geteilt von: https://lemmy.ml/post/38682476
(translated) Everyone has a phone. Whether it’s an iPhone, where you can’t install a better YouTube Music client without ads, or an Android, where you have pre-installed apps from three different manufacturers plus ads for new phones popping up as notifications. Anyone who reads my articles regularly knows what I’m talking about. Today, after a very long time, we’re going to review a phone from Google, on which I installed GrapheneOS.
Use the translator in the sidebar to translate the page.
what the fuck a blogspot link in an anti google community? Blogspot is owned by google!
I’m too broke to have a domain.
I don’t get why banking apps are such a difficult deal-kilker for people. Banks have web sites. But also, what are people doing? Running their bank app to daily transfer money back and forth from/to checking and savings?
The banking apps I’m talking about will fail to run on GrapheneOS if they detect they were downloaded from Aurora Store, even if you’re using a certified device with GMS installed btw. They also require your device to have Google Play Protect certification.
On top, it’s a standard protocol for all banking apps that I use to block any new ip you login into for more than 24 hrs unless it was a pre-trusted phone device. for that unfortunatelly, it is a deal killer that I’d have no way of accessing money when travelling abroad, which is something I do 30+ times a year :(
My country’s gov has a 2FA app to authenticate logins for public services, check digital IDs and pay taxes. No web version for that.
All of my banks are neobanks except my savings account, so also no web banking there. These banks have several “pots” which you can use to divide your money (bills, holidays, use later, etc) so the interactions with these apps are pretty much daily. I also don’t like to have too much money readily available so that in case of my card being cloned, the hackers won’t be able to take more than 100 euros from me.
There are also public bikes that are free to use but require a specific app that for some reason didn’t work at all on my graphemeOS install (I think due to Google Play Services not signing the app).
I’ve also had issues in the past when I lived in another city where you could clock in and out of the metro station using an app that I couldn’t use because of GrapheneOSs strong anti-tracking features.
So yes, there are a series of reasons as to why these alternatives OSes become major inconveniences. It’s not just the banks, it’s the whole shebang together. If you have free time to play around with it to see if you can make things work then it’s fine, but when you have a job and need things to just work then it becomes really jarring to use. Just my opinion.
I wanna discuss with you, because this is exactly what I thought… I’ve gotten almost down to, contacts/email/messengers and then there are a couple apps which does govt id (like 2fa) that don’t have desktop version, grayjay, osm, whether, gadget bridge etc… And that’s it. I was wondering if any device with Ubuntu touch could do that. And one interesting thing I wanted to think is that if there is a cm5 (the blackberry raspberry pie thing) that connects to a 5g hotspot for wifi, can I run max things via browser and IP phone…etc… Would be an interesting experience/ experiment
Folks, many banks have now implemented 2FA through their apps. That is the only reason why i have it installed. But i keep it on a deperate GrapheneOS profile that i turn on anff as i need it.
Not sure I completely understand the thought here, apologies. Are you considering just emulating Android for some specific apps that only exist as apps? Seems a probable approach. I suppose extending that, one could even just emulate the apps on a computer at home and remote desktop into the computer from their phone to run them, although that’d be possibly obtuse.
May I ask what country has apps that require government ID to run on their phone for certain things? That seems a bit dystopian.
Sweden,Lituania,Denmark, Norway, Poland, that I know of, off the top of my head. And for the dystopian feeling you have, consider that its required for banking, tax filing and things where you would otherwise have to prove your identity with a government issued ID or passport. So no more dystopian than being required to show Id when taking out a house loan.
You can add Portugal, Spain and (I think) Estonia to that list. But really the tendency will be for more countries to adopt this technology. Whether we like it or not the degoogling/PrivSec community is really niche and most people prefer to use standard phones, and there these apps work perfectly.
I appreciate and applaud your are trying to get away from Big Tech, but… GrapheneOS isn’t really deGoogled—honestly, this post fits better in a privacy or security sub, not the deGoogle one, if you ask me. Most apps on Android today need at least something from Play Services to work. Yeah, GrapheneOS doesn’t come with Play Services pre-installed, but they make it super easy to add, and most importantly: they don’t even support microG, which is the great open-source, deGoogled alternative for Play Services. Oh, and then there is the fact you can literallt only run GrapheneOS on Google Pixels right now… If you’re serious about ditching Google, CalyxOS, /e/OS, or LineageOS are way better options imo
Lmao it’s you again, I could immediately tell. So now I see you’re just a hypocrite GOS anti, because shilling for microG but then saying GOS isn’t “truly deGoogled” in the same post is crazy lol.
