I’ve been looking into moving towards a more privacy friendly OS on my phones; I’ve been deGoogling my phones to the maximum extension I can manage, deactivating stock apps and putting in as much FOSS possible.
But what other options are there out there?
I don’t want to go full out into Linux Phone territory, as I am not tech savvy enough to maintain a phone on that line, and I have two bank and a carrier applications I would like to keep using.
As I write this, Murena and their /e/ OS seems to be a good option, as they have some accessibly priced equipments and the OS itself seems to be a clean(er) Android.
I have an integrated payment system that works directly from my banking apps; without those apps, I’m out of the system, as it depends on push notifications to accept and allow transfers, payments, etc. Another ugly thing happening is the slow but steady shift of banks towards app-only remote access. My day to day bank is somewhat a middle of the ground but they’ve invested heavily into their app, while ignoring their website, that stopped somewhere around 2015. It’s clunky, hard to use and even lacks some options that are only available on the app or at a walk-in location but those are but a few in the entire country. There are already two banks operating in my country that are app only for access.
Another example is my carrier. Their entire support is done through the app. No email, no phone, nothing. Unless I have their app, if I have an issue, I’m locked out. I can switch carrier and avoid this problem but that implies getting worst coverage.
And I wasn’t originally considering it but my government does have an app that concentrates a number of direct services and allows for digital copies of official documents to be available.
Have you tried microG? It’s a foss implementation of play services that supports firebase notifications.