So recently bought the Pixel 8 with my previous carrier being Verizon and was going to put Grapheneos on it but I had no idea that Verizon locks the boot loaders of their devices even though google does not. What are some things I can do to de google the device or make it more private like Grapheneos would. Or am I out of luck. Thanks

  •  paradox2011   ( @paradox2011@lemmy.ml ) 
    4•8 months ago

    I hear you man. That exact thing happened to me back with the Pixel 2.

    You know, I’ve heard of people having success getting the carriers to remove the lock on the bootloader sometimes. It may be worth calling Verizon’s support line and asking them to do it.

    Here is a good debloater that should allow you to remove some of the cruft from Google. It utilizes Shizuku which is a fantastic tool for accomplishing stuff without rooting your phone. I know I’ve seen debloating guides on YouTube that walk you through the stuff you can get rid of.

    Something else that could really help is using a DNS blocking service to filter out requests to ad/tracking domains. I use NextDNS right now because it has some pretty comprehensive filters that are very easy to setup. Here’s a video that goes over setting it up. Pi-Hole or Adguard are self-hosted options, I used Pi-Hole for awhile and liked it, but switched in order to simplify my digital life a bit.

    Edit: also, here is a guide from a reputable privacy site that covers a more technical approach to degoogling stock android. You can do a lot more than you might think.