With the lack of any other viable option, I struggle to see the point of the arguement.

Agreed. The Google implementations are there for folks who absolutely cannot go without certain apps only available from the Play Store. Upon installation, all that's there is the OS with the necessary apps (camera, phone, browser, etc) with the security on these individual apps additionally patched.

With the sandboxing of Google Play and Services AND the option to further house these apps from the Play Store in a separate profile, you have a perfectly working device that the individual user can customise to their needs.

Its a great project and a real asset to the FOSS, privacy and security community against big tech/govt surveillance.

The phone is only as good as how you choose to set it up and use it.

Google then sells your data to data brokers and anyone willing to pay a pretty penny. In the end it doesnt matter if your device is only bleeding out of the Google hole exclusively because everyone else can just buy it off Google (who probably does a better job at deanonymising and aggregating your data.

My gripe with Greenify is its not open sourced amd has a bunch trackers. https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/reports/com.oasisfeng.greenify/latest/

Use Pixel Droid. Download from F-Droid.

Quick question: How does one set up encryption while using the Tor browser for things like searches and regular browsing (research, etc)? Would be useful to know. Appreciate.

I am with you. I do wish we lived in an ideal world and in ideal times.

State-approved "peaceful protest" is not protest. This post is a criticism over the idea of state-approved dissent and isnt about condoning violence.

LINE - just the tip of the iceberg of privacy and security concerns. https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/reports/jp.naver.line.android/latest/

Agreed. May best to get family and close friends on Signal right away. Telegram is horribly unsecure.

If you are reffering to Signal then both app and server are open source. Just that the server is centralised.

For community building, try checking out SimpleX. Its open source and has an interesting take on anonynity. Plus it doesnt require phone numbers to create a user identity.

As for either being censorship resistant, I am unsure how we'll they'd cope. But my guess is they would perform just fine in most scenarios.

Anysoft Keyboard on F-Droid. Lots of button customisation options to cater to individual needs.

G-Board almost definitely logs all keystrokes. Ditch it!