thinking about paying $500 for a pixel 6 to nuke it and install either lineage or graphene. Main reasons: security, I want to degoogle, hate bloatware, I want complete freedom to choose what apps I want on my device, smartphones are notoriously known for their short support cycles (to me 4 years is not enough).
what I don’t know is why graphene developers have chosen proprietary hardware from what has to be one of the most foss unfriendly companies
Bought my pixel 6 directly from google, for the sole purpose of using graphene. No issues whatsoever. I only have one complaint, I can’t use luckypatcher, but most apps work fine. The only ones that give me problems are a small handful of shitty mobile games I wouldn’t have even installed if someone didn’t want to get the refer-a-friend bonuses. Don’t care that they don’t work, at least my bank all is fine.
When you install graphene, you literally just have five apps and a handful of system apps that are built into android. (I think there were 20 when stock pixel had over 50, and a stock Samsung has 200+)
but you can still install libraries like f-droid or droid-ify, right?
Yes, you just might need to download the apk for them as there may be no app store installed.