Play services and store are optional and if installed are treated the same as any other app in the system.
just spreading misinformation. Dont make such a comment if you know nothing.
This thread explains why microG is not used and why with microG the properteary google libraries are still used https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/10793-clarification-about-microg-what-is-it-is-it-insecure/24
e/os lags behind security and privacy patches, more info in this thread https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/24134-devices-lacking-standard-privacysecurity-patches-and-protections-arent-private
CalyxOs currently does not even get updates at all https://calyxos.org/news/2025/08/01/a-letter-to-our-community/ https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/24791-departure-of-calyx-calyxos-leadership-and-discontinuation-of-calyxos-updates
And LineageOS is just not secure aswell, but i dont know much about this one besides that 🤷
Most of this is false and/outdated information. CalyxOS indeed is temporarily suspended, but all of these OS that you mention and microG deserve praise for everything they do to help people be more private, deGoogle and use open source software imo
oh what exactly is false about microG? be specific. and add a source.
i wont even ask about e/os it is well know that they are behind on updates.
edit: and the other OSs dont really matter tho. I just added this to highlight how you blindly ignore glaring issued in other ones, because of some misinformed understanding of MicroG. and as a warning to others to not get them, if they have the oppertunity to get graphene.
What a weak line of argumentation. Hopes and dreams don’t matter on the face of reality.
There is a reason why Journalists, activists and whistleblowers use GrapheneOS, and it is the only OS that is recommended for such use cases. It’s the only OS that has the receipts to prove their are resistant to remote penetration breaches lfrom the likes os Pegasus and common evil maidens like Celebrite.
There are no high-risk personas using microG OSes. The ones who did are now dead.
Yes and this is indeed the target population of GrapheneOS, people with extremely high security needs. And that’s great. But my point is that such efforts come with compromises and in the case of GrapheneOS it has led to a reduced level of user friendliness for regular normal users. Which is fine, it’s all just choices. Because of those choices, GrapheneOS is not the best option in terms of deGoogling, others are better. Again this ok, you can never do everything at the same time
Have you ever tried running Android apps on Graphene? Most run just fine without Play Services, many even have smaller degoogled versions. Some Play-only apps may have an error dialog here or there, but very few just flat don’t work at all. Graphene + Obtainium config to pull apps in from various sources and manage updating them. Maybe a few sideloads. About as zero Google as one can get on a modern smartphone.
Do you even hear yourself?
“GrapheneOS isn’t really degoogled”
“GrapheneOS doesn’t come with Play Services pre-installed, but they make it super easy to add”
So in your estimation it would be only degoogled if they made it difficult to add instead of super easy? What are you even talking about dude?
Also, you don’t have to buy the pixel from Google. You can get one refurbished or used.
What I mean is quite clearly explained in my post above… GrapheneOS only offers Play Store integration, not microG, while microG is a great Google alternative for Play Services. So basically, with GrapheneOS you’re not only tied to a Google device, but also to Google Play Services, all 30 or something of them. How is that being deGoogled? As I said, for deGoogling there are better options: those that don’t use Google Play Services but microG (most other custom Roms) and those that support other devices than Google Pixels
MicroG is insecure software and there isn’t a single ROM that uses it that passes even basic security checks. Low tier Chinese hardware is more secure than the best ROM using microG, including /e/OS.
You are NOT tied to Google play services on gOS. An OPTIONAL sandboxed version of play services, without the system level privileges, is offered.
Also, consider the reasons for degoogling. For many, it is privacy. GrapheneOS is currently the only player on the field with any serious level of security.
Well you are tied to Play Services if you want to run most apps, which all require Play Services to some degree. I’m not saying you can’t use GrapheneOS without Play Services, of course you can, just like AOSP, your phone just won’t run most apps (well). My points remains: GrapheneOS only supports Google Play Services while there is a great non-Google alternative available + they only support Google devices when there is a whole marketplace full of other devices. In the area of deGoogling they do poorly
This is important because microG contains all sorts of cool stuff that will help break Google’s monopoly over the Android ecosystem at some point, like UnifiedPush, an alternative to Google’s push notification system. That’s why they are better. By offering support for Google Play Services but not microG, the monopoly of Google and the continued use of Play Services is supported, which imo it should not be
