Loading 3rd party apps is really easy on android. Download an .apk from a website and tell your phone to install it from there. There's also independent repositories (app "stores").
F-Droid hosts open source apps that aren't controlled by mega corporations. All sorts of useful things are there, for example Newtube scrapes YouTube videos and creates local playlists, preventing them from hiding updates from bad-thinkers. It also plays in the background and removes commercials, exactly the same as YouTube Red but free.
Aurora Store allows you to access Google Play without requiring a Google account, important if you want certain official apps without giving your data to Google. 90% of the spyware on your phone is just straight from the Google Play store; cut them out and your battery life doubles and your data usage plummets.
I've turned old phones into mp3 players that have no personal data or accounts simply by using these programs, and disabling everything else that's not in use. There's a million other things you can do by just installing a program, no hacking required.
I'm going to reference this sober and may pick your brain a bit later if you don't mind.
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