I would probably try to tune the phone myself, from a pine or some unix like phone.
I would not buy anything privacy focused as a mobile phone or service, because of the risk of a backdoor. There have been so many cases like that (phantom secure, sky global, encrochat, anom)
I used a pine phone for a few months when it first came out. It was a struggle in the state it was in at the time -- it could do light browsing and IM, but ironically the patchy bits were phone calls and the camera. Plus, if the Linux app you wanted to use didn't have a UI optimized for mobile it was very hit and miss.
Since then, the Pinephone Pro has launched. Haven't tried it but will give it a go, if only just to support the best stab so far at a phone on mainline Linux
I want a "linux blackberry" semi-dumb phone. That is....a device that does the following:
SMS / IM
Phone calls
Basic camera
Very long battery life (my original blackberry could go 3 days easy on a charge)
I don't want anything else....I feel this market was a missed opportunity by the likes of Ubuntu / etc. They naively have been trying to complete feature for feature against newest iOS / Android, when in fact they should have instead focused on "minimally viable product".
Totally! That phone is much needed, one that may not have it all but that could go fast and stable for the basic functionality. One that could get all its libraries installed by the user. Then the user will compile all the apps himself. Like in a raspberry pi. With an open source vpn as an opt in for all types of communications (calls, sms, internet) then there would be no one put pressure on to reveal or implement a backdoor.
There is also the “hiding in plain sight” strategy.
I remember reading an article about browser privacy and how a default chrome install with no extensions or anything is the most “invisible” in terms of fingerprinting lol
Regardless of the setup, for me the most important thing is to depend on your phone as little as possible. That means:
Reducing usage (both in time duration and usage types)
No useless apps: don't really use it? Uninstall it. I have no problem installing an app, using it for whatever I need and uninstalling it.
Prefer webpages to apps. When a company or service provider tries to convince you to install their useless app, think to yourself: can't this be just a website? Most of the time, the answer is yes, and in fact there are plenty of "apps" that can be accessed through your web browser including twitter and uber.
defer most of your electronic needs to a device that you actually own and control like your Linux machine
The irony is that the best option is to buy pixel google phones. Why ? Because there is no added code to make work android on other hardware supplier (Samsung etc whatever you want)
That allows you to flash privacy focused os that don't use Google services which are privacy nightmares :
Pixel + Graphene seems like a great idea....however I'm not sure how much faith I have that there isn't a large amount of backdoors built into the silicon....