I'm using my "backup" phone (same model, from eBay) to save some of my data and settings before I factory reset my phone to clear out the 15G of "other." I'd like to try avoiding Google products.

Trying Samsung browser on the backup phone, and next to no pages will load. Just white page. Tried mstdn.social. Some news pages will load. Pieces of some pages will load, like the Reddit banner for example.

Obviously it can't be "clear your cache" as it's a new device. Enabled java & cookies.

I am posting fron the "backup" phone, not signed in to Google, but now using Chrome as Samsung wouldn't show any websites.

I wanted to avoid Google products entirely including Chrome but maybe "not signed in" is at least a little better?🤷🏻‍♀️

OH WAIT WAIT WAIT, I think I found them. But GEEZ. What a labyrinth it has been.

And now, no idea which release I'm supposed to download.

No wonder people who are not tech-oriented get sucked into consumer monetized surveillance crap.

It's taking me hours upon hours upon days of exploring, re-inventing the goddamn wheel, and having to teach myself reams of stuff JUST to reach for pieces of a Google-free phone. 😑

But I did it!! I'm in! Got Aurora Store up and running. So that when I restore my phone from THIS phone, I'll have Aurora Store available on it without having to go through more Google crap.

*Link ⬇️ for anyone wanting to go straight to that page (SKIP OVER ads in middle and go to bottom where there are folders. I selected "Release" folder and used uppermost listed apk):

https://auroraoss.com/files

Okay well this sucks to learn, as I was simply trying out the recommended F-Droid: 😥

https://keepandroidopen.org

My phone is refusing to install the downloaded F-Droid apk no matter what I do 🙄

Update: Oh ho ho, you know what. I was accidentally using my soon-to-be reset phone, that is still logged in to Google. Instead of its clone backup, that is NOT logged into Google. Guess what happened when I tried installing it on the Google-less backup clone. That's right, it installed ASAP. 😯

Okay, I now have installed F-Droid, Aurora Store, Firefox, DuckDuckgo, on my restore clone phone (running on wifi).

Both Brave and Vivaldi can't be installed on my phone (presumably too old), and Samsung Browser opens and navigates but doesn't display pages.

I think the only thing left is to grab some bookmarks and pages I frequent. Maybe delete some bulky message threads?

It took me hours to go through all my pages and bookmarks and make sure I grabbed it all (posted some interesting ones on here). Then I had to install Chrome on my desktop  just to get all those bookmarks synced. But now I have imported them to Firefox and can uninstall Chrome again.

But first! Factory reset my phone!
And then Smart Switch the backup clone phone onto it! And then not sign into Google because I have a lot of alternate functions set up to use!!