Yeah, I think you can’t play online games with kernel-level anticheat on your PC… I remember trying to get valorant to work before I realized that :\ I guess it was easier for me as i didn’t use to play many multiplayer games other than valorant anyway… So, I guess we just have to wait for developers to support Linux.

I understand the Android/Google Services part, but you wouldn’t be losing much if anything with a just-works Linux distro. I switched to Linux from Windows way before de-googling. Before switching it seems like it’ll be a very hard thing to do. Getting replacements for your Windows programs to run on Linux (you can run Windows programs on Linux with Wine by the way, I even got a Microsoft game running), get used to the whole operating system etc. But it hasn’t been bad for me. I really really recommend just downloading Linux Mint (just a recommendation for coming from Windows. You can get any other just works distro. I started with Debian), putting it on a USB and just testing it out in the live environment. Then if you have a spare hard disk or ssd, you can dualboot it with Windows. That’s how I got into it, I deleted Windows after a few months and used the now free hard disk as an encrypted volume. I haven’t missed Windows at all, and I still do not. I’m glad that I’m not using some closed-source, data collector corporation owned software for my operating system, I hope you have success in this area.!

I think the AOSP one announces that you’re recording the call to the other person. You can get non-announced call recording if you’d root your phone, but I’d understand if you don’t want to do that.

Well, it’s Microsoft Edge…

You can still get play store apps, if you must, on a de-googled phone using Aurora Store. You can bypass the safetynet attestation as well with some methods (used by things like banking apps). I’ve been using a google-free phone for a month now and after switching I reinstalled the apps I used the most (mostly through F-Droid), and then I created a separate profile solely for installing apps from Google Play (still through Aurora Store). It works well for me, I haven’t had a single issue. Maybe because I really only get 3-4 apps from Google Play, the rest is F-Droid.

I switched from MIUI (xiaomi android) to LineageOS a month ago now and my experience has only been better. There’s no google, it’s way less bloated compared to MIUI or any stock android so I think it’s actually faster. Though I must say that while it increases your privacy, it decreases the security of your phone because of having an unlocked bootloader but that’s mostly a concern for a threat having physical access to your device, and that’s something I’ve accepted. If you have or get a pixel phone then you can install GrapheneOS which is also very much secure while being google-free and high-privacy. I can’t buy a pixel so I’m with LineageOS right now. I highly recommend it, compared to Apple.