Hello, making this post to get some honest, and technical opinions about GrapheneOS. Please do not be bother by this question. No drama here pls 🙏. I’ve heard that there is some of the google code into the “sandbox” feature. Say your opinion below! 👇👇

  • Well it’s open source android, if the code is bad, it’s jettisoned. While I cannot stand Google, not every line of code they write is trash.

    The sandbox is good and you do not need to install Play if you do not want to. I use f droid where possible.

    I want Linux Mobile but it is not ready yet. In the mean time, this is the best we have.

  • I have been using GrapheneOS on a Pixel 7 Pro for 3 months now. I am BLOWN AWAY at how good it is. I have 3 user profiles. Main profile has no google services at all, and 95% of my apps are running there. Then I have a second user I can switch to that has sandboxed google services and my banking apps on it. I then have a third user that also has sandboxed google services running where I can install any random app that demands google services. (I have only 1 app on that user) . So 99.9% of the time my phone is running with no google services at all. (Side note: without even the sandboxed google services installed, apps need to be left open in the app switcher in order to receive notifications. If you swipe all your apps away, then you won’t receive notifications. This is not a problem for me, as I just keep my messaging apps open in the app switcher. But if it is a problem for you, you would need to run the sandboxed google services).

    I see GrapheneOS as a way of removing 99% of all the tracking, spyware and things that I dont like, while still having the convenience of having all the apps and features that are available on a regular smartphone.

    There is a learning curve, and many settings to learn and customize. But definitely worth it.

    To get a Pixel, instead of paying £900 for a new pixel 8 pro, I paid £300 for a second hand Pixel 7 Pro on eBay that was in perfect condition. So for £300 I now have a privacy phone and an AMAZING camera, which was very important for me the camera.

  • GrapheneOS has something in store for everyone. The fully de-googled setup by the common definition a lot of people strive for is a fully supported configuration, it comes that way out of the box in fact, making zero connections to Google - unlike many other operating systems. But you can also transform it into a more “regular” phone by installing Google Play and all the bells and whistles and enjoy the benefits while still feeling save, thanks to the app sandbox applying to it. So you can take away its permissions and feel rest assured it can’t snoop on you even if it wanted to. Or you take a middleground somewhere inbetween if that’s your cup of tea; functionality is an important factor for many, and there’s little you need to sacrifice.

    • The person you are referring to did actually step down as lead developer… Best to be more informed before making claims. Could you elaborate on why you consider it toxic? I’ve yet to find the Graphene community toxic myself.

      • They still have a lot of control though. Also I find that Graphene community thinks it is better than everyone else. I don’t have a problem with people being proud the problem is that Graphene is spreading false information like every other ROM is insecure. That’s not the case especially in terms of security as anything but stock is less secure. From a privacy perspective non google is better than Google but everyone seems to skip over that. People will say “Lineage OS uses Google DNS” but in reality your ISP could be using Google DNS the key it to setup Private DNS which takes only a few minutes to do. Graphene isn’t the only option. In reality there are tradeoffs everywhere.

        The fact that the larger community only knows of Graphene OS and stock is a bit scary.

  • I used it for quite a while, but with most of the Google apps. One morning RCS chat stopped working and would not reconnect, since I use RCS for texting most people I’m back on stock for now. I know it’s not graphenes fault, but I didn’t want to have to keep dealing with Google randomly disabling stuff. Up until then, everything worked as it was described