awesome link, thank you for pointing me towards shelter and work profile āsetupā idea, did you install google playstore services and framework under work profile as well?
when i install it from grapheneOS app manager and then move to work space through cloning in shelter - it doesnāt seem to work properly and i keep getting error messagesā¦
i need the services and framework for the pixel camera app (as well as for gmaps i assume)
do you use aurora store apps under work or regular profile though?
-will have a look at the netguard as soon as iām done with the profile set up
Thanks again for pointing me in the directions of work profiles that makes the general logic of the set up MUCH more clear for me now, need to iron out the details and i should be golden:)
It separates the apps into 2 ādrawersā and you can switch between them on the fly, very cool way of sandboxing gServices useing the cool idea for work apps!
RethinkDNS. You CAN run dns filtering on your phone! At least when they decide to enable the feature. I connect the program to my lan computer with pihole.
I happened to be in the middle of upgrading software on my phone todayā¦ long story. But I thought I would post a screen shot of what a degoogled phone looks like. This is the basic rom, before I add any additional apps.
This is on a pixel 6/oriole. The phone does have gcam, but Iām using a gcam service provider to enable the camera functions. Most of the basic stuff is aosp, with a few other quality of life apps added. There is no google play or google store.
The long version of why I am updating software today is that I messed up my build and forgot to add a permission, so my data was inaccessible. I backup up often, so I didnāt lose anything other than the time it takes to reinstall and set up everything again. I realized the build error a little late, and I might have been able to preserve my data if I noticed what was wrong earlier.
I guess this is a straightforward post about how good degoogled phones can be and how bad the risk can be.
Been daily driving GrapheneOS with no gapps for about a year now. Pretty happy with it. (coming from self compiled lineage OS, been running since it was called cyanogenmod).
I love how minimal and clean it is. The amount of permissions controls. But more so I love the peace of mind of not having GSF reporting back to google weather it thinks iām sitting down or standing up.
I didnāt have any issues using any apps but I have pretty minimal requirements in the first place. I was already using signal. k-9 for email.
The only google service i use is a gmail for certain things. If i need maps ā open maps, or google maps works well enough in the browser.
Fdroid and Aurora cover everything else for my needs.
I suppose there is some irony in trying to āescape from googleā, yet grapheneos only running on pixels.
hey, thanks for posting, iāve put down the pixel but the itch in my brain keeps scratching - that a quiet straight forward solution exists for more privacy than both stock android and stock ios and Iām not using it simply because Iām too lazy to adapt to a new ecosystem - so Iām probably gonna just switch my main phone for the pixel and see what happensā¦
Which gcam service provider are you using and how did you get it? through aurora store or fdroid?
edit: just saw your message from another thread on the same topic:) thanks for that response as well!
if i set up the google framework and simply take away all the permissions including internet - do you think that would be sufficient? or is using a different provider a better solution in your opinion?
didnāt even think about using google maps in the browser, so this is a really pro tip
for now i have the google framework installed with gmaps and google camera, but Iād like to avoid using them during current reset (planing to switch to it as a main device for now) so that iām forced to decide on all the apps that i need, if the device is secondary like i was using it before I tend to get lazy and avoid doing it.
the irony does make chuckle every time that I think about it lol
the security is never absolute - and it is more around how much control you have over your device, than being 100% secure + the devices that graphene os supports they support for as long as google does which is tremendously impressive for a rather small organization and the main focus of support is fixing the ever-opening security holes, so this i think is part of the process, what is interesting though is how long it would take them to fix it after the initial discovery as this is much more a sign of security in my eyes:)
do you do any back ups of the device and if you do - what do you use?
did you have to use the back up for a restore? if so how did that go
because backups on ios is a breeze, and i havenāt heard anything on android solutionsā¦
Because Iām switching from IOS everything is like an entirely different world, any tips on general day-to-day usage, that come from the experience of daily driving the GrapheneOS?
As one more piece of irony I find that google maps actually works BETTER in browser than their bloated ass app ever did. You canāt rotate the map unfortunately. But directions and everything else works well enough imo.
As far as backup, thatās still something I could sort out a little better. I dont use cloud anything. I just physically connect my phone and copy the photos over. Then i have various backups once im in desktop land.
The āsimpleā apps are really nice in fdroid. simple notes, simple calendar. Theyāre orange. edit: killed by ZipoApps. see FossifyOrg for safe fork
Newpipe for youtube. supports pip, background playing, downloading. no ads.
I use spotify. Spotify claims to require gsf but it works fine without it.
Hereās a real world example of spying protection; when I plug my phone in attach the debugger and watch the logcat.
Here it is failing to read my serial via androids TelephonyPermissions:
It might be available in other places, but I build it myself and add it to the rom when I build it.
Iknow very little about google framework since I donāt mess with it too much. I do have a test build that has minimal gapps, but that is just for testing and I hardly look at it. I just leave the google permissions as is for that build.
Damn, thanks a lot for such a detailed answer, I really appreciate it!
I rarely use the maps for navigation, but looking up places is considerably easier in maps relative to your position, and for navigation i installed here we go maps as they are quiet good for real navigation, will test out open maps so thatās also a good tip!
will look into back ups as well then after the final set up, because setting up everything multiple times when switching phones is a real hustle - and for the piece of mind as well:)
Other pro tips
thanks a lot for the diverse list, will be looking up everything that you mentioned!
do you have a good recommendation for scanner, because what Iāve looked up so far has come up short - either requires a registration or the UI is dumb as a wall:/
that is really cool to see, will deffo have a look see at the debug mode as well lol
Thanks again for being so helpful!
edit: also would be very interested to know what you use for weather:)
weather ā i stopped looking at the weather years ago unless iām planning something for a particular day. I just look outside and go along with it. but when i do i need to look it up, i just use the browser again instead of some bloated app.
Seriously most things just work in the browser still without their dedicated app. All though often the mobile sites can be intentionally nerfed in certain ways.
eg: Reddit has been intentionally breaking their mobile site over the years in order to force you into their ad riddled app. I just go to desktop veiw and old.reddit to get around it. Annoying but I donāt use reddit enough to care.
If you want an adblocker, firefox mobile supports ublock origin.
Plus thereās tons of crap you can mess with in about:config to disable sites api permission to say read your battery level for example:
dom.battery.enabled
Gives web applications access to the battery status of mobile devices. May be used in fingerprinting techniques.
True : Allows web applications to retrieve the battery status (default).
False : Disables the functionality.
It should be off by default, imo. Thatās a whole other rabbit whole tho.
Brave browser doesnāt seem terrible so far. Idk, try different things.
ā
Re Scanner: Iām not sure. Perhaps just a good high res photo with the camera and search for a pdf app that can create pdfs from images?
for some reason having issues with geolocation in the browser, canāt seem to figure out why thou, checked all the location permissions and they seem fineā¦
so far the native browser works perfect - so it does the job;)
the config files are a couple of steps ahead, so thatās not smth i can wrap my head around rn, but i sure do appreciate that it is available;)
