I really don't use anything outside of Play except in extreme circumstances, and certainly not for anything social.
It's generally a bit of a faff I can do without. I used to use custom ROMs and all that for certain things but I try to keep it simple now if possible.
I used to have custom ROMs on my phone. It was a good learning experience and I got a fair bit of enjoyment out of it but I don't have the time now, either.
I did it for privacy and performance purposes but I gather that we are screwed in terms of privacy by using any android phone, nowadays.
You're really not screwed for privacy by using Android! GrapheneOS is the most secure mobile OS you can get, and it's "just" an Android custom ROM - Pixels only, but it's really trivial to install and you can then install a sandboxed version of Google Play Services if you want. If you don't have a Pixel there's DivestOS, which is a privacy-focused fork of good old LineageOS. Even if you can't be arsed with a custom ROM then a few small changes can make a massive improvement. Have a read of Privacy Guides (or their official community at !privacyguides@lemmy.one), and I'm happy to answer questions if you do actually care!
I've got a OnePlus Nord 2 and it's running the standard OS.
Doesn't most commercial Android scan all your keystrokes at the framework level nowadays? I get the impression that Android is getting more invasive with every release.
We have all been for sale for quite a while now. At some point enough people will rebel against that to make a difference. Hopefully.
For me now, it's like when your first child is born; you don't really know what's going on and you know you won't until it's all over so you just let it happen.
Which is to say, I no longer have the will to jump through those hoops to avoid being the product.
For those that do, and I really do hope they can make a difference, the resources offered in this thread are all there for the taking.