OpenBoard is no longer maintained. Heliboard is a good alternative.

I think Google Play on Graphene is a good compromise, since at least it does not have root access. Unfortunately it is very crippling to completely avoid Google on Android.

That being said, I heard others are using work profiles to isolate all apps using Google Play from their more private apps. I'm not doing that, but work profiles are nice for ... well work apps.

You can use the aurora store for most of your play store need's.

Every step you take towards a more private digital life is essential. I mean you have to start somewhere right? And the phone is in my opinion the biggest privacy thread out there. I am not on GrapheneOS but I’m considering switching soon.

Aurora store is also pretty cool. You can download from there without a google account.

I just keep Play store installed with all permissions disabled, including network, and use Aurora store instead.

Even if apps you use depend on play store one of the things you can do on GrapheneOS is temporarily disable it and only turn it back on when apps refuse to run, another option is just keeping those apps in a separate work profile.

Sometimes it feels meaningless committing to this whole thing because I'm not perfectly private

every small change matters

Check out Heliboard (also on F-Droid) and follow the instructions to enable gesture typing. I also suggest Futo for on-device voice to text.

What specific apps are you using that you can't deal going away from? Other than some social media or gamr or something. Even then it seems like there are replacements a lot of the time

http://futo.org/keyboard

Been using that for a few days now, I'll never go back to AOSP, gboard, heli, nor anything else. Saw a video of who I think is the head of futo, giving a no fucks given presentation, says he's tired of non google keyboards that make it feel like your typing drunk. Website has a QR code to add the Futo repo to fdroid, ez pz.

Don't forget to change your DNS provider to something such as NextDNS for added benefits

I'd love to try out GrapheneOS (or another OS), but I can't afford a second phone, and there's no way I'm gonna dive head-first into something entirely unfamiliar to me when it's my only method for telephony.

I'm curious why no one recommending FlorisBoard.

I've been using GraoheneOS as my daily driver for months now. I still have issues with things that need Google Localization (car sharing program in my city for example) and I've had a few banking apps complaining when being installed from the Aurora Store.

I miss having my cards on my phone quite a lot.

You can set up multiple user profile and install the play services in only 1 profile if you want to jeep other profile more private

I recommend you use GrapheneOS as your daily driver. There's not really any reason not to. I have been for years and never had trouble.

Look into the user profiles feature to further isolate any play store apps you still use. I have one profile called gshit and thats the only one I install anything non-opensource on from the Aurora store.

This prevents any playstore apps from accessing say photos, contacts, messages, etc on your main profile.

PS. If you don't like the stock launcher either you should check out KISS launcher (minimal mode)