If you want to stay with a smartphone, get a device that supports one of the followin OS versions of Androis without Google underlying services and with extra hardening, privacy features and a separate firewall to allow / deny access to your data and the Internet on per app basis :
Another alternative is to get a Chinese Huawei HarmonyOS phone that is also w/o Google backbone for spying. In reality you will just get Chinese buying backbone on those phones instead.
With all of the above OS versions of Android, you can still run most (not all) Android apps (sans banking, sans Google's and some other special apps). You will just need to download the apps from f-droid, apkmirror.com or some other guaranteed 3rd party app stores (not google play store).
For private messaging I recommend Matrix Element (even above Signal or Telegram) , if you can convince your friends to use it too.
If you want to stay with a smartphone, get a device that supports one of the followin OS versions of Androis without Google underlying services and with extra hardening, privacy features and a separate firewall to allow / deny access to your data and the Internet on per app basis :
LineageOS https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/
CopperheadOS or RattlesnakeOS (only for Pixel phones)
https://github.com/dan-v/rattlesnakeos-stack https://copperhead.co/android/
Another alternative is to get a Chinese Huawei HarmonyOS phone that is also w/o Google backbone for spying. In reality you will just get Chinese buying backbone on those phones instead.
https://www.huaweicentral.com/harmonyos-eligible-devices/
With all of the above OS versions of Android, you can still run most (not all) Android apps (sans banking, sans Google's and some other special apps). You will just need to download the apps from f-droid, apkmirror.com or some other guaranteed 3rd party app stores (not google play store).
For private messaging I recommend Matrix Element (even above Signal or Telegram) , if you can convince your friends to use it too.