Kia ora!
I’ve been an ios user for 100 years at this point, but used to be deep in the android scene before then. I’ve just got an android for a work phone and am wondering what’s changed in the last 10 years - what are your essential apps, settings, customisations? I’ve had a hunt around xda but can’t seem to find much in the way of roms for my model (Samsung A04) - back in the day it seemed there was a thread for every device!
What do I need to know?
Try out F-Droid! It’s basically a more free and open version of the play store. Plenty of cool apps on there. Def worth checking out!
https://f-droid.org/en/
F-Droid is great! The official client is not the most user-friendly, but Droidify is a great alternative.
You can also look at Obtanium to download binaries straight from the applications’ developers instead of those built by F-Droid.