Degoogling gave my ultrabudget phone (Nokia 2.3) new life

I got this phone back in April 2022, when I lost my Nokia 2.2, but the phone was originally bought sometime in Mid 2020. The phone is close to 6 years old at this point.

The phone was... OK. It does the job, but overtime, despite receiving its last Security update in December 2022, the phone became more laggier thus frustrating to work with.

Whenever I'd receive a call, I'd have to wait around 8 -10 seconds before the phone could show me who's calling. It was just a blank screen and vibration.

Alarms wouldn't ring to the song I picked, it was vibration and if I was lucky, the phone would default to the Default Alarm sound. Even timers would take like 3 seconds past elapsed time to actually make a sound.

All this and more "tiny" issues sprinkled around made the phone frustrating to use.

If it became too much, I'd factory reset the phone, which would make the phone snappy for like a month or 2, then it's back to these issues.

The phone specs are ultrabudget, Mediatek Helio A22 (Quadcore A55 chip with PowerVR GE8320 graphics), 2GB RAM, 32GB internal storage (18GB usable) so I learnt to be patient.

Till some time ago, August 2025 the phone became super unstable. It would freeze up, reboot on its own, randomly shut itself off and other breaking events. It was just so frustrating.

I wanted to factory reset, but I hesitated because of the comprehensive spam call block list I had built up. I had been getting lots of spam calls all throughout 2024 and 2025. Simply factory resetting and going back to spam calls every 30 minutes was a no from me.

Thus came open source. I was actually using Droidify for some apps here and there (Mostly SD Maid SE to clean up cache because of the little phone storage I have. The phone does have an SD slot, but it doesn't work since the contacts are damaged on the SD and Sim 2 slot)

One thing that hadn't crossed my mind was using Open source apps in place of Google Apps. The phone is an Android One phone meaning all apps in place were from Google Directly.

The phone looks like this when factory reset:

pretty clean, right?

These apps were part of the problem when it comes to storage and sluggishness.

When it came to the random reboots, freezes and soft reboots, it was actually VOLTE. It turned itself on on my phone and ended up causing all that. Simply turning off "enhanced 4G LTE mode" in Settings> Wireless> Sims entirely fixed that.

Back to the apps, I started with Fossify phone and messages. These were a night and day difference in terms of speed, storage and usability.

Google Phone and Messages? They took like 6 - 10 seconds to launch. Saving a number from another person always had this awkward moment of silence to let the app launch.

Fossify Phone and Messages? At most 2 seconds (But mostly 1s), again, keep in mind this is a quad core phone.

The best part was that I could import and export the blocklist. Finally, I could reset my phone with the option to keep the blocklist as long as its saved somewhere.

This was back on 24th December 2026. I even made a meme back in the period:

https://www.reddit.com/r/whenthe/comments/1pxzgjw/why_is_the_calculator_app_109mb/

In the post above, I highlighted the amount of storage space these apps were taking up... I won't do that here.

After a week of trying out new FOSS apps, it was now time to fully switch (Disable the Google Apps)

Come new year and I decided, "Why not, why shouldn't I factory reset the phone and start my degoogling journey?"

I did. It was the best decision I have made so far.

These were the apps I have already degoogled and their replacement:

App	FOSS Replacement
Phone By Google	Fossify Phone
Google Messages	Fossify Messages
Quickstart (Launcher3)	Niagara Launcher (1)
Google Chrome	Fulguris (2)
Google Keep (3)	Fossify Notes
Google Calculator	Fossify Calculator (4)
Google Calendar	Fossify Calendar
Telegram	Forkgram
Google Clock	Fossify Clock
GBoard	Heliboard
Youtube	Newpipe
Google Contacts	Fossify Contacts
Google Photos (5)	Fossify Gallery
Gmail	Thunderbird
Reddit (6)	RedReader
Link To Windows (7)	KDE Connect
Camera (8)	Fossify Camera

1. Niagara Launcher isnt open source. But its damn the most efficient launcher I have used on 2GB RAM. Yes, I tried Kiss launcher, microLauncher and at least 10 other launcher on Fdroid and I concluded that Niagara is the best for my use. I use the free version. The paid version is just too expensive (KES 1100/ USD 8) and I see no value in terms of the features it comes with. There is this weird icon caching I often experienced, even after degoogling, yes, even on Launcher3 sometimes when I exit from a fullscreen app, the icons are white and they take 2-3 seconds to reappear. Niagara is the only launcher I have never experienced that with. Also the quickest when it comes to changing the icon. It loads all the icons in an icon pack instantly. Kiss does that but not as quick. Its close enough.
2. Fulguris. I chose this because firefox is too damn slow on my phone (It might be fast on your Octa core device with 4GB of ram but trust me, Firefox is damn near unusable on my phone). Fulguris is as fast as chrome with the added benefit of inbuilt ad block as well as other features.
3. I dont use Google Keep, at all, but I decided to install Fossify for Checklists and notes. It has been helpful.
4. Fossify Calculator is a calculator. Not fancy but it has the added benefit of having unit conversion.
5. Google Photos. I havent stopped using this app. Ok I dont launch it, but I do need cloud storage for my photos until I get a Lifetime plan from Filen. I do plan to use it for both photos and videos as well as the contents from my Drive Storage (8GB in total)
6. Reddit. The only reason I was using this app in the first place is DMs. I have contacts (2) that I frequently talk with. I managed to convince them to use Telegram. I have no need for the bloated app. I discovered RedReader and it's exactly what I wanted from a Reddit app. The only downside it has is that you need to be a moderator in order to access NSFW subreddits. I only have 1; r/Kappachino (It's just fighting games with porn here and there. I post fighting game clips there every once in a while)
7. Link to Windows (This was a very unreliable app) It required just about every permission needed and while I'd want to use Linux, Windows just works (better) for me. But I did discover KDE Connect when I tried out Fedora with KDE. I have been using it since but there have been instances (2) where I can't send anything from my laptop to my phone. It was as simple as opening the app and trying again.
8. The inbuilt camera isnt bad, just takes a while to launch. It does have features that Fossify Camera doesnt like portrait (bokeh), timelapse and panorama so it isnt disabled. I haven't used it since New Year (1st Jan 2025). But its good to know that its there in case I need it. I did try open camera (It required lots of fiddling to get non grainy images) and Libre Camera (I didnt like that it was immersive, I just want the nav bar available at all times)

Pretty much the only thing left to degoogle is Mail, Photos and Drive. I can't fully escape from Google since I have Google Play Developer account. Maybe I'll look into switching domains but thats a goal later down the line. Photos and Drive contents will take a while since I downloaded everything from Google Takeout and I need to sort out the metadata (Why did they include this for every file?)

I do have a Proton Mail account, that is associated with Filen. Little rant but I dont like how Proton monetizes itself. The Desktop app? You want me to pay for premium to use the desktop mail app? I already have thunderbird for that which funny enough, I couldn't add my proton mail account to it.

Anyways, my phone is snappy, and I can even multitask now. Yes, I can now play music and play a game simultaneously. It wasnt possible before.

There was a time I launched Pixel Heroes of Byte and Magic, and it resumed right where I stopped playing like 4 days ago. It was surprising (and appreciated).