I’ve been interested in switching over to a phone that isn’t a gold mine of my data for random companies etc. I’ve seen stuff for calyx, fair phone, graphene, and Linux phones. I’m curious as to how I would go about switching over. As of right now I use Android and mostly message through signal unless it’s for work and I’m unfortunately on Verizon. Which privacy first smartphones would people recommend for US users and how does it work putting it on a network? Do they go on the regular networks like at&t, sprint, Verizon etc? Or do they have their own or privacy first networks? Sorry if these are dumb questions I’m just interested in switching and figured this would be a good place to find info.
The idea I’m thinking of is some kind of fliphone combined with a separate device for everything else. I haven’t looked too much into it so I can’t guarantee it’s a good idea, and after like 2 minutes of searching I couldn’t find a flipphone that supported hotspotting.
I just got GrapheneOS, and while it’s good I really hate the jumpscare that is the Google logo every time I reboot (since it’s exclusive to Google Pixels).