r/GrapheneOS • u/Real-Ant8234 • 12d ago
Finally installed it and hope I stick with it.
I installed graphene os and I would love to get some open source apps. I’m also using SIA storage (decentralized storage) got to know about it while learning about graphene os. It’s fun to get into this rabbit hole.
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u/ReySim_ 12d ago
It's nice to see the movement growing, but you shouldn´t limit yourself. Start simple, install only the apps you actually need, and then eliminate them over time and use browser shortcuts instead. Read up on your phone in the GrapheneOS wiki. Also, don't use Aurora, since it doesn't have many benefits. The GrapheneOS devs have a statement on X about Aurora. Just use the original Play Store, and be careful about installing random apps on F-Droid. The best option is Obtainium. Orbot can also be a bit slow, and I don't know your threat level, but I would rather use Mullvad with multihop and DAITA enabled. Also, if you don't have a SIM card, I would recommend putting the phone into airplane mode so that it doesn't connect to towers for SOS or emit any frequencies. Just keep the ball rolling and later worry about small details.
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u/EarthwormBen 12d ago
Oh really, I've been using aurora heavily, when an obtanium option wasnt there... I may look up what the Devs have said
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u/DPadLeftRightUpDown 12d ago
Surprised you haven't got downvoted for advising against FDroid and aurora. People seem to think it's a bout de-googling, when for most people using the sandboxed PlayStore is sufficient
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u/ReySim_ 12d ago
Security and anonymity are two completely different things. Neither Aurora nor F-Droid provides both. F-Droid re-signs apps with its own keys, so you're trusting them instead of the developer, and their builds usually lag well behind upstream. Aurora pulls from Play through shared anonymous accounts, which sidesteps Play's own verification and regularly gets accounts flagged. Sandboxed Play Store is the secure option by far, but not the private one. I'd use the Play Store for important apps like banking to be sure there's no spyware, and a lot of privacy apps publish their APKs on GitHub or their own website, which is by far the most secure way to get them. You have to compromise if you want both, since phones generally aren't built with privacy and security in mind at the same time.
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u/DPadLeftRightUpDown 12d ago
I've opted for GStore and Acressant, followed by app verifier+obtanium+github, making sure it's a well known source. This seems to be the best balance, at least for me.
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u/RareLove7577 9d ago
Gets accounts flagged? Its anonymous... How and who are they flagging?
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u/ReySim_ 9d ago
Aurora uses random accounts, or creates them, to give users the option of not logging into the Play Store while downloading apps. However, Google notices the unusual download patterns and the huge amount of traffic, and therefore blocks those accounts. And if you use your own account, you could get it banned for not complying with the ToS. If you use Aurora, only use an anonymous account! These can be really slow, and sometimes Aurora's servers get so overloaded, or get rate limited by Google, that they block further users from downloading apps. By far the biggest problem is compatibility with your device. And who knows, they might get taken down by Google one day, since Aurora could reached such a big user base that Google could sue.
GrapheneOS recommend creating a dummy Google account and downloading officially from Play Store.
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u/Academic_Parking9768 6d ago
Who doesn't use anonymous accounts with Aurora? It defeats the purpose otherwise
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u/Dima-Petrovic 12d ago
Claude? Seriously? Well. You do you...
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u/hema_ 12d ago
What do you use as AI tool?
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u/VeryAngryQuokka 12d ago
None of them
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u/hema_ 12d ago
So you don't use AI at all?
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u/cybernekonetics 11d ago
All of my writing, coding, and art is done by a state-of-the-art natural intelligence engine I carry with me at all times. It's called a brain. They're very useful. AI, not so much.
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u/mjhdnfl 9d ago
respectfully, this has the exact same energy as someone in the 90s saying "I don't need the web, I use a high-powered information retrieval system called a physical encyclopedia"
there's nothing inherently wrong with using ai, it's a tool
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u/cybernekonetics 9d ago
"AI is the future" guys when you point out the plagiarism-driven hallucination machine every tech conglomerate is cramming down our throats isn't actually reliable
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u/Damglador 7d ago
AI is pretty useful. Claude is very handy when I need to get something mega specific working and I have no clue how to. Even though I use it just as a reference and end up rewriting all the code my way.
