coordinates, because I don’t have google maps.

What’s your recommended software for directions? What do you use for driving?

Organic Maps has been my go-to for a while. It’s wonderful. Works well for driving too. I use RHVoice for text-to-speech, which iirc was recommended to me by a fellow lemming.

I don’t track fitness activities, and I use GOS+Pixel.

1. At school lots of students use Discord. So I just use Discord along with them. I don’t give Discord phone number and I expect all metadata, DMs, and server messages to be publicly available.

2. I don’t use a banking app, even though it does work on my phone (graphene)

3. I don’t use taxi/transport app so I actually haven’t come across this yet. I guess I could try calling an old fashioned taxi.

4. Man, this is a toughie. I’ve tried Osmand, Organic Maps, and Magic Earth. None of them work flawlessly. Recently I’ve succumbed to using Waze with no account.

5. I don’t, I kinda just try to be as healthy as possible. Although, if I had to, I would look into Garmin watches. I’m not sure about privacy but it seems they’re one of the few that don’t require a subscription.

6. Graphene is the best choice for privacy and security. You could try out Linux phones but it’s very developmental. Calyx is an option but it’s not security focused.

My compromise is to just to minimize big tech tracking.

I mean, 90% of data is because people use corporate social media with real names and real IPs. I don’t use “social media” like everyone else, and that is just cutting away 90% of mass surveillance. I only occasionally look at reddit over VPN (without loggining in and never posting anything), I use Lemmy over Tor. Use Fennec (aka: firefox, but from F-Droid) + uBlock Origin + VPN, for everything else (like watching youtube videos)

I usually only have Fennec and Tor (amongst a few other things) through VPN, everything else is going to clearnet. My though is, if I put the entire traffic over VPN, Google would see my VPN IP attached to my device serial number.

If there is some university thing, I’d just begrudgingly use it. Use browser if possible, but if app is required, probably put it in a “work profile” (the Shelter app from F-Droid can do that) to separate it from everything else, and prevent any such app from seeing my files. Also give as few permissions as possible. And never installing any “profiles” or “certificates” they give you for access to their wifi. They should have a “guest wifi” without such requirements so just use that instead. (Or get a second phone with the “Share Wifi Connection” ability and use that as your “router” and connect your main phone to it.) Or just use mobile data if you can afford it.

For banking, put the app in the “work profile” or use browser if whatever you need to do doen’t require the app.

For uber/lyft/taxi, probably use the browser, or if that doesn’t work, again, put the app in work profile, don’t give permissions until I’m ready to use it, and its getting deleted the moment my ride is done.

For maps, unfortunately I still have to use Google Maps, because I value being alive and not getting lost in some sketchy neighborhood over the privacy… 😓

I feel like Graphene OS is too much of a hassle for me, I’ll have to get a Pixel, which does not have a microSD slot, and that’s a dealbreaker for me.

1. I’m a minimalist, I only use Signal to make others switch to it. Also use Session but its rare.
2. I use banking. Still works on GrapheneOS. Just that it pops up that it might not work as it always scans for google play store.
3. Luckily for me, I have a car. I don’t need other transports.
4. I use OSMand. Predownload a map and you don’t need an internet connection to use it. If you need directions while driving, separate it from your phone and use a GPS in your car or buy an external GPS.
5. No, no tracking of fitness
6. Never used, but look into Pine64. Have hardware switches. Careful as some people have waited like a year, two or three to get their phone. Waiting time seems to be their bottleneck.

Some food for thought:

Absence of information is its own sort of information. You may find it worthwhile in your search for an acceptable compromise to place some kind of value on “looking normal”.

For which ROM to use, I believe any ROM based on AOSP will suffice because even that will fully eliminate all Google tracking, I think LineageOS is the worst one. I do recommend Pixel since you can lock the bootloader after flashing it. You could try CalyxOS.

For privacy, I only use phone for communication, I don’t use cell data service so no internet when I’m outside, no messaging, until I connect to wi-fi again. In F-Droid I turn off all anti-features in settings, and everything I install is from F-Droid. No social media and no Aurora store to use Play Store

4. osm2gmaps (osm -> gmaps) and/or Geo Share (gmaps -> osm)

I had very similar experiences around 2015. Before that, it was reasonably easy to use a fully FOSS system, but things have gotten worse over the years. Sure, there’s more FOSS for mobile hardware than ever before, but the world surrounding the phone has moved in the exact opposite direction. Being compatible with the world around you is the problem here.

Back then, I couldn’t find a satisfactory solution. One extreme is to go full on FOSS, and cut at least 50% of the entire world from your life, while the other is to sacrifice your privacy at altar of corporate greed. Between the two there are numerous dissatisfying compromises, and you need to do some soul searching to figure out where you want to draw the line.