Not a single app on my phone was installed through Google Play, it's all Aurora. Guess if apps really do this i'll just have to stop using them, cause I'm not installing the play store.
You WILL want to remove Samsung Device Care, which also controls battery usage, and just so happens to be one of Samsung's worst offenders when it comes to phoning home. SaverTuner is your foss replacement for it. After that, you can find a list of safe-to-remove apps for your particular device and start debloating. Be careful; some apps you'll need a replacement for before you remove the stock counterpart.
How is it being a samsung making things worse? I've never flashed a samsung phone before so I may be very wrong, but isn't unlocking the bootloader easy?
And now that I think about, does samsung have their own system file format or something? Is that the issue?