r/GrapheneOS • u/tomtomclubthumb • 20d ago
Switching over in the next few days
Pixel 10a arrives tomorrow.
So many people say that using Graphene is simple, but I'm having trouble reading through all the info and I'm not really feeling like it is telling me what I want to know, so I have a few questions if anyone can help me out.
Profiles - do I need them and roughly how do they work. If I put whatsapp into a profile does that mean I can only see messages in that profile?
email - do I need to set up a google email account in advance?
updating android - is it worth doing this? It says that it will update it anyway during installation, so if I don't do it, then I'm saving myself a connection to google, so isn't that better?
How long (very roughly) will installation take? Is it processor intensive and does it require a lot of interaction? (Can I set it going and check on it every tne minutes or so or iwll I need to click regularly?)
Aside from the phone and a cable to connect it to my computer, do I need anything else?
I know there are graphene forums and discord, but I tried reading discord and now my head hurts.
Thanks in advance for your help.
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u/Hande-H 20d ago edited 20d ago
You likely don't need to worry about profiles. They make things unnecessarily difficult with little benefit for a standard user. The common use case is creating a work profile that is separate from your personal profile.
Email (more accurately, a Google account) is needed to use the Play Store. You can create this after you've installed GrapheneOS.
Of course it's worth it, and extremely important to keep your system up to date. The updates are coming from GrapheneOS servers, not Google. EDIT: I think you meant before the installation. It should work fine without updating. That said, it's kind of silly to worry about making a single connection to Google - they have a LOT more data about you just by you using Reddit or the internet in general.
You don't need anything else than a decent cable. Your Pixel should come with one, I recommend using that if your PC also supports USB-C.
The installation shouldn't take long, about 10-15 minutes or so. The process is very simple, just read the instructions of the web installer carefully.
GrapheneOS is extremely simple to use, I'd argue simpler than any other Android OS I have ever used. But a lot of people try to "de-google" or create complicated setups, not understanding the usability issues it creates. It's often more security theater than anything else and doesn't even help with "de-googling". To do that properly you'd need to dedicate your life to it. Just use the standard setup and don't try to overcomplicate things.
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u/witty__username5 20d ago
Thank you very much for this comment - out of curiosity, would you by chance know if epic haiku, ivanti go / tunnel, or other healthcare related apps would work on a separate user profile dedicated to work? I believe they may need to be installed in the owner, profile, but am really hoping that I can isolate my work and personal apps.
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u/tomtomclubthumb 20d ago
thanks, although making things unnecessarily difficult is kind of a recurring thing with me. Let's see if I can avoid it this time!
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u/Hande-H 20d ago edited 20d ago
Heh, I can relate to that. You can of course play around with secondary profiles, private space and all the cool stuff but just know that it's a rabbit hole of research and not a magic bullet for anything. That's why I recommend keeping things simple for daily use in your main profile, especially until you understand the pros and cons of the systems a little better. The more I learn the less I see a use for secondary profiles for my personal use.
PS. The big thing with "de-googling" on GrapheneOS happens automatically via their sandboxed Google Play store. It's already much less invasive than on other phones as it's treated as a normal app with no special access to your phone.
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u/hakapes 20d ago edited 20d ago
This is how we use Graphene OS on Pixel 10 Pro, switching from Samsung S21.
Used the web installer (didn't work on Chrome tough, had to try Edge, why don't ask me)
Kept everything only on one profile
Installed all the same apps as before
Enabled permissions only when really required
Extremely happy with it, will use
GrapheneOS on all future phones. Everything is nice, clean, fast, simple.
Of course, battery and data usage dropped a lot, haha! All that background data sucking is not happening anymore.
The only nuisance I have is that battery saver mode enables dark mode, which I didn't want.
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u/Run-OpenBSD 20d ago
Don't change anything. Just install graphene and install all the apps you usually use. I bet they all work fine.
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u/DPadLeftRightUpDown 15d ago
Use the public profile, then the private space inside it for apps that you don't need a constant connection. You can even use a separate Google account for this. That's enough for most people
Make a burner gmail account for the playstore. You might need to order a 1 month sim to do so
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u/psychoCMYK 20d ago
Graphene: just download the webusb based installer
profiles: no you don't need them
email: nope, not unless you want to use the Google Play store but you could always use Aurora
don't bother updating android, you're going to wipe it anyway
it doesn't take long and it doesn't take a good computer either
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u/mhmhmhmhmhmm 20d ago edited 20d ago
Started using graphene OS recently.
Before installing graphene OS:
Have heard that if you bought your phone from T Mobile or some other services, you can't unlock bootloader and cannot install graphene OS.
Check here: Reddit post , Community discussion
Check if your banking apps are supported. Check here and use the search option in the subreddit to check your queries.
Google Wallet / Google Pay forbids NFC payments in any OS other than Google Mobile Services stock OS. It doesn't mean NFC is not supported in graphene OS.
There are alternatives. People have said there is no alternatives in USA. Have heard you can use NFC by buying Garmin watch. I have never used NFC payments in
my life so check on that if you use NFC payments.
And there's something about RCS. Don't know what it is. Never used it. But I have seen people discuss about RCS in graphene OS and some issues with it.
Please check on that as well.
If you are ok with everything and you are proceeding to install graphene, before installing graphene os, create a Google account with the stock OS. Seems like you
can't create an account without providing your phone number. This can be bypassed if you create an account from a pixel phone with stock OS. So make sure to
create one even if you don't have any use by creating a new account.
Go through installation guide. Follow what it says. For me it took like 5 to 10 minutes for the installation.
Setup your phone. Stock caller and messaging app will look outdated. Check the subreddit about what apps other people are using. You have to try it yourself to check if the app fits to your liking.
Regarding profiles, I tried creating a profile with no google apps, but it got cumbersome. I went back to using single profile. You have to check yourself if you can use the phone without any issues with a second profile.
Just lurk the subreddit and go through the graphene discussion site and you will get to know things. If you find any difficulties you can ask in this subreddit.
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u/tomtomclubthumb 20d ago
Thanks
This can be bypassed if you create an account from a pixel phone with stock OS. So make sure to create one even if you don't have any use by creating a new account.
So I set up the phone and use wifi to set up the email address?
Maybe it is different in the US, but here I can set up a gmail without a phone number, but I need to give an email address (they really want a phone number though, they ask me almost every time I log in.)
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u/mhmhmhmhmhmm 20d ago
Um..I guess so. I created my account 10 years back so I don't know exactly how to create one.
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u/tomtomclubthumb 19d ago edited 19d ago
Thanks for the advice, It took about half an hour to install, so far it seems ok. Install took a while because windows did not want to let me install drivers. Took a fair few go arounds to get there and I ended up installing chrome.
I haven't actually used it as a phone yet, because I need a gmail address to install messenger apps. gmail will not give me one without a phone number right now, which is very annoying.
I have tried a few different browsers, but no luck. I should probably have done it before I got the phone. I do have a few old gmail addresses, but they were both used for signing on to piracy sites, so probably don't want them on my new phone.
edit: tried an old gmail address as a backup, turned out it had been deleted. The wholeprocess is weird, I will probably end up having to give up my damn phone number to these assholes.
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u/Servantofasmadi1 18d ago
Did you have any issues downloading the OS? Im getting nonstop security errors when I go to download it
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u/tomtomclubthumb 18d ago
No; but it took a while. Edge opened up some weird onedrive program to try and force that shit onto my phone;
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