The popular Fairphone 4 even without Google apps

Murena, a French-European company, is in the business of removing Google services from Android smartphones, which it does in the name of privacy. Their /e/OS operating system, which is open source and gives users more control over their privacy, does not communicate with Google or other third parties. Instead of the standard Google apps, the system includes its own versions of core apps like the browser, messaging app, and camera. Murena has loaded their system on a variety of new or refurbished devices, including the Fairphone 4 modular phone. Their goal is to ensure that users have more control over potential privacy intrusions, or that the fate of their privacy is always in their own hands.

Murena, which develops the /e/OS operating system, protects users' privacy by not tracking their activities by default, as regular Android does. They claim that they do not track installed apps or the location of the device. Although they strive to offer an alternative to traditional services - such as Gmail, Google Docs and Microsoft Office - with their cloud solutions, they cannot completely avoid the connection to Google, as most users need access to popular apps for certain tasks. This compromise point is solved by their App Lounge, which allows the use of a Google account to access alternative apps. This store is said to connect to Google's application programming interface (API) to download well-known apps, similar to some third-party stores (Aurora Store, ApkPure ...).

The company recommends using an account when using Google apps on the Fairphone 4, which you can easily forget about in the future – in case Google decides to block this type of access to their services. This fact suggests that the Murena operating system at least partially violates Google's terms of service, although the company itself denies this. However, the so-called privacy ratings that appear for certain apps are extremely convenient on a phone with /e/OS. These are ratings of how “safe” the apps you want to install are or how intensively they interfere with your privacy.

The Fairphone 4 smartphone with the /e/OS Murena operating system is available in a version with six gigabytes of system memory and 128 gigabytes of data storage space. The retail price of this type of device is set at around 600 euros.