Just get a Pixel then install GOS, problem solved.
And if you just dont update, its only a matter of time till you get hacked and your privacy goes down the toilet.
Where is this “ArceusLand” ?
Do.Not.Ask 
I’m glad I bought a phone with /e/OS
One thing i do notice is the constant mention of alternative Operating Systems to avoid this issue amongst others. I also use one for similar reasons.
However i feel it’s important to remember and remind that doing this does not resolve the issue at all. It at best creates distance between you and the issue.
Because yes while it is great. Fantastic really that an alternative OS can completely circumvent this malware. The issue is a lot of FOSS developers may not even continue to develop their applications. Because they understandably don’t want to dox themselves to a terrible and unreliable and above all else absolutely untrustworthy company. However just a thought. How many of these developers would actually want to develop their app basically almost exclusively for custom Operating Systems or techsavvy people who know how to circumvent it. I’m sure there are ones that will but i am also sure there are others that will not. (which is again understandable why would you develop an app when you can’t even run it on your favorite device that you ordered or got off the store shelf.) And you can’t just use a application that isn’t recieving updates forever. (especially in android’s case..) Not trying to crush anyone’s spirit i highly suggest using any OS that puts distance between you and these terrible companies. But i just feel like it’s important to remember the limitations aswell.
Mobian
https://mobian.org is my favorite alternative to Google’s Android. Full telephony experience most of the time. Fully free and open source (libre source). Enjoying freedom and privacy with NO strings attached to Google. But occasionally need to use secondary device.
I love F-droid and will happily continue using it on my secondary device
Below is my review of Mobian. Grouped by strenghts and challenges. Plus a link to a video showing Mobian.
Strengths:
• Support F-Droid – Using the libre source Waydroid.
• Full telephony – SIM or eSIM cards, 4G calls, SMS, cellular data, broadband, voice calls, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and USB tethering.
• Free and open source (libre source) – So stronger security and stronger privacy. Because more people are able to both review and contribute to its software code.
• Up to 64,000 free apps – Access to both Debian version 13 and Flathub Flatpak app repositories. Same as Debian.
• Privacy & freedom – No proprietary Android dependencies; uses mainline Linux kernel and free software drivers where possible.
• Security – Standard Debian security updates, optional full disk encryption, and no vendor lock-in.
• KDE Plasma Mobile or GNOME – My favorite is KDE Plasma Mobile. Because it is highly customizable to your liking.
• Supports external devices – Displays, keyboard, and mouse via USB-C/DisplayPort for a desktop experience when docked.
• Developer-friendly – SSH access, root shell, and ability to install server software; easy cross-compilation and packaging.
Challenges:
• Small amount of supported devices:
__• Librem 5
__• OnePlus 6/6T
__• Pocophone F1
__• PinePhone, PinePhone Pro, PineTab, PineTab 2
__• Pixel 3a
__• x86-based devices are also supported
___• This list above is growing. If you are a developer, you can add any appropriate devices to your liking.
• Camera challenges with some devices.
• Need to either learn how to flash the device image or pay someone to do it for you. Flashing is a one time action.
• I resolved all the challenges above by using two devices:
___1. Mobian as my PRIMARY mobile device for everything. Using OnePlus 6 or 6T devices for Mobian. With KDE Mobile Plasma.
___2. LineageOS as my SECONDARY device. Which is useful when there is anything that Mobian does not yet support. Composed of LineageOS + F-Droid + Aurora Droid (support F-Droid) + Aurora Store + RuStore + Device OnePlus. Which are WITHOUT Google’s hardware. No Pixel product. Because since 2016, Google started to add permanent and NOT removable spy hardware to Pixel phone (archived). I do NOT trust any Pixel devices released after 2016.
Video:
This short 9 minutes video shows Mobian in actions with KDE Mobile Plasma at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxWW7IlugQA
__• Backup 1 at https://inv.nadeko.net/watch?&v=yxWW7IlugQA
__• Backup 2 at https://web.archive.org/web/20261002113631/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxWW7IlugQA
Meanwhile, the Jolla phone seems to be doing well and opening up markets to North America looks to be on the horizon. Jolla Phone Pre-order – Jolla Shop
But what about the app distribution stores themselves? They’re still using worse UIs, and obviously Kotlin/Jetpack Compose are way too close to Material design in connection…
Honestly get off the material wagon man. 
@ArceusI : Feel free to use any alternative store to your liking. For LineageOS with OnePlus device, my favorite app stores are:
- F-Droid
- Aurora Droid (supports F-Droid repositories). See screenshots here in F-Droid.
- Aurora Store
- RuStore
F-Droid, Aurora Droid, and Aurora Store are fully open source (libre source). RuStore is not.
@ArceusI: F-Droid is by far the most independent store WITHOUT strings attached to Google.
If the look of the app store is the most important thing for you. Those pretty looking app stores might be of interest:
- Aurora Droid (FOSS, Material Design, supports F-Droid repos). Aurora Store is not to confuse with Aurora Store.
- Neo-Store (FOSS, modern UI, multi-repo support)
- Droid-ify (FOSS, fast, clean interface)
- Foxy Droid (FOSS, minimal, lightweight)
This recommendation is certainly interesting. Thanks for sharing.
