u/tiredgit1950

I am fully on Lineage and so far have not had to sign in to Google. However there remain 2 apps I am having difficulties avoiding the G.

Firstly, I spend a lot of time on YouTube especially on my TV. I've tried NewPipe but without being able to see the creators whose videos I follow it is all but useless.

My question is if I install YouTube from Aurora and sign into my YouTube account, will I be opening up the rest of my phone and it's data to Google? Or does Lineage and microG effectively protect me?

Related to that I have WhatsApp on my phone. It's just necessary and using Signal as an alternative would cut me off from family and friends. I've tried. WhatsApp requires a gmail account for backups although it works without, and I am backing up com.whatsapp. So same question as for YouTube above. Will giving WhatsApp my gmail details what am I opening my phone and myself up to?

I had the Bitwarden extension added to Firefox on my Samsung (Google) S24. I'm now on a Lineage Pixel 8 phone and am trying to use Firefox. I can't find the Bitwarden extension in Firefox and checking the website shows it to be incompatible.

I find this odd that I have both phones side by side, both using Firefox. One has Bitwarden and the other not. Yet both have the Bitwarden app installed and running.

How do I get Bitwarden extension working? Or is there a reason it doesn't work in Lineage?

Just moved to a new phone with Lineage OS. I now have prompt to update Play Services but I don't know why I have this installed. I had assumed that I have microG and that saved having Google on my phone.

To add insult, the update is throwing an error message "conflicting package exists" and I don't know how to resolve this.

Also does having Play Services installed mean that I've swapped a Google phone leaking my data for a Lineage phone that is also leaking my data?

I would appreciate any help and advice.

Finally, why is Google's Private Compute Services on my phone?

Attempting to move from Samsung to Lineage. I use Fossify on the Samsung contacts and have exported my contacts as vcf. Have successfully imported into Fossify on the Lineage phone. However contacts are not visible in the Lineage phone or SMS apps. I can see them using Fossify's phone app and can make calls from there.

I can't see an import setting in the Lineage phone app. I have concluded that I cannot mix-and-match apps in Lineage, but would like to know why there isn't a common storage for contacts, accessible from any phone or SMS app.