Written for anyone else who may be considering the switch from stock G Android,
and who (like me) was concerned about the difficulty of install and after install,
potential loss of functionality. But sufficiently irritated by Google to want a change.
Background
At any one time I have 4 phones for different functions (eg finance) and countries (I commute a lot).
Have several Essential PH-1s which are very clean, no garbage, but are failing rapidly
so am replacing them with Pixel 9's. Am moderately technical but it is not my job.
Key Motivators
Not privacy, security or tracking.
Reason for looking for alternatives to stock Pixel is the chaos of first boot,
so much bright stuff pushed into my face,
the pain of cleaning it up, the massive annoyance of having so many things I can only disable not uninstall - at least 20 apps (incl Google TV, Youtube, Youtube Music...), and post install more kept appearing, and one I had disabled kept notifying anyway.
And, the power button - that ancient symbol of man's ultimate control over his machines - no longer powers off the device - by default it calls G's AI!
If I had a therapist, I would have put them on speed dial.
(similarly being unable to uninstall rubbish from Windows I didn't want moved me to Linux in 2007).
Base Install Experience
Started with the Web install but it halted as I didnt have enough room in the partition
containing my download folder.
So moved to the CLI install, which worked perfectly.
After install You are faced with a phone with 15 (from memory) apps/services, super clean,
though its initial dark sparsity is a little daunting.
Apps
My main concern before installing was: would all of the apps I use/rely on work.
I attempted to install 115 apps, and 113 worked without problem.
I installed directly from the G Play Store not via Aurora.
I installed my all existing apps which are mostly G Play store & some OSS apps.
. All my service apps worked: airline apps, uber, airbnb, email,...
. All my subscription apps worked: FT,Economist,Podcasts,Audiobooks players,...
. All my paid apps worked: Nova Launcher, ACalendar+, ...
. Hardware connection apps worked (watch, ipcams, car, house stuff)...
. My vpn apps (including Zerotier), my maps and mapping apps, file system, communication,
media etc apps all worked.
I was able to install the G services I wanted (eg GBoard, G Translate, Lens) and not the many I didn't want.
Finally, I was able to sync data laptop <-> phone (mtp) with rsync.
I haven't tested finance apps as they are on a separate device.
In fact there were very few differences to installing on a stock Google phone, other than no hours of cleanup. Though some of my choices made it easier: I installed everything to 1 user. Also, I had to give more permissions to the G Play Store app (eg sms) for some apps to install.
Only 2/112 apps wouldn't allow an install, the play store stating they were "not available for this device".
They were Airalo ESim, which I just replaced with Saily, and Weather XL PRO which I replaced with Foreca.
I left discontented reviews on the play store for both, giving them some self-improvement advice.
There were a few things that didnt work: but fortunately I had a 2nd stock Pixel 9 beside me as well, and they didn't work on that either, so it was not a GOS problem.
Some things I didn't try as I don't use them: eg Android Auto, G Assistant, NFC payments,...
Missing in GOS
Really almost everything works perfectly.
Just one downside: no face recognition. I have to use my fingerprints about 20 times a day, and probably got strapped too many times as a kid, so fingerprints a bit dodgy. So the face recognition is a huge plus, and much faster. I have read the posts re why it is not yet available.
Extra in GOS, Missing in G Android
An overseas sim wouldn't connect for voice in either the standard Pixel 9 or the one running GOS.
However in the one running GOS I am able to configure VoLTE on (which wasn't enough)
and enable a Carrier Override to force VoLTE available, which fixed the problem.
In the stock Pixel 9, neither of those settings are now available.
Summary
I now have a Pixel 9 with G Android, and one with GOS.
The G Android one I had to clean up G stuff I didnt want,
(well, as far as G allowed me to clean it - still a lot of garbage in the app list)
The GOS one I had to add some G stuff I wanted.
The visual and functional result is remarkably similar, but GOS is cleaner and the app list has less mystery.
The difference is the GOS phone is my phone, not Google's.
This is what is key to me.
So donated to help maintain the project as I would like to support / keep using it and cant contribute any other way.
TLDR
Relatively simple experience, 113/115 apps worked perfectly, 2 replaced by alternatives.
The result looks and feels similar but cleaner. GOS is only missing face recognition but has better sim support.