To introduce myself and my knowledge of privacy, I am a relative beginner, but I have been familiar with the concept for 3-4 years or so and read articles and blogs and related posts on Reddit on ways to improve my privacy.
I have been using apps like the following for years on all my (mostly Apple + Android) devices:
VPN (one of the bigger, more established, zero-logs/independently audited paid services)
Signal Messenger
DuckDuckGo/Brave/Safari browsers and more recently have discovered LibreWolf and Tor browsers.
Proton Mail
AdGuard
Cryptomator
Ente Photos/Ente Auth
I have even read guides on this website that gives and I always opt for more privacy-friendly services and I generally post online in more vague ways (avoiding personal details), so I’d like to think of myself as a beginner in this subject but interested in learning more.
On that note, I have a non-Pixel Android phone and I got this despite places like r/privacy being mostly full of people who are just very persistent in their stance that if you go Android it should be Pixel with GrapheneOS or nothing.
I just personally think there’s too many people on that subreddit who, while I admire them for caring about privacy, sound very pushy and paranoid at times and I personally feel like I should be allowed to buy almost any Android phone I want but make primarily sensible choices about how I use it and if that means I’m not 100% anonymous or private (I’ve heard there’s a difference), then I’m okay with that.
But the thing is that in my opinion if the government or anyone at that level wants my information they will get it whether I have GrapheneOS on my phone or not. Or whether I use a Linux. I just don’t want to go through life thinking about every little thing I say or do and how it affects my privacy.
I have a tremendous recent flagship Android phone and while it does have Google on it, I don’t use Google Mail or other Google Apps (besides Play Store, which is very difficult to remove, although I use F-Droid and Aurora Store instead) and I use apps like NewPipe instead of YouTube and OsmAnd instead of Google Maps. And I have NetGuard and Rethink.
So, my question is, is someone like me vilified or a pariah in this community because I don’t conform in the strictest sense to everything related to privacy?
Or am I seen as someone who does care about privacy and doing a lot of the right things (like using alternatives) and at least taking the right steps, even if I use an Android phone without GrapheneOS?
Thats great. This is something that needs to be understood when making the decision to use a device or software that is less privacy or security focused for whatever reason.
This just comes off like copium. If that scenario isn’t in your threat model why worry about it?
Yes and no. I don’t believe the “privacy community” is a monolith where you can make a broad generalization about it. Places like r/privacy and Privacy Guides differ significantly in how the community reacts to these types of posts and the general culture.
In the end, as long as the phone you have works for your threat model its fine. Thats what it comes down to.
As anonymous520 said it’s hard to give general advice without knowing your threat model. But Google and Apple are pretty much the only phone manufacturers that take security seriously, making it hard to recommend pretty much anything else from that perspective. Because most people keep lots of important data on their phones and carry them everywhere, mobile security is pretty important. Another reason you may have seen people pushing for GrapheneOS is that in terms of protecting you from passive surveillance capitalism it is just head and shoulders above the competition, and you do lose a lot of privacy by using pretty much anything else.
Of course your life is up to you and part of threat modeling is determining how far you’re willing to go. Personally, modern phones are all basically the same to me. I don’t really care about any of the new features manufacturers are pushing, and it’s probably been over a decade since I’ve actually been excited by a phone release. Because of this and because surveillance capitalism is part of my threat model, the choice was easy. I think a lot of people feel the same.
I tend to believe that the point of projects like GrapheneOS is being the flag bearer/pioneer for privacy/security features being embedded into our everyday devices. Similar to the original goal the Signal founder used to talk about. The point is not/should never be that everyone on Earth uses GrapheneOS.
We (presumably) want to make mass surveillance and cheap exploitation of our personal memories, thoughts and desires infeasible (in our lifetimes). For this to happen in the device you actually want to use, the best way to inspire those changes is adoption. Don’t think too badly of the evangelists, sometimes I think they are coming from a genuinely empathetic place.
This is a roundabout way of saying, feel free to make use of what best meets your needs. However, if you ever decide to try or sustain an effort to use GrapheneOS, it is something to be a little proud of because it won’t be the smoothest or most convenient ride.
