Should you GrapheneOS?
I’ve always been an Android enjoyer, all but my very first phone (well, it was an iPod) have been Android phones. I won’t get too much into the Android vs iOS debate here but I’m sure you have your preferences too. Of course, that doesn’t mean I don’t have my gripes with Android, the main one being such heavy reliance on Google through Google Play. I’ve been taking as many steps as possible recently to reduce my reliance on Google (and big tech companies as a whole) including switching all my email over to Proton instead of G-Mail, as well as self-hosting Immich in place of Google Photos. Now, I also bought a Pixel 7 not too long ago after my OnePlus 5T finally gave up the ghost, and yeah the relatively bloat-free stock OS is nice, but again, so much Google! Speaking of my old 5T, I daily drove LineageOS on it for probably a year or so, but that wasn’t really for the “de-Googling” aspect. Regardless, it worked well and I never had any major issues before I replaced it.
So why not just do the same again on the Pixel? Well, I had originally had planned to, but then I came across GrapheneOS and CalyxOS, two more Android distributions(?) with focuses on security and privacy, but with some differences. The main one being how they handle Google Play services. Calyx makes use of microG, a partially open-source re-implementation of Google Play services running with full privileges just as regular Google Play would. Graphene, on the other hand, uses the regular Google Play Services with one major difference. They are installed as regular apps, meaning they have no special permissions, and all of the permission for them can be entirely controlled (i.e. network access, contacts, etc). If you want a full comparison, this post by PrivacyGuides is great. Anyway, I much prefer the premise of how GP operates on Graphene, so that’s mostly why I decided to go with it instead (oh and Reddit recommended it over Calyx if you have a Pixel, lol).
Installation
The installation of Graphene is pretty much as easy as it gets, I won’t give a full tutorial here but literally just go to https://grapheneos.org/install/web in a supported browser (I used Edge (I know 🤢)) and follow the instructions on the page. I had zero issues, just make sure you actually read the all steps to the end.
Initial setup
The initial setup is similar to any other Android phone, just without the option to sign in with a Google account. To install Google services, you use the “Apps” app that comes pre-installed, and handles Graphene and Google apps. Now, I had originally aimed to entirely avoid adding my Google account to this OS by installing everything I needed either from F-Droid or using Aurora Store, which lets you get free apps from the Play Store without signing into a Google account. And this was so close to working, but, as it goes with any custom Android OS, a banking app caused an issue.
Adding Google Play Services and the Play Store
The app in question was Chase UK, and it was the only banking app (of the three I needed) that caused any issues. It simply refused to install through Aurora no matter what I did. All I needed to do to get it working was install Google Play Services and the Play Store through the Apps app included with Graphene. If you want to, you can install these in their own “profile,” but honestly, I couldn’t really be bothered to do that, or the consequence of needing to switch profiles whenever I want to check any apps that need Google Play. Though to be fair, I didn’t actually do a huge amount of research into this, so I might be grossly misinformed as to how this works (technically and from a user perspective). Anyway, installing GP in my main profile, I could install Chase without any issues.
General Usage
With that, I was ready to just start using my phone as normal. And to be honest, that’s basically what happened. After the initial configuration of everything, I really didn’t have any snags worth talking about. Everything I usually did with my phone felt pretty much identical; but I guess that’s what I was wanting. A smooth Android experience with the added security benefits that GrapheneOS offers, without too much extra tinkering and manual labour that an open source OS generally requires (I do enjoy that kind of thing, but don’t want something important on my phone to randomly break when on my phone I need to use it).
So? Should I GrapheneOS?
In my very low bearing opinion? Yes. Like I’ve said, install was a breeze and general usage feels no different to the stock Pixel OS. As of now, I see no reason to switch back, though I’ll update this post if anything ever does happen. If you have a supported Pixel, I would say go for it, if you don’t, I would still check out the alternatives like Calyx and Lineage; like I said I happily daily drove the latter for a year or so! Just make sure you do your own research on stuff like compatibility or any features that might not work, Graphene is built specifically for Pixel devices, so it’s easier for it to ensure compatibility over the others, which can be used on a much wider range of devices.
Anyway, thanks for reading, this is the first “real” post I’ve made on here so I really appreciate anyone that took the time to get here. I’ll hopefully see you again soon!