Not trusting them is fine but could you cite where in that article it stated that Google did that? Or explain your view on it? I read through it and saw literally nothing stating that. Of course i could have misread but from what i saw it was more so talking about the business strategy of Google creating their own specialized hardware to entice people into buying Pixels since those are undoubtably when on stock PixelOS the phones that Google can collect the most data on. But even that’s largely irrelevant cause the data points they were talking about Google collecting could already be done on any android phone with Privileged Play Services and GApps. I won’t call the article factually incorrect or anything cause i don’t think it is but i do think it does a horrendous job at explaining things. If i had one bad faith arguement however it seems like another attack on Pixels with very misleading claims not in the fact that they are wrong but the fact they are targeting Pixel phones yet the article mainly just covers the relationship that GApps and Android currently have.
Also to be clear i am not trying to attack you or anything like that i just simply am making a observation and asking a question. Regardless of what the article says if you don’t trust Pixel hardware that’s genuinely fine. After all it’s made by a untrustworthy and often unaccountable company. I don’t really like Pixel Hardware either in all honesty.
PS i do have to say i genuinely like the detailed information you give on these recommendations instead of just putting them as is 
Also thanks for sharing i’ve been interested in them aswell.
I do not like material design 3 either but i learned to deal with it.
Eitherway you could try F-Droid Classic | F-Droid - Free and Open Source Android App Repository as while it still has material design it’s one of the older (and in my opinion better) designs
Fair warning though the app has to my knowledge not been updated for a long time and i have no clue if it is ever going to get updated again so any security and privacy improvements that the official F-Droid client makes or any improvements in general will not be there. Additionally while i think it still works for now it could one day break so bare that in mind aswell.
This is interesting .
- Goggle forces human developers onto their own playstore island.
- Goggle unleashes their own a.i. tools for normies that create slop to directly compete with human developers.They also get their own island.
- The battle begins, goggle plays them against each other & collects rewards from both sides while further destroying the human developer ecosystem.
- Divide and conquer.
Well, who wouldn’t want to use playstore now? With all that Malware and AI slop and mass surveillance, it just gets better and better. Google closing the ecosystem further is just smart. Why have anything other than an iOS and Google Android ecosystem?
Ya know. They had me so excited for these changes i took time and energy out of my day just to uninstall the Play Store and Play Services.
I can’t help it, I hate Google outright, I hate everything that Google made, because they’re fucking evil, and honestly nobody should use anything from them, and Modern UIs usually scream Corporatism, and if Roblox & Discord showed me how UIs changed, alongside FurAffinity & DeviantArt, it’s that classic & old UIs are far superior compared to modernized UIs.
I agree on the user interface part i tend to enjoy the older stuff. Wouldn’t be such a problem if everything was made more like Linux Desktop Environments where it was up to the users to theme it as they wished… But sadly because Android doesn’t do that. It encurages app developers to follow whatever the latest design is. i’m not saying developers should have to design apps any sort of way. It is THEIR work after all they should do whatever they want. All i’m asking is to give the user a bit more agency (like for example the ability for outside users to develop custom themes, import fonts, etc) cause that goes very overlooked and neglected on mobile devices. Also yes Discord’s UI is terrible. Almost every open messaging app built on open standards has had better UIs in my opinion. The closed and siloed ones just seem to have a track record of. Being terrible.
As for everything else you said.
Do bear in mind i absolutely despise Google myself. But without them there would be no Android. F-Droid wouldn’t have had a reason to exist in the first place and then iOS would be the only mobile device right now that’s usable by the average person. So while they are terrible. The way i saw it and am still seeing it right now we’d be even worse off without them. And if no one believes me on that i’d invite them to try an iPhone. And see just how much worse it is compared to Android even with just using the Play Store alone.
That aside. Above all else i don’t think we should be complaining about a crappy UI just cause it is tied to a terrible company. Google doesn’t own the look perse. I mean they probably do from a literal perspective but anyone could have made something like Material You. Anyone can imitate it too. I mean Linux themes for it exist aswell. Windows themes for Linux also exist whether it be new or old. All is to say just say you don’t like it and leave it at that. You don’t need anything to justify that. Humans are diverse creatures in many ways and that includes taste. I for example don’t like most browser designs i think most don’t get me. Vivaldi’s UI was good for me but Vivaldi’s UI is also propietary and i’m not willing to sacrifice ideals just for a UI.
In the meantime however something you could do is try to shift the situation to your advantage and find ways to make it work.
For example the apps you use matter in design so i use Droid-ify as my main F-Droid client now. Since you can’t really avoid M3 in any of them now if you wish to use an up to date client. So i ended up preferring Droid-ify’s UI and extra features the most. And i use M3’s Wallpaper coloring to make the UI elements a really nice and comforting shade of blue for me. This in turn makes M3 pretty comfortable for me even if not ideal. F-Droid’s M3 is also pretty nice for me with this coloring.
But generally i do try to avoid M3 apps when applicable and if they actually look nice. As another example i use unexpected keyboard as it has a very nice looking UI and i love the feel of. To be clear i’m not trying to tell you just to deal with it or anything like that. I’m just saying when a situation bothers you perhaps you should look for the most optimal, efficient and realistic ways to improve the situation for yourself.
Sorry for the off topic posts about design here in advance moderators and everyone for that matter to be honest. I understand if you don’t particularly appreciate it but i just wanted to attempt to help with my own experience and also throw my own two cents in.