Things that make me angry about my current smartphone Samsung Galaxy S21Ultra on a Verizon plan is the mandatory software updates in which they install WITHOUT MY PERMISSION stupid apps like Netflix and addictive gambling games and stacking block games and Candy crush. God knows what else they install without my permission. I don’t want any of it!
Next phone I buy I want to start with a clean slate, I’m not going to affiliate with any conglomerate like Verizon or AT&T or Sprint or T-Mobile etc, I prefer to go rogue somehow,
which smartphone do you recommend that has no bloatware and it’s customizable?
You can read about why GrapheneOS support pixels only, from that you can guess that other phones lack some or most of these features
https://grapheneos.org/faq#future-devices
Also it depends on the OS, for example DivestOS maintains a web page of all the poor security measures in /e/OS
Also see CalyxOS vs GrapheneOS
In the end, choosing which project to use can be difficult just because of politics between the communities of these projects, saying a certain project is unsecure can get people using that project defensive, so keep that in mind