6.0 KiB
Android deg00gling with lineageos
More than a hundred devices are supported by LineageOS including old ones, you don't need to buy a g00gle's Pixel phone to then degoogle it. 😲
I've been using S3 (i9300) with the release date as May 2012 along with lineageos for almost 10 years. This guide is for HTC One (M8) though, but the process is nearly the same for your model as well. Both devices are still one of the most popular used models according to stats.lineageos, m8's release date is March 2014, check if your phone is supported here, check "Show discontinued devices" if you're okay to run the outdated version.
If you're still having trouble finding your phone, then you can also search the XDA Developers Forum for an "Unofficial" lineageos build that a community member is maintaining. I have been able to support many phones well past their years with the consistent monthly security patching by other community members. Also, the XDA Developers Forum has been around since 2002 and is a trusted source for mobile phone development.
The wiki page is more than enough but it's better to have everything in one place rather than following a lot of external links.
Pre-Requirements
- Enable USB Debugging: Settings -> Developer options, click "Yes" and check if USB Debugging is marked.
- You might need to enable OEM unlock: Setting -> About -> System -> More -> click on Build Number a few times.
- Install
fastboot
andadb
withsudo apt install fastboot adb -y
- Download a custom recovery with TWRP.me, replace
m8
with your model, for example for me it'sdl.twrp.me/m8
.
Download the build file and its hash.
Find yours on download.lineageos.org, remember to hover the mouse over link to see the actual URL.
wget https://mirrorbits.lineageos.org/full/m8/20211203/lineage-17.1-20211203-nightly-m8-signed.zip
sha256sum lineage-17.1-20211203-nightly-m8-signed.zip
wget https://mirrorbits.lineageos.org/full/m8/20211203/lineage-17.1-20211203-nightly-m8-signed.zip?sha256
cat lineage-17.1-20211203-nightly-m8-signed.zip\?sha256
Get unlock bootloader token
Only for HTC devices! You might want to skip this section! 😰
- Go to htcdev.com/bootloader, choose your device or select "All Other Supported Models"
- Register on their website, download and
unzip fastboot-linux.zip
. - Power off the device, then press
Volume Down
+Power
. - Get your token with
sudo chmod +x fastboot
and thenfastboot oem get_identifier_token
- Remove all
(bootloader)
strings, with the the space after(bootloader)
. It should look like this:
<<<< Identifier Token Start >>>>
...
85A67172B8004AACF1585CC87C724F17
624915F26A53E4C1C023ACA2E186B28B
2983FB1F050F19CBA419F60B14EE2FC5
C8BDD07B189D49109D33BF486A152C73
...
...
...
<<<<< Identifier Token End >>>>>
- Paste your token on htcdev.com/bootloader/unlock-instructions/page-2
- You will get
Unlock_code.bin
via e-mail. - Run
fastboot flash unlocktoken Unlock_code.bin
- On your phone select "Yes", and you finally unlocked the bootloader.
Install LineageOS
- Run
adb reboot bootloader
, once the device is in fastboot mode runfastboot flash recovery <recovery_filename>.img
- Power off your device, hold
Volume Down
+Power
, select "RECOVERY". - Tap
Wipe
, thenFormat Data
. - Go back to select
Advanced Wipe
, selectCache
andSystem
, thenSwipe to Wipe
. - Go back to select
Advanced
, thenADB Sideload
. - On the host machine, run
adb sideload filename.zip.
- Once you have installed everything successfully, run
adb reboot
.
Install F-Droid & SilentDragonAndroid
F-Droid is an installable catalogue of FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) applications for the Android platform. The client makes it easy to browse, install, and keep track of updates on your device.
It is very easy to install both:
- Download from f-droid.org/F-Droid.apk, remember to hover the mouse over link to see the actual URL.
- To install SDA please follow this link from git.hush.is/jahway603/sda-fdroid on your device and open it with F-Droid.
Install InviZible Pro
InviZible Pro includes the well known modules DNSCrypt, Tor and Purple I2P. These modules are used to achieve maximum security, privacy and ease of use of the Internet. This application will also work without root, so it should work on all Android devices.
Download from the Official F-Droid repo by searching for "InviZible Pro" in your F-Droid app.
Install Fennec F-Droid
Fennec F-Droid is based on the latest Firefox release (codenamed Fenix). It has proprietary bits and telemetry removed, but still connects to various Mozilla and Google services that can track users.
Lineage's/default browser may feel not comfortable to use, one option is to install Firefox for Android or Fennec by searching it on F-Droid.
Install Bromite Chromium browser
Bromite is a Chromium fork with ad blocking and privacy enhancements; take back your browser! The main goal is to provide a no-clutter browsing experience without privacy-invasive features and with the addition of a fast ad-blocking engine. Minimal UI changes are applied to help curbing the idea of “browser as an advertisement platform”. All patches are published under GNU/GPL v3 to enable other open source projects’ usage.
For users who prefer that Chromium flavor of browser, I suggest you check out the Bromite browser by adding the 3rd party FDroid repo which the developers of it maintain and update.