I recommend sticking to GOS. If you’d like to use something else, I’d recommend DivestOS. CalyxOS, LineageOS, /e/OS and iodéOS are all significant downgrades in usability, privacy and security and therefore not worth using on a Pixel.
Pixel Experience has zero advantage for your privacy. LineageOS really doesn’t do much to protect your privacy (or security). That’s hardly surprising since privacy&security was never the goal of LineageOS to begin with. The only things Lineage will do for your privacy is 1. Remove Google Play Services 2. Remove your OEM’s built in tracking. Installing Google Play Services will negate 1. If you are serious about your privacy and is willing to make sacrifices, your best option would be GrapheneOS, followed by DivestOS. The latter supports many of the devices supported by LineageOS, so check if your device has support.
Is there a word for a third/fourth wheel friend? You know, the one that always walks behind, the one that sits next to their two or four best friends in class, but just far enough so that the conversation either doesn’t concern them, or they don’t hear enough to contribute to it. Is that even common? Or is it just me?
I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say that the vast majority of people here don’t have such a threat model. Our threat model is mostly preventing corporations like Google and Facebook from accessing our data. If your threat model is so advanced that you need to prevent tracking via connection to a cell tower (i.e state actors targeting you), the only thing you can do short of putting your phone in a faraday cage/taking out the cellular radios/ not having a phone at all is to turn on airplane mode. This is because your phone still maintains a connection to a cell tower without a SIM card.