Hi, I hope it’s the correct place to post this.

After finding that my S10 is an american version and it’s too hard to put a custom ROM, I decided to try again to use my pixel 5. I had GrapheneOS on it, and I dislike it a lot. So I put back the stock ROM and installed Lineage. I found that almost everything I hate on Graphene is actually because of the stock ROM and anything based on it will be the same. I found that what I like about android is actually samsung changes.

Then I tried CrDroid, which seemed kind of amateur looking to me (maybe because of the logo? or the bad install instructions? I don’t know). And was I wrong! It brought back the joy of trying custom ROMs I experienced in the early days of android. So MANY things you can customize… almost anything you want is actually there.

Besides being fun to use I made it work much better than samsung (for me), with better usability, without any spyware and performance issues. Things like:

-Change the brightness just by sliding the top of the phone. (multiple annoying clicks and slides on stock ROM)

-Haptic feedback when changing it, so in case I didn’t set it to auto brightness, I can change even if I can’t see the screen in the sun.

-Per app network permissions (common to custom ROMs apparently, but a massive reason to get rid of samsung).

-Massive customization on the top drawer. I can finally have all options I want with just one slide, specially wifi and mobile data in a single click, separated buttons (multiple clicks on stock, because it’s mixed in the mystic “internet” button, which I hated so much)

-No google search bar garbage forcing me to put a custom launcher to to get rid of it.

-Great performance and battery life. (though also common for most custom ROMs).

-Much more, almost anything you want.

The only things I haven’t found yet is how to add labels to the top tiles and automatically set file transfer when connecting a cable (it always go to charging and requires a password to connect, which is nice for security but it should ask it just once).

Besides that it’s just sad that the pixel5 is a shitty phone (no headphone jack or SD card), but most phones are like that these days. I wish it was easier to put CrDroid on the s10 (and the hardware is as well supported).

Anyway, it’s a personal experience, but it may be useful for anyone on the fence about trying CrDroid, or even just to try a custom ROM. Lineage and Graphene is almost the same as stock without google crap, so it’s not that much more worthy the effort trying to change it. But CrDroid is, if you are looking for something really different.

And of course, it doesn’t have the Snowden level of security of Graphene, so the CIA might find my plans to steal Trump’s fake tan warehouse. But I’m happy with that risk.

P.S.: If you do decide to try, you may get stuck trying to find all the files required on the instructions (at least I did). For example, in the pixel 5 download page:

https://crdroid.net/redfin/12

You will find vendor_boot.img on the “recovery” button on that page, like this one https://sourceforge.net/projects/crdroid/files/redfin/12.x/recovery/latest/

And the other ones on the “Download older versions” button like this https://sourceforge.net/projects/crdroid/files/redfin/12.x/

It didn’t seem to be right, but it is, or at least it worked for me.