Lineage OS vs /e/OS in 2025
I’m pleased to say that I’ve been living Google-free for two years now, for reasons I explained in an earlier article. Part of the de-Googling process has been to install alternative operating systems on my cellphones and tablets, of which I have far too many. At the time I filed for divorce from Google, I found the most popular of these alternatives (probably) to be Lineage OS. Lineage is still going strong, albeit quietly: Lineage 23, based on Android 16, was released a few weeks ago.
I’ve had a slight niggle of concern, over the last couple of years, that Lineage might not be as thoroughly degoogled as we might hope. There are known problems with the ‘captive portal’ test, the use of Google’s DNS servers as a fallback, seeding GPS with Google-derived positioning data, and the ‘WebView’ implementation. WebView is a component that provides a minimal web browser for applications and services that need one, distinct from any full browser you might have installed. Lineage OS uses Chromium for its WebView support, which might still have some Google connections.
/e/OS is a derivative of Lineage which, I’m pleased to say, addresses all these concerns. So I thought it would be interesting to try /e/OS on a couple of my devices, and report on the similarities and differences between it, and regular Lineage OS.
Why /e/OS is better than Lineage
For privacy advocates it is, of course, significant that /e/OS addresses known privacy limitations in Lineage. For example, it’s WebView implementation is based on a fork of Chromium that has all the Google connections scrubbed. As I said in my earlier article, however, the privacy problems with Lineage are not huge, compared to those that plague a regular Android full of vendor bloat and Google spyware. These issues should be taken seriously, but they’re probably not a reason for panic unless your privacy requirements are painfully stringent.
For privacy enthusiasts who aren’t technology Geeks, a huge advantage of /e/OS is that it’s relatively straightforward to buy a smartphone which has it pre-installed. Such devices are available from Murena, a small company which I’ll have more to say about later. Murena sells both new and reconditioned /e/OS phones and, although they aren’t the latest models, they’re good enough for most purposes. Prices start about about £300.
Of course, it’s possible to buy handsets with GrapheneOS, Lineage et al., from private sellers on auction sites and the like. The problem with buying this way, of course, is the total absence of any kind of after-sales support.
Buying an /e/OS phone from Murena is much more expensive that buying the same model from, say, BackMarket and installing the software yourself. For example, Murena sells a refurbished Pixel 8 for £516. Right now, I can buy the same handset model from BackMarket for £268. That’s not a criticism: Murena is providing a service, and is entitled to charge for it. Still, if you can do the installation yourself, it’s clearly a cost-saver, regardless which platform you’re installing.
If you’re willing to do the installation yourself, you’ll find that installing /e/OS is very similar to installing Lineage: horrible. That’s not the fault of either platform; installing any custom firmware is a ghastly process. The written instructions are similar in both cases, too, and both are confusing in similar areas. If you’re familiar with installing one of these platforms, you won’t be surprised by the other. In fact, the Lineage custom recovery software will install /e/OS, even a version that is significantly more up-to-date (I checked, but only on one handset).
Because /e/OS lags Lineage a little, /e/OS still provides binaries for handsets that Lineage no longer supports. I tried to get a Lineage installer for my Samsung Note 9, and was annoyed to find it had disappeared from the Lineage download site. There’s still an installer for /e/OS, though.
Unlike Lineage, /e/OS offers a complete infrastructure, with support for e-mail, calendars, shared file storage, and all the usual stuff that Google offers. This is probably the most important difference between the platforms. /e/OS includes apps compatible with this infrastructure, and I can see how this might be an advantage – perhaps a decisive one – for the non-Geeks, just as Google’s infrastructure is. Unlike Google, however, the provider of the infrastructure – essentially Murena again – is making firm privacy commitments, which have been subjected to some measure of external audit.
/e/OS includes a bunch of integrated privacy tools, with a nice-looking dashboard that reports how many threats you have (apparently) been protected from. How all this works is not well-documented. Rather oddly, in my view, /e/OS has built-in support for Tor network operations. The use of Tor hides the handset’s network identify as a VPN does, but in a decentralized way. At present, however, I’m not sure that Tor is well-provisioned enough for routine use, and the /e/OS maintainers are quite open about how enabling it will probably degrade Internet throughput.
Another interesting inclusion is a parental control system, providing regulation over which apps can be used at which times, for how long. This feature can be retro-fitted to other Android installations, but I can see how having it available from the start will suit many handset purchasers.
/e/OS includes MicroG by default. That’s going to be convenient for many users, but creates its own concerns: more on this later.
Why Lineage is better than /e/OS
Most obviously, Lineage is a little more up-to-date than /e/OS, and this likely means better availability of security patches. Because /e/OS is derived from Lineage, it’s always going to lag a little. At present, /e/OS supports Android 15 on some devices, while Lineage provides Android 16.