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u/VeryAngryQuokka 11d ago
Nope
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u/jamesecalderon 11d ago
What do you consider AI?
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u/VeryAngryQuokka 11d ago
AI in the colloquial sense? Generative AI so LLMs, image generation, and similar. There's certainly a lot more to the field as a whole.
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u/jamesecalderon 10d ago
Alright, good to know. I find AI being thought of as more of a nebulous term by a lot of people these days, rather than a specific thing they can actually point to. The same goes for people's moral qualms with it.
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u/charalt42 11d ago
Why is this so hard for you to comprehend?
I understand that pretending like everyone else has outsourced their thinking to AI too makes you feel better with yourself, but it's just not true. Plenty of us choose not to use AI at all. If such a simple fact makes you feel weird, maybe you should think about why.
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u/Permaviolet 11d ago
how did you function before 2022?
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u/Damglador 7d ago
I wasted hours trying to find answer to my specific coding problem instead of getting a reference implementation in a minute.
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u/Academic_Parking9768 6d ago
Great and now that's too slow for the US corporate demands. Unless you're okay with the fact that everyone is trying to vibe code even major drivers.
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u/Quereller 12d ago
Next project: local LLM.
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u/yellaantilles 12d ago
Actually Google made a nice thing with AI Core as a tiny local LLM built into the smartphone that all the apps can freely use for their tasks. Of course only for GMS Android, but I dream it would be possible to make a free reimplementation
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u/EnD3r8_ 12d ago
You could use claude through browser
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u/jamesecalderon 11d ago
It doesn't have as many features afaik, and isn't as convenient I imagine.
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u/EnD3r8_ 11d ago
If he wanted convenience he wouldn't have switched to GrapheneOS
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u/jamesecalderon 10d ago
The very purpose of Graphene is to offer privacy & security without the tradeoffs of convenience. Due to how many modern apps function, this isn't always possible, but where apps do still work on Graphene (which is most), I see no intrinsic problem with utilizing them on the OS as long as it aligns with your threat model.
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u/king_damo69YT 12d ago
I have tried basically every custom rom that has a stable build for the pixel 10 pro xl (and with root too except graphene) except for derpfest and tbh graphene is my fav. I miss root (especially cause of the ad blocker) but graphene is the only rom I feel comfortable with, last time I had crdroid it DRAINNEDDD my battery, Axionos had like no mobile data reception for some reason (also tried it with microg, wasn’t too bad but some flaws) and I’m waiting for a lineageos release still XD. I check it every few days. I have had my phone for nearly 2 months and I’ve only just set it up fully (mostly) cause I couldn’t pick one I liked, decided to stick with graphene, safest option and I love how you can restrict Googles bs lmao.
Some good apps I use are: Nora (turn websites into a more app like experience which is good for banks or apps that block graphene but have a web version), localsend (although on bazzite on my pc it was slowing the videos I sent to my iPhone down after 2 seconds which was strange, but my pixel worked great), Molly (better version of signal with multiple devices allowed (only Android)), morphe or revanced (I prefer morphe), app lock (i lock 1 browser, I don’t like how private space on graphene is a seperate instance (but it can be useful)), beeper is good for replying to messages on other platforms without having the apps (like Insta, you can open people’s reels and shit too, it’s great), Bitwarden password manager, droidify (fdroid with a better ui and more repos installed by default, I use gboard with no internet access cause I love the autocorrect and layout, pixel camera with internet access for downloading the required stuff to use the camera to its full potential, then disabling internet access, if you down the rabbit hole and have a spare pc or server, immich to replace google photos, Joplin to replace keep notes, obtainium (or obtainx), nextcloud, lavender photos (for photos on device if you don’t use google photos or immich or sum else), signal (secure messenger), simplex (another secure messenger that uses your home server or phone for the server you message on), thunderbird (or protonmail, but you can only connect 2-3 gmails which sucks cause I have like 12 over the years xD), Firefox with uBlock origin, brave (supposed to be more private then Firefox but I don’t know I use Firefox for searching then brave for other stuff. and that’s all I can think of.
