Ther3e are alternatives, for example /e/, its a degoogled fork of LinageOS, also Replicant, a degoogled Android fork.
Others are Plasma Mobile from KDE, CalyxOS, Mobian (Debian for Mobile) and some more, all privacy focused.
I don’t know the reasons of PrivacyGuides, but there has been a research paper last month about data privacy on Android operating systems. It states that LineageOS is not 100% private because of some Google layers. Maybe that’s the reason ?
Here is the paper: https://www.scss.tcd.ie/Doug.Leith/Android_privacy_report.pdf
Very interesting, but long to read.
See my reply to OP, the authors of this report tested LineageOS with Gapps added. LineageOS does not come with Gapps preinstalled, so in my opinion this is not a fair assessment of LineageOS.
We find that even when
minimally configured and the handset is idle these vendor-
customized Android variants transmit substantial amounts of
information to the OS developer and also to third-parties (Google,
Microsoft, LinkedIn, Facebook etc) that have pre-installed system
apps.
We assume a privacy-conscious but busy/non-technical user,
who when asked does not select options that share data but
otherwise leaves handset settings at their default value.
LineageOS sends similar volumes of data to Google as these proprietary Android
variants, but we do not observe the LineageOS developers
themselves collecting data nor pre-installed system apps other
than those of Google. Lineage is the 2nd best option they studied, e/OS is the best.
Ther3e are alternatives, for example /e/, its a degoogled fork of LinageOS, also Replicant, a degoogled Android fork. Others are Plasma Mobile from KDE, CalyxOS, Mobian (Debian for Mobile) and some more, all privacy focused.
deleted by creator
I don’t know the reasons of PrivacyGuides, but there has been a research paper last month about data privacy on Android operating systems. It states that LineageOS is not 100% private because of some Google layers. Maybe that’s the reason ? Here is the paper: https://www.scss.tcd.ie/Doug.Leith/Android_privacy_report.pdf Very interesting, but long to read.
See my reply to OP, the authors of this report tested LineageOS with Gapps added. LineageOS does not come with Gapps preinstalled, so in my opinion this is not a fair assessment of LineageOS.
Tldr;
We find that even when minimally configured and the handset is idle these vendor- customized Android variants transmit substantial amounts of information to the OS developer and also to third-parties (Google, Microsoft, LinkedIn, Facebook etc) that have pre-installed system apps.
We assume a privacy-conscious but busy/non-technical user, who when asked does not select options that share data but otherwise leaves handset settings at their default value.
LineageOS sends similar volumes of data to Google as these proprietary Android variants, but we do not observe the LineageOS developers themselves collecting data nor pre-installed system apps other than those of Google. Lineage is the 2nd best option they studied, e/OS is the best.