Not mine... Graphene, baby.
this post was submitted on 04 Nov 2025
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DeGoogle Yourself
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The irony of having to buy a Google phone to get rid of Google services will never cease to amaze me. :/
Graphene is working with a different OEM, so, we may not need Google's devices to run GrapheneOS soon.
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You can buy second hand phones and then Google doesn't get any more money. Easy solution.
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Unfortunately, Google manufacture the best-in-class hardware device when it comes to security features.
The real irony is paying Google what you'd pay for an iPhone 16 and getting iPhone 11 performance and they're spying on you and selling your personal information to who knows who. Okay but you wiped the phone and installed custom firmware that doesn't track you... but you still paid Google the price of current-gen iPhone and got a phone with the performance of one from 5 years ago. Google still won.
The personal information is the point, that's the real gold mine, and they'll get it from enough people to not care about the less than 1% of Pixel owners flashing Graphene. For those users, they're happy to sell generations-old tech at a premium. And they call you a sucker behind your back. And then tell you Apple is the big corporate overlord you're running from and make it sound like Apple is the enemy. (I'm not saying they're not, but that's a convenient story among fandroids. And it may not even be accurate. Because iOS has no open source component though... we don't know.)
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I haven't quite pulled the trigger on installing Graphene yet. How is it.as a daily driver?
Two years, I barely notice. 1 in 30 apps has an issue, then I click the switch remove system memory protections and it works.
It's the best option.
I second this. Been using GOS for almost a year. One pretty big drawback is that it's not compatible with my insulin pump app, so now I carry around a 2nd device. Some banking apps aren't compatible as well. Wells Fargo and Amex work for me but Chase doesn't. The increased security and privacy is very noticeable, the inconveniences are worth it imo.
Wells fargo and Chase are stealing your money.
Join a credit union
Everybody's stealing my money.
insulin pump app
Hopefully it's just for additional stats and options. Would be quite diabolical for a life-saving device to depend on an app that demands regular Android.
The app that I was using to fully control it doesn't work, which is why I carry around the OEM receiver/transmitter for the pump now. My pump would not function without one of those two options.
Weird. Amex works for me. My banking apps require the memlock protection turned off in settings, and so does my parking app. Otherwise, that's it.
I've been using it for about a year now. The only differences I noticed were entirely positive.
It's nice, but Pixels are so expensive.
Getting a used one is cheaper AND you don´t give money directly to Google. Or wait a year or two for the other Graphene phones.
They're even expensive used.
They did go up a bit this year but if you set alerts on your preferred marketplace and be patient, you'll find one at a decent price. I started shopping pixels last November and pulled the trigger on my preferred model by first week of January. Worth the wait all the way.
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The show stopers are some banking apps that don't work and tap to pay
If that's not an issue for you, then I've had zero problems running GOS. You'll spend the first week figuring out using different profiles, the cleaner interface, installing things that you actually want. But after that you won't even notice the difference.
I use Android auto, I have Google installed in a profile for it, everything else is clean without Google, everything works fine.
So like, you create a sandboxes profile for Google and log into that in your car and use android auto, get to your destination and switch back?
Kinda but you have 3 profiles active at once:
- owner
- work
- private
So google just lives in one and the others are clean. From a usage perspective it's seamless
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You're fucking up, and I say that in the kindest way.
You'll spend 2 days figuring out issues if you even have them.
It also has one of the coolest installers of all time.
Save what you need to and jump ship.
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I've been using it since the Pixel 3 days. Tap to pay doesn't work, and some people have reported banking apps not working, although my banking apps do work. Also, certain pixel-exclusive features like now playing don't work. And you are going to need to install play services or other Google components if you want stuff like notifications in various apps or text-to-speech and speech-to-text in the browser, etc. Aside from that, it's incredible. Works perfectly.
No more new hardware beyond Pixel 9 for the foreseeable future though, and Graphene's ODM partner (if it even pans out) will be using Qualcomm chips, which is a US military contractor and not known for good security.
Is it possible to undermine this with NetGuard? (Noob asking, please be kind)
It helps for sure, but it's difficult to tell exactly how much, since unless you have a rooted device, NetGuard installs at the user level while Google's services are privileged and are known to bypass VPNs and VPN-like apps, including NetGuard, on occasion.
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Timing is excellent for me. Would RethingDNS & Firewall (using both features) provide a "pseudo" Graphene OS like environment? If not, is the more affordable Fairphone 6 worth the costs?
It's better than the default, but such firewalls are installed at the user level while Google's services are installed at the root level and are known to bypass VPNs and VPN-style firewalls, including RethinkDNS, on occasion.
Rethink actually seems to block Play Services if you choose to configure Rethink a certain way. It is delightful watching Play Services become more and more desperate. Trying other states, other countries, and even other Google devices on your local network in a desperate attempt to get online and shit telemetry back to Google.
Same can't be said about iOS. Apple routes their 17.x.x.x network and other traffic outside userspace, immune to even full-tunnel VPN. Android networking isn't that capable.
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i would sell your current phone if you can't get a AOSP rom and get the fairphone if you can afford it.
sadly getting root and GSI all that jazz on my phone is annoying af (i spent all day yesterday doing stuff around that) so whatever. just hope that my next budget phone can have linage OS which i highly doubt but oh well.
You know they have a wiki of all compatible devices right? You have a lot of options. Due to the bootloader relocking exclusivity, used Pixel seems like the way to go sadly
yeah the only way to get my phone to work is doing DSU sideload which is dumb because when my phone reboots or dies i have to setup the OS again and download and sign in again to my apps. i tried installing a ROM yesterday i was able to do it, but sadly SMS doesnt work (was onlt getting 4G), 5G doesnt work, and APK's wont install
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I have a rooted phone and I isolated this app.
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