A Month With /e/OS (software review)

★★★★☆ /e/OS is an open-source Android fork based on LineageOS. They replace some of the default apps with their own, add microG for compatibility, and offer a set of cloud services (which I haven’t tried yet) to fill in for Google’s sync capabilities. It can run on a lot of Android devices, including Google’s own Pixel phones. Murena is the retail company that runs the cloud features and sells phones with /e/OS pre-installed. They’re also Fairphone’s only US retailer, which is why it’s running on my Fairphone 4. Fairphone does offer standard Android for their phones, but for now I’m trying to do as much as possible without returning to a full Google system. Apps and Google The App Lounge combines extremely basic access to the Play Store and “Open Source apps”, which I believe is the main F-Droid repository. You can use the Play Store anonymously or log in with a Google account. It’s flaky in that mode (it keeps crashing when I try to look at categories), and it doesn’t display (or let…

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