this post was submitted on 25 Feb 2026
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Privacy
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It is also largely questionable.
/e/OS has MicroG, and that runs as a system service. You can disable most of it, and if you're not using any App that needs Google services, I doubt it really does much.
It is possible to use Graphene without using any Google at all. However... Doing so will break almost every app out there. Anything that needs push notifications, AndroidAuto, a thousands more things. So you end up using Graphene with Sandboxed Google services.
And we get into the debate. Is it better to take the official Google Play Services, which we all consider malicious, and run it in a sandbox, or take an open source private, and trusted implementation (MicroG) and run it as a system service?
It is at the very least largely debatable.
From the official GrapheneOS response to exactly this same debate, it seems that the issue is MicroG's reliance on having signature spoofing enabled. Which is a security hole that can be exploited by anyone, not just MicroG, as it allows anything to masquerade as Google Play Services to an app that wants to use it.
https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/4290-sandboxed-microg/11
Yes, Google Play Services is closed source and contains functionality that would be considered "spying on the user", and "malicious". But that is the same for any closed source app; you can't prove it isn't trying to spy on you or compromise your device. What you can do is rely on the App sandboxing and fine grained permissions control that GrapheneOS allows to disable such functionality if it exists.
Of course, if even having a closed source app on your device is too much, then honestly you wouldn't even be using MicroG as you wouldn't want any apps using Google's proprietary libraries for accessing Firebase or other proprietary services anyways...
So, GrapheneOS offers the most sane approach in my opinion, without opening any security holes. By default the entire OS (not talking about pixel firmware blobs, just the os and kernel drivers) are open source and you can use only open source Apps via Fdroid, Accrescent, direct with Obtainium, etc. But for the average user enabling sandboxed Google play and managing its permissions is the best compromise between security and privacy.
It is best to run GOS or Lineage OS completely Google-free.
It is best from many points of view but, as far as I understand, this community is about providing knowledge and tools, and leaving it up to the individual users to asses their threat modeling and determine the extent of the acceptable compromise?
Edit: in every use of connected technologies there are privacy trade-offs, and privacy may not be the only concern on a user's plate.
The Fairphone mentioned in the opening has the more ethical production and spare parts support, that can be a concern for many users. Ultimately it's for them to decide. Maybe we bore them and they just get a third hand iPhone, which is still largely a privacy improvement over stock Android.
"Best" only in the context of this thread.
If it's only about degoogling, they can very well use /e/OS and remove the network permission from microG. Yes, it's possible.
You can delete MicroG with Android Debloater. You will not be able to do most transactions afterwards.