p>Almost all smartphones lock you into expensive, pretty prisons. They look great, but you can’t repair them, and they watch your every move. But now there’s the Fairphone 3, which lets you fix the hardware yourself, paired up with the privacy-first Android /e/OS operating system.
Besides being repairable by any handy person, the Fairphone uses ethically sourced materials and is built by well-paid workers, Many smartphones, such as the Apple iPhone, are built by poorly paid temporary workers.
The Android-based /e/ operating system and smartphones put privacy first. It’s based on LineageOS. This is an Android-based operating system, which is descended from the failed CyanogenMod Android fork. This version also blends in features from the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) 7, 8, and 9 source-code trees.
In the /e/OS, all Google services have been removed and replaced with MicroG services. MicroG replaces Google’s libraries with purely open-source implementations without hooks to Google’s services. This includes libraries and apps that provide Google Play, Maps, Geolocation, and Messaging services for Android applications when they need them.
Put them together, and you get the first privacy-conscious, sustainable smartphone. This pairing springs from the Fairview community. They were asked what their preferred alternative OS was for the Fairphone 3, and they voted for /e/OS.