https://www.privacyguides.org/en/android/
There is no controversy. There’s a lot of people memeing. I haven’t seen a single security analysis, or survey of options, that didn’t put GOS at the very top. Look at privacy guides, they say graphene is great, but if you can’t use that divest is okay.
People may not like the leader, and the developers are very opinionated which turns other people off, but I don’t think there’s any questioning the pedigree and the level of security provided
Except in stock AOSP or grapheneos.
Agree that qubes is the gold standard. But not to let perfect be the enemy of good, the vast majority of people, the vast majority of people, the VAST majority, are going to be unable to run qubes, either by technical ability, availability of appropriate hardware, or portability reasons.
Mobile phones for all of their faults, are the most secure piece of general computing hardware most people have in their lives