It is just Android minus the nosy bits, it works just fine. I've used AOSP-derived distributions since 2011 and never felt I was missing out on anything, au contraire. Longer battery life, no ads, no spying other than through the radio firmware (which is part of all devices from all manufacturers using all operating systems [1]), no nonsense.

[1] I seem to remember that RIM (of Blackberry fame) made devices which used combined radio and systems firmware so those would be an exception to this rule

It's all I've ever used. I think it works great but I think your experience will depend heavily on your expectations.

I don't use any proprietary apps and only install them from fdroid or build them myself.

But if you do, you're going to have a different experience. Let's say you want to run Whatsapp. From what I can tell you basically have three options:

1) Install google apps.

When you install your rom you will also download a gapps bundle and install it. This will be a very vanilla android experience but with the ability to uninstall whatever you want, root, etc. You can open the play store and install Whatsapp. Everything should work OOTB. However you're running all of the google service including google play services, so privacy-wise this is not significantly different than stock android.

2) Install microg

When you install your rom you can also install microg. This is an install time option in Calyxos. Microg replaces many of the google apis. You can install Whatsapp through Aurora store, which can install apps from the play store. Whatsapp will use the microg FCM implementation. FCM is google's notification service. It allows your phone to make a single persistent connection to receive notifications, allowing for better battery efficiency b/c you don't have many apps activating the radio. FCM just communicates that an app has a notification, it doesn't carry the contents of the message. Unlike play services, microg registers the FCM connection with an anonymous.

So google knows your device is running whatsapp and when you get notifications, but not what they are.

3) No gapps / no microg

Don't do either of the above. You won't get push notifications with whatsapp. Many free/libre apps have alternative notification schemes involving separate persistent connections. This is less power efficient but works without involving google. I use Signal and Element like this and my battery still lasts >24 hours.

Several developments

I use it as a daily driver for 2+ years now (LineageOS without gapps, or even microg). I use the f-droid store for my app needs, and the occasional proprietary app I download with Aurora store, or use whichever APK hosting site seems the least shady. I sometimes use MS Teams - complains on each start about needing the G framework, but works just fine regardless. Or, I played another game that had in game purchase, and it worked fine until I opened the in-game store, when it froze. Otherwise perfectly playable.

From the f-droid store I use a ton of apps, games, mostly utilities. For navigation I like Organic Maps.

On device hash generation is 'scanning local files.' The fact that this process is only initiated by being flagged to being uploaded to iCloud doesn't change the fact that it is being done on-device, and increases the capacity for surveillance significantly.

> which excludes Google APIs completely

lineageos and calyxos should as well, unless you opt-in. I guess they would still use the google captive portal detection? Is that what you're referring to?

> and is additionally hardened down to its memory allocation implementation

That's really interesting. Do you use GrapheneOS? Is it easy to lock the bootloader on Pixel devices?

The Google Pixel phones are the easiest to run alternative Android roms on because Google provides the sources and allow you to unlock the bootloader.

They also pay Qualcomm more so you can re-lock the bootloader.

The Pinephone is great but it's most appropriate for developers interested in linux phones at this time.