Honestly, Custom ROMs have been in decline of usage since few years.
There are also Other ROMS like Pixel Experience, PixyOS, Havoc, evolutionX, PixelOS, Paranoid, Derpfest, CrDroid and lot more.
The reason for the drop is due to a combination of reasons like better OEM UI, unpublished Kernel code (Chinese OEMs, Mediatek), locked bootloaders and Safetynet issues.
Quarantined google play services on an alternate profile was a big sell for me. I don't use anything google related in my day to day but occasionally I need traffic updates or alternative routes and I'm forced to use google maps. There's a few other exceptions where I very rarely will need to use google play services.
In those situations, I can boot to an alternate profile for each app I need to use, and I know google is unable to harvest the majority of my data.
GrapheneOS has hardened security compared to lineageOS.
LineageOS did some type of takeover on cyanogenmod and I forget the details but I remember the whole situation left a sour taste in my mouth.
Considering the lead developer of GrapheneOS bans anyone from their chat for asking how an Android phone with GrapheneOS compares to a non-android phone, such as a PinePhone or Librem 5, in terms of security, because, according to said developer, PhonePhone and Librem5 are "scam products" and even asking questions about them is "spreading misinformation" and "promotion of fraud", I'd be quite, quite vary of the claims GrapheneOS developers make about its security.
Daaamn sagit (xiaomi mi 6) number 3. Writing this from a sagit with LOS, such a great phone. This is why it's great to have community supported roms, this phone hasn't been updated for many many years and would be close to being unusable if it wasn't for them.
I have this phone since December 2017 and I've had no issue so far to make me change. I've thought many times about upgrading, but it's so smooth, camera with gcam is great and new things like quick charging and 5g are things that I don't really need, so I haven't changed yet. I'm afraid of choosing a device that won't be as good as this one and that it won't last as long.
It's sad that community made Roms are less and less popular, I feel like phones are evolving less each year and Roms are a great way to have more control and extend the lives of your phone.
I'm obstinate as fuck, and I have a downright unhealthy resentment of having software capabilities taken away. As long as there's a single setting or feature that I can get from a custom ROM that I can't get on stock, I will use them.
Many versions ago, Google removed the "hold back button to kill foreground app" functionality, and I'll use LineageOS soley to keep that (but there's plenty of other reasons). The ability to restore useful features that Google and OEMs take away is an absolute necessity for me.
It's almost enjoyable; I get a kick out of telling Google to fuck itself and restoring my device's capabilities.
It's hard to find estimates of android devices, but most reports I found indicate around 3 billion, and this makes us around 0,05%. I expected it to be low, but not like that...
See the calculator some guy made run doom or a barcode scanner at my job.
Android is a fairly good target development platform, it's still getting updates, apps built for older versions of android still work on newer versions, large active tallent pool both perfessionally and hobbyist, absolute metric fuck ton of tutorials. Yeah, if you're making a new product it isn't hard to just make it an android computer and throw am app on there that you make that does the thing.
It's a constant cat and mouse game with Google. You can use Magisk with Zygisk enabled, Shamiko, and Play Integrity Fix (there's also a few other combos that work) to get baking apps to work. I have no issues on my rooted Pixel 8 Pro, but it's always a gamble if Google updates their end and then you get locked out of Google Wallet for a day once you update your fixes (not banking apps).
I had LineageOS on my Nexus 4. Every damn phone I've had since hasn't had any custom ROM available (and one couldn't even be rooted; fuck Samsung). I want it back.
I wish I could install lineage on my s10+ snapdragon. I just got this phone and now I just ordered a pixel to get grapheneos. I was willing to pay this guy on telegram to unlock my phone so I could try to get lineage to work or at least a custom rom, but my bootloader is one update off, I have v6 but he only supports up to v5. I hate ordering new devices when my current ones are still functional. I also am getting rid of my fitbit I also just got and replacing it with the amazon band 5 since it can connect to gadgetbridge. Degoogling is expensive, it shouldn't be this bad just to get privacy. I'm not sure what to do with my devices I am replacing, but I hate that they had to be replaced in the first place. I also switched from google services to proton mail/drive/vpn.
Keep them forever like I do! Just start collecting smartphones because it's better for the environment. I have like 10 of them never going into a landfill. Maybe find people who actually need phones idk.
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