What makes you feel that way? In my view, GrapheneOS is a very pure Android experience and an massive improvement over OEM versions filled with crapware. Everything just works.
It may not be convenient or smooth because features will be missing in comparison to the stock PixelOS experience. Certain apps may also refuse to run on an OS that is not Google-certified.
Actually, GrapheneOS made me realize how much I love Android. I’m just lukewarm about Google’s flavor of it. Whoever says GrapheneOS lacks polish usually refers to a few legacy AOSP apps it must include and hasn’t had the chance or resources to replace, proprietary fonts and things of that nature. It’s truly the cleanest Android experience out there.
How is it their fault? They provide near-perfect compatibility with Android apps. If apps decide not to run on anything except GMS‑licensed devices, people should direct their complaints to the app developers in question. I do it all the time.
If anything, they go above and beyond with their defaults and workarounds for misbehaving apps despite limited resources, because they understand compatibility is critical for OS adoption even when the apps are dogshit. But they don’t have a miracle wand. It’s not a technological problem, it’s a legislative one, as much as I hate to say it.
You lumped it in with things that are lacking compared to stock, which I thought was unfair to them, even though it ultimately affects the overall impression of GrapheneOS. Someone who doesn’t know what a GMS‑licensed device or Play Integrity is would probably think the OS doesn’t work very well
I am reading a few different (and somewhat unclear to me) questions here. Here is my best attempt at a take.
Can a non-GrapheneOS Android be made reasonably or respectfully privacy friendly with sensible privacy choices?
This depends entirely on your personal definition of reasonable and respectful. With how I would define those terms, the answer is a clear no. But everyone should their own threshold and threat model. It could easily be reasonable for you.
You should be allowed to, I absolutely agree. Google however does not agree, and handicaps your ability to do so on any device running stock Android. Because of this, your described setup is a good one but still sits a ways from something like Graphene.
Only by jerks
I think this will be the general experience, with the caveat that you won’t be coddled much; that is to say you won’t receive many answers pretending your setup is better than it is. If you are okay with that (it seems you are), I think most conversations will be fruitful and not judgmental. If you search around the forum most conversations won’t even mention Graphene unless it’s directly relevant. Everyone should feel empowered to improve their privacy to the degree they want, and I hope you get that experience here.
There is no real solution to the issue of apps that refuse to run because of Google certification. If you truly need such an app, I think the best solution is to revert an old Pixel back to the stock OS when upgrading or buying one of the cheapest (<$100) Android devices just for that. Use it as a glorified hardware token to log into that indispensable banking website then power it off and put it in a drawer.
In my view as well. As a long time iPhone user, GrapheneOS is what made me switch and is the only viable Android experience, even if you use vanilla Google Play store.
When you buy a Samsung, at least 2 companies will compulsorily farm your data (Samsung and Google) and your phone comes with bloat from at least 5 companies (Microsoft, Spotify, Facebook). Some of it you can’t even uninstall for some reason, only “disable”. It has 3 AI apps out of the box for God’s sake (Gemini, Bixby, Copilot). How can you trust a company like that not to sell you out when they shamelessly accepted a bribe from Facebook to preinstall their app on your device?
With Apple, at least it is a single company that made your hardware, your OS and the preinstalled apps - most of which you can uninstall. But iPhones lack basic features like a torrent client or the ability to clone Signal for the two SIMs that the phone supports. No Secure Space, no Work Profile, no Dual Messenger, no Molly etc.
With GrapheneOS, you get real hardware security, you get privacy by the default and a chance to build your Android experience from the ground up by starting from scratch (it comes with very few basic apps out of the box). Furthermore, you can be sure features like Secure Space won’t be gated behind a Graphene account. Samsung does this for their Secure Folder functionality and I have no idea why people tolerate practices like that.
AuroraStore will not help you protect yourself from Google: it sees all your movements (this is a false sense of security). If you really want to go through life without thinking about every little thing said, you must step out of your usual comfort zone and strictly follow the recommendations of Privacy Guides.
The worst part of GrapheneOS is the Google apps. I know they’re optional and most need them, but they’re a great reminder of how much better this OS would be if we didn’t need them.
