Any one know a good custom rom for Fairphones? Is /e/OS a good option?
Are there downsides that arent realy known?
I have LineageOS installed on my phone. Without the app InviZible Pro from F-Droid, my phone connects to Google servers for connectivity checks, system webview and time adjustments. The disadvantage in terms of privacy of /e/OS would be the default presence of micro g, which is proprietary. In LineageOS it’s not present by default.
PostmarketOS has piqued my interest as the most promising Linux phone OS. I would give it a try if you can put up with an immature system, at least when compared to Android.
The lack of VoLTE in Linux OS phones is a dealbreaker for me, but otherwise, I’ve run pmOS with Posh and it works reasonably well now as of 25.06
Nobody ever mentions Iodé… Running on FP4, way happier than with /e/ or murena
I’m using e/OS on a fairphone 5 and it’s OK. You have to put up with some extra work if you don’t want to rely on Google stuff. Banking apps can be a pain, I can update some apps I installed via Aurora only of I tell Aurora to pretend it’s a pixel instead of a fairphone. Other than that, I got the stuff working I use the most and I’ve never used a lot of the “convenient” stuff like voice assistant or Google drive or whatever so switching to fully degoogled wasn’t as hard as I imagine it would be for someone deeper within Google’s grasps.
I use fairphone 5 with /e/os and echo these comments in the most part, although would go higher than OK to that it works well for me.
All my banking apps (UK based) work through aurora store, which might be luck. I have had difficulty with a few others I slightly miss (mainly Citymapper). I use Foss alternatives on f-droid as much as possible and for others I add a link to their website on my homepage, which mostly works the same but can have features missing (Citymapper has less options).
I did find google maps has better traffic than any other apps so sometimes I use GMaps WV from f-droid to check which route is best, then try to actually learn those routes or use another maps app for navigation.
where there any wiki’s or blogs that showed you how to do this?
Hey eldavi
here are the guides to install e/OS on fairphones
https://doc.e.foundation/devices/FP3/official
https://doc.e.foundation/devices/FP4/official
https://doc.e.foundation/devices/FP5/official
https://doc.e.foundation/devices/FP6/official
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or use the e/OS installer:
Ive not used thos so cannot comment on how good or bad it is.
https://e.foundation/installer/
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or e/OS devices list:
https://doc.e.foundation/devices
I dont use the App Lounge or the e/OS launcher
I remove App Lounge via ADB and install either droid-ify or neostore, then install lawnchair
It a decent custom rom.
OH WOW!!! the murena store gave me the completely wrong impression.
thank you!
glad to be of help
Do you mean the pretending to be a pixel part? Just click on the gear icon in Aurora and you should see an option to do that. You select the device and then Aurora restarts and you can try if the app can be installed afterwards. If not try a different device. I only had one sparkasse app that absolutely refused to be downloaded from anywhere else but Google play. For banking apps in general you’ll find a list of working apps somewhere on the e/os forum.
putting e/os on fairphone 5; murena and the e/os project site implied to me that it only supported fairphone 1 the last time i checked.
They sell the fairphone5 with e/os preinstalled, and there is an official build for fp5 including install guide (which is what I followed, just make sure to use official and not community build as you can’t relock the boot loader with the community versions). https://doc.e.foundation/devices/FP5/install
i must be going crazy; i could have sworn i read a comment yesterday of them only considering supporting fairphone2, must less fairphone5.
Are there downsides that arent realy known?
That is not known.
I have a fairphone 4 with /e/OS. It’s been everything I’ve needed without being spectacular.
A big complaint is the way you get apps. I don’t add apps often, and often I use adb, but the App Lounge is slow af. I predominately use obtanium to get the apk’s directly. It has F-Droid built in, but if that doesn’t work I use F-Droid proper. This splits my apps into 4 separate bins which I absolutely hate.
The camera also sucks. Stabilization, quality of images, low light, images with motion. They are all bad. Luckily for me, I don’t take pictures of people often. This applies to most camera apps. The default camera app has been patched to eliminate some of these problems, but I haven’t applied it. I’ve heard past the fairphone 4, these problems have largely been fixed.
What could be a dealbreaker for some is something I haven’t verified nor use. (If this is important look into it. I don’t want to spread rumors) The voice typing on the default keyboard now has/will have telemetry. Potentially to Google? I understand Murena needs to make money, and it isn’t personally a dealbreaker, but it is opening a door to other privacy violations. Many people in the community see this as unacceptable and once you’ve violated trust, you never get it back. For me, I’ll hang in there until I see a more substantial reason to switch (same as Proton, but leave me alone about that)
Those are all the negatives of the Fairphone 4 and /e/OS I can think of, but there are many other positives that imho outweigh the negatives. And depending on where you are coming from (e.g. google/samsung android or ios), you have to realize that with phones like the fairphone and roms like /e/OS there are large pros, but there are often large cons. Here, I’ll gladly accept those for what I’m getting in return.
LMK if you have other specific concerns. I might have just left them out. There are also ways I better secure my privacy, but you didn’t ask about that 🙃
When CalyxOS starts getting reliable monthly releases again i would recommend it over /e/os but at the moment there isnt much else except for ubuntu touch.
I did prefer CalyxOS over /e/OS (and not only because it has a better name). I’m really disapointed about that situation regarding the OS. I hope it will come soon and stronger
What’s up with CalyxOS? Using it on FP4 right now, based on PrivacyGuides reccomendation.
https://calyxos.org/news/2025/08/01/a-letter-to-our-community/
The founder of the Calyx Institute and the CalyxOS Tech Lead have left the project and this means the signing keys are changing and everyone will have to re install once the new version comes out. Until then you just have to decide whether you are fine with a few months of no system updates. Once the new devs get their first release out you can most likely use the seedvault backup to easily switch.
You should have gotten a critical system notification after the last update which came out a few days ago. Have you not?
In essence any de-googled Android fork is valid (/e/OS, LinageOS…). You can also use any Linux for Mobile, eg. Ubuntu mobile and similar, but there is the problem of compatibility if you need certain Android apps.
Some dont get security updates. Others still share data with google. As I understand it.
Mobile phones are never really secure, but any other than the stock Android is an advance. The worst privacy breaches are the used apps, if they are from Google Play, always check the app permissions in the phone settings, use WiFi only if needed, never store sensitive data in the phone, desactivate localisation/GPS if not needed, usw VPN or at least DNScrypt (InviZible Pro from F-Droid, never from Google Play), check apps with Exodus Privacy, use private chats (Matrix or similar instead of Whatscrap & cia), storing photos in a privacy respecting cloud instead of Google Photos, eg. https://ente.io/, especially always common sense, PEBCAK.
