Privacy

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Graphene vs /e/ os (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 day ago by MostRegularPeople@lemmy.world to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

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A question as old as time, I know.

I'm getting away from Google and I've done the easy stuff: CoMaps, Proton mail (I know, not the best move), aveslibre, etc. I currently don't have the time (or the knowledge base) to learn how to self host, but hopefully that will replace Drive and such in the future.

But I digress. I'm looking at a new OS for my phone. I'm currently in a contract with a phone that is incompatible with alternative OSs. Graphene needs a Pixel. Used, they're $150-400. /e/OS will run on a Motorola or whatever and those are like $80.

There's also the option of going full Fairphone with /e/os and I like that idea in the future.

The internet people tell me that Graphene is the best due to ease of installation, privacy, and security.

I don't need a lot of security. I just want Google to stop suckling all that sweet, sweet data from my teat.

What are your thoughts?

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[–] utopiah@lemmy.ml 6 points 20 hours ago (2 children)

Check my post history if you want as I did post quite a few times about my journey there but basically :

used Android a long time ago
switched to iOS due to discussions with security experts at Mozilla
bought and used sporadically Linux proper phones (PinePhone and PinePhone Pro) with different distributions
tired of iOS restrictions as a developer, switched to /e/OS last year

The main appeal of /e/OS for me wasn't security or privacy but rather being able to purchase a phone with the OS installed. I wanted to buy a phone, put the SIM in and be pretty much done with it. I also wanted banking apps to keep on working. I bought the cheapest /e/OS phone namely https://murena.com/shop/smartphones/brand-new/murena-cmf-phone-1/ then and basically I've been using daily since.

Few clarifications that I believe are misunderstandings :

on security, yes /e/OS lags behind GrapheneOS for Android updates. If you are worried of 0-days because you are a political dissident you should probably NOT use /e/OS but get your setup reviewed by experts. You should definitely not trust randoms strangers on the Internet on that topic. It's important to put an emphasis on the fact that even with the latest Android updates, a phone is still not entirely secure, does not matter if it's with Googled Android, GrapheneOS, iOS or whatever other OS. It's only the least worst known state, in theory. It's better to follow best practices but without being either naive or paranoid.
on privacy, /e/OS has some defaults you might not like but they are JUST that, namely default settings. If you do not want to use a Murena account, simply do not create one. That's it. You won't have any call to any API, even proxied one like OpenAI. AFAICT this is also only for paid accounts so it can't happen by mistake. Feel free to check my post/comment history on that. Again if your threat model is any information leak, might be better to use GrapheneOS but if you are fine with just avoiding the downside of surveillance capitalism, IMHO /e/OS is good enough, namely you don't share usage data to Google, even with default settings.

[–] eleitl@lemmy.zip 1 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

To be fair, GOS install is extremely user-friendly. Absolutely no contest with Lineage OS on my Samsung tablet, which initially failed and required some wizardry. My old phone and tablet are still stuck on 18.1 while 22.2 is available.

[–] utopiah@lemmy.ml 1 points 14 hours ago

I have no doubt. In fact I bet that as soon as you have done it once, it's entirely obviously. I'm mostly taking the perspective here of somebody who needs a phone and doesn't even properly understand what an OS even is.

[–] utopiah@lemmy.ml 2 points 20 hours ago

Also self-hosting is not trivial but it got way easier over the years IMHO thanks to Docker/Podman. Also I'd recommend investing time in it because... it will still be worth it in a decade!

If you are up for it I could write few "challenges" for you and see where it leads.