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I'm wondering whether we will eventually get a trustworthy western corporation with their own version of Android that doesn't snoop so much. I have an old Android phone that my kid uses and that thing lasts almost a week on a single charge of the 1800 mAh battery.

If you specifically require *Android* :

- using the opensource LineageOS
- and using either F-Droid (specifically for opensource software) or/and Aptoide (multiple 3rd party repositories) to obtain 3rd party apps.
- and optionnally installing MicroG as an alternative implementation if any of your must-have apps requires a library that is normally provided by Google (And optionnally
(- and optionnally Yalp store if you desperately need apps from Play store).

this are the ways to proceed to obtain an Android that doesn't snoop too much.

If you aren't married to Android specifically:

  - look at the upcoming Librem 5 by Purism. It's exactly designed with the intent of "a phone that doesn't snoop too much on the kids", being built from the ground up for that (with physical kill-switched to block the separate USB-connected modem, etc.)

- or, if you want something that you can install today, look at Sailfish OS, a full blown GNU/Linux by the guys who used to work on Maemo/Meego at Nokia (before the whole Elop+Microsoft fiasco), which is installable on select few devices (Jolla sells licensed version to install on a couple of Sony devices. In the forum you can find community made opensource version for other phone)
( ^- I use that, on Sony Xperia smartphones)

- or check Ubuntu Touch, nowadays handled by UBPort now that Cannonical has dropped the ball.

Note that is you have a couple of android apps that you need, the commercial version of Sailfish offers an app compatibility layer (and refer to MicroG above and in the forum if your apps insist on Google libraries).

and Purism is considering making an app compatibility layer too (again, use MicroG for apps that require Google libraries).

For *maps* specifically, check out "OSM Scout Server" (installing your own local open-street map server on your phone) and "Pure Maps" (a nice non-google map application that can optionnally fetch maps from OSM Scout Server).
The devs are currently making Sailfish OS version, and they plan to release Librem versions too once that phone hits the market.

I'm using a Nexus 6 on Verizon with the MicroG reroll of LineageOS. Nice phone, not missing Google.

I wiped Google's stock off my Nexus 6 and loaded the Lineage reroll of MicroG.

That belongs to me, thank you very much.

While I am not ready to entirely cut my ties with Google, it is time for some distance.

This month I wiped my Android ROM and loaded microG. This does complicate access to Google services, but I am willing to accept that.

I do have a lifetime Cerberus membership, and I have downloaded their full-featured APK directly, bypassing Google. UBER continues to work without error (and yes, I know UBER is also a privacy nightmare). I have downloaded many other apps from Google Play, most of which work perfectly with the microG compatibility libraries.

Knowledgeable people should act by excising spyware when they can. For Google Mobile Services on my daily driver, it was time.

Plus that âoefruitâ has a different OS and is generally more secure...

How can you assert this? Did you read the source code? (Either yourself, or - if you don't feel competent enoug - had independent experts review it ?)

Currently, the fruit's reputation is entirely based on speculations and deductions and current absence/lower amount of publicly reported security issue.
Guesses can be wrong, reports might be silenced.

Google isn't better yet:
Yes, the base android system itself is actually open-source (see AOSP), but most of the juicy bits live in the "optional" Google Play Services ("optional" meaning that it's required by a horrifyingly large proportion of popular apps, so even if your smartphone can boot android without it, tons of applications will refuse to start) and that service is closed source and heavily controlled and licensed under stringent terms by Google.
You can inspect AOSP's source all you want, that won't prevent Google from raping your privacy as much they want from the closed services.
Though, at least, there are efforts to re-write an open-source alternative to these services.

Currently there aren't that many good alternatives either:

At least Jolla (ex engineers of the Nokia Maemo/Meego team) have written Sailfish, whose base (mer project) is opensource and the interface is mostly written in QML, so even it some bits aren't technically "opensource" from the licensing point of view, at least it passes the "source code readable" part.
(They promised to eventually re-lisence and opensource those bits, but they aren't there yet).
Also, currently no *open-source* Android compatibility layer (and that one is NOT going to get relicensed), so it makes a very small limited choice of available apps.

Also worth mentionning is Purism who are working on their Librem 5 smartphone, supposedly 100% completely opensource (even open source drivers, no blobs) and a hardware switch controlling a separate cell modem (no modem-functions-as-northbridge craziness as in most Qualcomm chipsets).
But, well, we aren't there yet (still delays in getting the target FressScale iMX8 chipset working), and of course most of mainstream will complain that the chip is very outdated and under powered compared to other phone.
They might work some opensource AndBox-based compatibility layer, so together with AOSP (and optionnally microG) there might be possibilities to get some opensource auditable stack working there.

