I got myself a Pixel 7 to succeed my Pixel 6 with GOS. But i’d like to use it now, even tho GOS is not ported to Pixel 7 yet. Are there any way to get privacy with the stock ROM? I know it will not reach GOS’s privacy level, but still to be out of Google’s sight.
I’m just using the Aurora OSS / AuroraStore · GitLab to access Google Play, etc, and not logging in
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Probably just the basic privacy and security toggles found in the google settings page. It requires a google account to use it so you can only do so much but Graphene should support the 7 very soon i’d guess. They are very quick
You could also check out this page for the time being
https://thenewoil.org/mobile-settings.html
@dngray can you use android with signing into a google account? Or are you just referring to not signing into Aurora with your google account?
One thing you need to keep in mind is that on Stock OS, Google has privileged access to the device, compared to what it would have on say GrapheneOS with Sandboxed Google Play.
You can’t really avoid Google on stock, because they essentially have a bird’s eye view. The question is how much of a problem that is for you, and exactly what you’re afraid that they will collect.
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You can do what @dngray said and use the Aurora Store though you really are better off just using the Google Play Store for security reasons. You can uninstall and disable apps you don’t want or use in the settings. A Google Pixel with Stock Android is still far better for privacy than any other phone or custom ROM besides GrapheneOS.
Aurora Store does download from Google Play, though it does not use Play Protect Service.
There are some things which will not update on it, for example:
There are other issues with Aurora Store. Outside of GrapheneOS (on which you can use Storage Scopes to mitigate this issue), it requries invasive storage permissions for no reason, as well as other things.
From Wonderfall’s article on F-droid:
If you don’t have Play services installed, you can use a third-party Play Store client called Aurora Store. Aurora Store has some issues of its own, and some of them overlap in fact with F-Droid. Aurora Store somehow still requires the legacy storage permission, has yet to implement certificate pinning, has been known to sometimes retrieve wrong versions of apps, and distributed account tokens over cleartext HTTP until fairly recently; not that it matters much since tokens were designed to be shared between users, which is already concerning. I’d recommend against using the shared “anonymous” accounts feature: you should make your own throwaway account with minimal information.
Aurora Store has its uses, but there are a lot of improvements that can be made to it that would make it easier to recommend.
On a Stock OS on which Google already has privileged access, I do not see the point in using Aurora Store over Play Store.
I guess it will take less time than last year as the hardware is pretty much the same. Just hope it’ll less than a month.
Probably in that case, best of signing in to google, when wanting to do updates then.
I don’t have anything on my phone which has advertising in it anyway. I disable calendar/contact syncing because I do that to my own server with Davx5.
Keep in mind i’m no dev (but i do use Graphene) and their releases seem to get faster so i would guess within 1 month would be accurate. They got their hands on a 7 and 7 pro as soon as it was released IIRC
Edit: here is a Graphene mod that posted about the Pixel 7 port
https://twitter.com/flawedworlddev/status/1581292660299423748?cxt=HHwWiICj8fzS8PErAAAA
Just disable all privacy invasive toggles and don’t login to Google. Updating apps is still possible if you go to the Play Store > Three dots in the top right corner > Updates. Google will still recognize the device and collect basic usage data but it should be fairly private I think.
A post was split to a new topic: When will Accrescent be ready?
Then if Aurora Store isn’t secure, what is your call? Using Play store with Graphene? (I’ve been using Aurora with my Pixel 6 under GrapheneOS)
Using Play store regardless of whether you use Graphene or the stock operating system. Aurora Store should only be used as a last resort for those who cannot have a Google account. That said, those who use stock Android should only install apps from the Google Play Store.