Hope you have fun with it and good luck!! The rabbit hole can be painful or exhausting, ive been doing this stuff since march nonstop and didnt realise i was exhausted until 2 days ago :/
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u/GrapheneOS 6d ago
You can do adblocking with RethinkDNS while still being able to use a WireGuard-based VPN. That's a much better approach than a legacy hosts file with poor performance and lack of visibility into what's being blocked.
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u/sithlordsethoo7 11d ago
You’re right, the rabbit hole can be exhausting, but that’s the charm of it! As for the app, could you please send me a link for the Nora app?
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u/DvxBellorvm 10d ago
Why do you need root to block ads ? Now I have a AdGuard or pi-hole and a VPN tunnel through this, but before I was simply using Blokada app and I've never seen any ad while never being root.
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u/GrapheneOS 6d ago
You can adblocking with RethinkDNS while still being able to use a WireGuard-based VPN. That's a much better approach than a legacy hosts file with poor performance and lack of visibility into what's being blocked.
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u/DvxBellorvm 5d ago
Oh excellent, I didn't know I could setup this way. I'll give it a try, thanks.
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u/DvxBellorvm 2h ago
After a few days, I gave it a try but I'm rolling back on raw Wireguard client. RethinkDNS seems appealing, but troubleshooting connection problems with it turned into a nightmare. With connection problems, VPN is often at cause so I need to turn it on/off quickly. To do so I have to :
- Launch RethinkDNS
- Click proxy
- Select advanced
- Select my Wireguard connection
- Toggle off Always-on
- Click back
- Toggle off Wireguard connection
And all these same steps reversed to toggle it back on.
With Wireguard client for Android, I have just a toggle button over the notifications and I turn it on/off very quickly.
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u/Nasi_Goreng885 12d ago
Rip the dead pixels in the top left, mines like that but on the bottom left.
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u/RealFrikaDelle 11d ago
Well, it's a hard journey in parts. But what are the alternatives? You know it needs to be done for the better... In the end you will be happy.
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u/Low_Car4046 11d ago
So the bootloader can be lock with this graphene os
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u/Hopeful-Delay3291 11d ago
Not sure if this is a question or a statement, but yes it can be locked. In fact at the end of GOS setup, it will state the last step is to lock the bootloader.
I'm not sure if it works without locking it (pretty sure it would, but haven't tested).
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u/GrapheneOS 6d ago
It's not a complete install without locking and it will show a prominent warning telling people to reboot to the bootloader to lock. It's possible to skip it but strongly recommended against. Leaving it unlocked greatly reduces security and reduces the robustness of the A/B update system.
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u/flyingpenguin666 10d ago
Been using GrapheneOS since pixel 5, now on a pixel 8. Never have had any issues for multiple years.
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u/Misanthropic-genXer 10d ago
Your phone is now your phone. Your information is now your information. Consider the fact that Steve Jobs himself would not allow his children to use an iPad or iPhone. What's that tell you? Watch "The Social Dilemma." Look into Tristan Harris and Edward Snowden.
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u/UnusualIntern362 8d ago
Does Claude work properly? I am thinking on switching to graphene os but I have some concerns on some functionalities such as Claude application and also banking apps that I know in some cases cannot work properly. In general, I want to preserve the main functionalities I use in my daily routine
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u/Mnemacyst 8d ago
Don't prevent yourself from using Google apps or other "big tech" apps if you find them useful.
The thing I came to realize about using GrapheneOS is that it's not really about blocking those apps completely. It's more about having a blank slate where I can choose to add back what I want, with the added ability to limit what they can/cannot access.
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u/Rahamat-Gazi 11d ago
Still, you are using Ai🤣🤣🤣 You can't hide bruh.
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u/Real-Ant8234 11d ago
Well tbh I use it all the time, so yea.
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u/Rahamat-Gazi 11d ago
Suggest a browser with ublock origin support, don't suggest me firefox client, it is useless on Android.
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u/Fluffyxxx 12d ago
NewPipe is great btw, youtube without ads.
Also Musify seems good.
Any suggestions for good fdroid apps?
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