Lineage is just an operating system: it doesn’t provide anything but the bare minimum of apps. As a Lineage user, you probably have your own favourites, anyway. I was disagreeably surprised to find that the /e/OS built-in e-mail client didn’t auto-detect the settings of my mail provider (FastMail). It worked fine when I entered the settings manually, but I didn’t have to do that with, for example, K-9. More annoyingly, the built-in apps in /e/OS are hard to remove if you’d prefer to use something else. Even after rooting the handset, in fact, they were hard to remove.
And some of the /e/OS built-in app choices are, frankly, questionable. There’s the Magic Earth navigation app, for example. I image that the /e/OS folks feel they have to provide a mapping services, since Google does, and there aren’t many viable alternatives. Magic Earth is a perfectly serviceable app, with perfectly serviceable mapping behind it. But it’s a subscription service and, worse, one that the user can only pay for using Google or Apple infrastructure. This makes its claim of being privacy-centred pretty hard to uphold, in my view. To be fair, the Magic Earth maintainers are well aware of this problem, and say they’re investigating alternative payment mechanisms for de-Googled handsets. When, or whether, this will happen is unclear at present.
Leaving aside the difficulty of removing the built-in apps, Android being what it is, it’s easy enough to install the apps you like, on both platforms.
Lineage doesn’t include MicroG, although you can install it manually, following a well-documented process. I prefer to have a minimal installation that I can add to, rather than have the platform provider make decisions for me; but, again, I’m aware that /e/OS is focusing on a more mainstream user base.
Murena
/e/OS is managed by something called the “e.foundation”, a non-profit organization which has close ties to the commercial Murena, a small company headquartered in Paris. At the time of writing it had about 40 employees, and seven major investors. Some of these investors appear to be state-controlled – I’ll leave you to make your own minds up about whether that’s a good thing or not.
Murena provides the infrastructure for /e/OS services like Calendar and e-mail, through its Murena Workspace service. After installation, you’re invited to register for a free Murena account. The free account is subject to stringent limitations, which are not well-documented. For example, free accounts are limited to sending about 2 e-mails per hour. This means that it’s impractical to send e-mails to multiple recipients, something that has been the subject of heated exchanges on the /e/ forum. There’s also a total storage limit of 1Gb.
To be fair, a paid subscription for Murena Workspace isn’t expensive, starting at about £2 per month. This compares favourably with what I pay for FastMail’s service, but FastMail has some features that I think are worth paying extra for. YMMV, of course.
To its credit, the /e/OS maintainers aren’t making a secret of their association with Murena. On the /e/OS FAQ page it says:
“Do I need a Murena account with this phone?
It is optional, although we do highly recommend it. You can sign up for your free Murena account here. A Murena account is an extension of /e/OS…”
I prefer to choose supporting services myself, but the huge uptake of Google’s services does highlight how much cellphone users value convenience over privacy. Frankly, I have no way of judging accurately Murena’s commitment to privacy compared to Google’s, but Murena does at least have one. Google is perfectly open about how it will monetize your personal data. On balance, therefore, I find Murena’s approach a more palatable one.
I’m not sure that Murena has the resources, right now, to support widespread adoption of its services. But we all have to start somewhere.
MicroG
MicroG is an open-source, privacy-sparing implementation of part of the ‘Google Play Services’ infrastructure that bedevils Android. It’s no secret that Google Play Services is a data siphon, but many apps won’t work without it. Including MicroG in e/OS/ certainly improves compatibility with mainstream Android apps, and /e/OS includes its own interface to Google’s app store.
Unless you add MicroG to Lineage OS, you’re more-or-less limited to
running apps that are available from alternative sources like F-Droid.
Or, of course, getting hold of .apk
files from whichever
sources you’re willing to trust. Not everybody regards this as a bad
thing.
MicroG is divisive in the de-Googling community. There’s no question that it makes a de-Googled smartphone easier to use, but it has its own privacy concerns. Moreover, many people – including me – feel we should be developing alternatives to Google, not spoofing it.
Closing remarks
/e/OS tidies up some relatively minor privacy holes in Lineage OS, and this is to be welcomed. In all other respects, /e/OS wins over Lineage to exactly the extent that you want a fully-integrated smartphone ecosystem that isn’t Google or Apple. Ideally, we should all want that but, right now, I have to question whether Murena Workspace is the best way to get it.
A number of other businesses now provide these services: FastMail, Proton, tuta, Posteo… All have different features, security policies, and pricing models. I see nothing wrong – and a lot to be welcomed – in Murena’s offering, and I’m sure it will suit some people. My slight concern is the rather cosy relationship between /e/OS and Murena, and the lack of personal choice it could promote.
I have to admit that, if I were embarking on my de-Googling journey today, /e/OS with Murena Workspace would be an appealing prospect. If I had adopted this approach, I’m not sure I would have investigated any alternatives, some of which might have turned out to suit me better.
At the same time, I can’t deny I’m a nerd, and most other people are not. Anybody who’s trying to provide a Google-free, privacy-sparing smartphone ecosystem for those other people deserves our respect.