#+title: Lineage OS helps you degoogle your phone
#+date: <2022-02-10>

Compared to [[https://replicant.us/][Replicant]], [[https://lineageos.org/][Lineage OS]] is not fully free, as it contains
kernel blobs and nonfree drivers.  But if you are using stock android,
switching to Lineage OS will be a massive improvement.

The best part: there will be no more proprietary Google apps and
services spying on you.  No google play, google maps, gmail, chrome,
...  You can ensure that all apps are free software by installing them
from [[https://f-droid.org][F-droid]].

The stock apps that come with Lineage OS are nice too.  There's the
caffeine mode toggle switch in the status bar, which keep the screen
on for 5, 10, 30 minutes, or indefinitely.  I find this feature very
useful when say I need to check the phone while cooking and I don't
want it to go to lock screen.  The bundled browser comes with an
option to have all javascript disabled, fixing the Javascript Trap
with a sledgehammer.  By extension, apps with internal browsers like
[[https://f-droid.org/en/packages/io.github.hidroh.materialistic/][Materialistic Hacker news client]] will also not accidentally execute
any Javascript.

It also seems like the phone battery lasts longer, which could be due
to a more lightweight system.

The only things I'm missing are in the I/O department: glide typing
and a Simplified Chinese input method.  I used the proprietary Google
keyboard on stock android that came with these features, but the input
methods available on F-droid are missing them.  I find myself typing
less after moving to Lineage OS because I can't type as fast as I used
to.