And will Google take legal action?

I will be wiping Google from my phone next month with MicroG. They have worn out their welcome.

Why won't you pay for apps, is it a matter of principle?

Principle and security.

I won't pay for apps because there's no fucking way I'm ever putting a credit card number or any other banking-related information anywhere near a device as insecure as a phone or a tablet. My phone will never have any ability to spend my money or incur debt.

And IDGAF if there's some procedure to get my money back in case of fraud or theft - I don't want to spend days, weeks, or months arguing with customer service drones to get my money back, the time and hassle and annoyance will never and CAN never be compensated for.

Ditto for Microsoft Windows. I'd never log in to my bank or paypal or buy anything on ebay or any other web site from a Windows machine. I have a Win 7 machine for steam (it's a gaming "console" used for games and nothing else, sometimes via my KVM switch and sometimes via in-home streaming to my main linux desktop machine), to play games that won't run on Linux or WINE. I've never bought one game via the Win7 box, and never will, I buy them in a browser on my Linux box.

Also, the vast majority of apps (free or not) are shit - either worthless shit, or less-than-worthless shit with malware and spyware. Out of the hundreds of thousands of android apps, probably only a few hundred at most aren't shit. Any most of those are available on F-Droid anyway.

If you feel there are no apps worth even a cent, you're probably not looking hard enough. Or at all.

I don't feel any particular need to look. There's nothing I feel is missing from my phone or my tablet. There's nothing I want it to do that it doesn't already do.

There's probably some way to buy android apps in a browser on my desktop, like I do for steam. I've never cared enough to find out. And it would require me to log in to google in my PC browser and on my phone/tablet (one of my reasons for using microg is so that I don't have to do that) meaning that whatever app I bought would cost me more than just a few bucks, it would cost me my privacy too.

- - - - - - - - -

Any new android device I buy immediately gets unlocked and the stock OS replaced with some AOSP variant plus https://microg.org/ (because GAPPS is spyware and comes with a shitload of uninstallable crap like youtube and google maps and pinyin & hindi keyboards), and F-Droid. For a handful of free apps that are only on google play store, I use YALP.

(Unfortunately, Lineage doesn't enable signature spoofing, which is required by microg, so it typically isn't my first choice unless there's an unofficial version of Lineage for that particular device which enables it)

I'll never own an Apple phone or tablet because they don't allow that option.

Really? I thought you only got access to the sevices if you pay

Nope. Google theoretically prohibits users from installing gapps on their devices, but in practice does nothing to prevent it.

The software is simply an access mechanism to the services.

It's a lot more than that. You can supposedly sub out Google's software, though, using MicroG.

It really is time to upgrade my phone to MicroG, and put an end to this.

https://lineage.microg.org/

there is no legal way to download the Google Play Store and there is no legal way to download the google apps outside the Play Store.

There no legal ways to download those, yes.
There's a bout a gazillion of (illegal under US law) ways to download those.
Those ways are illegal in the US, but are very unlikely to be illegal in any country (like China) that doesn't give much fucks about anything intellectual-property-related (like copyrights, in this case).

An URL that links to some Chinese website hosting APKs for the above software and sideloads them is all about it takes.

Some custom ROMs ship with the google apps, which is illegal, but Google turns a blind eye on this practice. This will not be the case with ZTE.

But unlike the custom ROMs, ZTE's solution could be hosted outside of any legal reach from google.
A sideloadable APK hosted on a service located in a jurisdiction where Google is unable to file a complaint is all it takes.

And that's completely ignoring legal alternatives like Micro G - an opensource re-implementation of the services that Google provides in closed blobs. (And all the various APK downloaders that could then be used to side-load apps that normally are only hosted on Google Play)
(But let's be serious, ZTE is more likely to take the pirate route and provide an "otherwise considered illegal in the US" installation option of the real Google deal, than to take the route of financially support microG developers and maintain legally compatible services)

Or, you could not install them at all, if you can do without

- network localization services, which means that you can only use the GPS for the positioning

- Google Cloud Messaging, so you won't receive any push notification for any app that relies on it

- the Maps API, which means that any app that uses Google Maps through the Maps API will probably crash

See the microg FAQ for more info.

LineageOS has already been forked.

Apart from f-droid, to do anything terribly useful with Android it relies on Google services. MicroG re-implements those.

https://lineage.microg.org/