Yes and this is indeed the target population of GrapheneOS, people with extremely high security needs. And that’s great. But my point is that such efforts come with compromises and in the case of GrapheneOS it has led to a reduced level of user friendliness for regular normal users. Which is fine, it’s all just choices. Because of those choices, GrapheneOS is not the best option in terms of deGoogling, others are better. Again this ok, you can never do everything at the same time

Most of this is false and/outdated information. CalyxOS indeed is temporarily suspended, but all of these OS that you mention and microG deserve praise for everything they do to help people be more private, deGoogle and use open source software imo

Well you are tied to Play Services if you want to run most apps, which all require Play Services to some degree. I’m not saying you can’t use GrapheneOS without Play Services, of course you can, just like AOSP, your phone just won’t run most apps (well). My points remains: GrapheneOS only supports Google Play Services whole there is a great non-Google alternative available + they only support Google devices when there is a whole marketplace full of other devices. In the area of deGoogling they do poorly

This is important because microG contains all sorts of cool stuff that will help break Google’s monopoly over the Android ecosystem at some point, like UnifiedPush, an alternative to Google’s push notification system. That’s why they are better. By offering support for Google Play Services but not microG, the monopoly of Google and the continued use of Play Services is supported, which imo it should not be

What I mean is quite clearly explained in my post above… GrapheneOS only offers Play Store integration, not microG, while microG is a great Google alternative for Play Services. So basically, with GrapheneOS you’re not only tied to a Google device, but also to Google Play Services, all 30 or something of them. How is that being deGoogled? As I said, for deGoogling there are better options: those that don’t use Google Play Services but microG (most other custom Roms) and those that support other devices than Google Pixels

I appreciate and applaud your are trying to get away from Big Tech, but… GrapheneOS isn’t really deGoogled—honestly, this post fits better in a privacy or security sub, not the deGoogle one, if you ask me. Most apps on Android today need at least something from Play Services to work. Yeah, GrapheneOS doesn’t come with Play Services pre-installed, but they make it super easy to add, and most importantly: they don’t even support microG, which is the great open-source, deGoogled alternative for Play Services. Oh, and then there is the fact you can literallt only run GrapheneOS on Google Pixels right now… If you’re serious about ditching Google, CalyxOS, /e/OS, or LineageOS are way better options imo

OK it sounds like we agree. But I do prefer custom roms that use microG, it is a great opensource alternative to Play Services. This is precisely what is needed to break open the Android market: alternatives to Google’s monopolistic software

So it is true, and not a lie, because as you say yourself “the average person probably needs those things mentioned” Quite a thing to call someone a liar and to then literally agree with them

But you’re saying it yourself, notifications won’t work, banking apps won’t work, and I know there are other examples like the Google location API, so probably maps apps, and I’m sure I’m forgetting many others