What is Your Private Phone setup?

I have seen this before but I was wondering if there was something maybe better, something that could possibly use Google’s Tensor chip on the Pixel phone, albeit in a disconnected/privacy respecting manner.

I may be wrong but unfortunately, companies keep this stuff secret. Even Open source camera is not close match for Google camera.

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Idk the Secure Camera made by Graphene looks identical quality to googles official app when I compared them. To be noted I don’t know much about photography

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There is no privacy on iPhones any more, it is the last product I would ever buy, and my last iPhone was iPhone 4, good thing too, you might want to rethink NordVPN, watch this link. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MHBMdTBlok

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There isnt, especially if you are outside US where the iCloud sits on a Chinese server (because it is the cheapest in the area) and other state surveillance reasons.

But the thing is, not all people will want to move out of their favored fruit ecosystem. We can still offer some security and privacy from other companies (you have no privacy from Apple itself).

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Almost everyone mentions that they use multiple user profiles, sometimes I need to transfer photo or link, so I have a question

How do you transfer files between user profiles?

Hi,
I am currently a Pixel 6a with GrapheneOS., but I’m very unsure, how I should install and update apps. But I think I tend to use:

  • Aurora Store for every app that is available in there and
  • Obtainium for apps, that are only available in GitHub/GitLab/etc.

Also I route all my traffic through Proton VPN with my free plan and am thinking of isolating invasive apps with a work profile using Shelter, but my problem is that the Play Store Client is several updates away so I am likely forced to use their cutom F-Droid respository via Neo Store, which is not great.

I am also using Google Camera with the Network Permission revoked for it and the GSF, because some of the features that I use frequently aren’t available on the stock GrapheneOS camera app.

I wanted to use Vanadium as my main browser, but I miss the adblocking, so my primary browser is Brave. Can somebody tell me, if there is a solution to block ads in Vanadium without paying for a better VPN plan for Proton VPN or using another paid VPN like Mullvad or IVPN?

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I personally do the other way around

  • Obtainium for every app available in there,
  • Aurora for the rest.
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I use an iPhone and private relay, and iMessage since that’s what most people use where I’m from.

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You could change your DNS to something like nextdns.io or rethinkdns.com in Vanadium’s settings or set it system wide in your phone settings. They both block ads and trackers.

Phone setup

GrapheneOS on a Pixel 7
8+ PIN, no biometrics (pretty inconvenient so I might switch to passphrase with fingerprint)
Airplane mode on as much as possible
Wi-Fi and Bluetooth turn off after 1 minute
Location off except when needing to use navigation
I switch all servers to Google (Internet connectivity check, attestation key provisioning server, and PSDS server). This is mostly to try to blend in but I think I only need to change the Internet connectivity check because that is the only one that goes outside of my VPN (any thoughts welcome). I’m still back and forth on installing Google Play services; my threat model doesn’t exactly require complete de-googling so I currently have Google Play installed for the benefit of push notifications.
I also change my time settings to a constant UTC offset to protect against time-zone fingerprinting for when I travel.

Services/Apps

Signal for messaging with family
Element for keeping up with communities
Proton Mail/Drive/Calendar for email/documents/calendar
FairEmail for school email (have tried K-9 mail too but I like FairEmail’s design and development process)
Mullvad VPN
Bitwarden
Mix use of Brave and Vanadium (still trying out mixes of incognito mode/brave/vanadium/private mode for various types of browsing but haven’t settled on a particular process)
Aegis authenticator
Magic Earth for navigation (also have Google Maps for when absolutely necessary)
Geometric Weather (latest GitHub pre-release has Material You design)
AntennaPod for podcasts
Microsoft Lens w/no permissions and storage scopes enabled for PDF scanning
Adobe Acrobat w/no permissions and storage scopes enabled for PDF reading (built-in PDF viewer experience is sub-par)
GBoard with no permissions

App stores

Aurora store for all apps except the very few that aren’t available (i.e. NewPipe).
I’ve got a close eye on Obtainium, Accrescent, and the built-in GrapheneOS app store with hopes to eventually switch completely away from Play/Aurora store.

Issues

Brave browser installed from GitHub releases are broken on Pixel 7. Aurora/Play release works fine though.
Still looking for a good notes app. Standard Notes is okay but I find the app lacking/buggy. Notally is good, but doesn’t have syncing abilities.
Some public networks block UDP (and therefore wireguard) so I have Proton VPN as a back-up VPN at least until Mullvad introduces obfuscation settings in the mobile app.

Next

Backups for Aegis, Notes, Bitwarden, Signal, documents (have looked at using Syncthing to sync all backups to my laptop but haven’t gotten it finished)

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Sorry for the late answer, but thanks for your idea. I’m now using your recommendation and it’s great

You could try Obsidian for notes. It is not open source, but it has a great privacy policy and everything is stored locally. The only connections it makes are to github for the updates, and since you are on graphene you could easily block its network access.

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@elusive6592
The of Brave versions on GitHub while labeled 64-bit do not appear to actually be 64-bit, and 7 disabled support for 32-bit apps afaik.

I suspect it is a bundling issue, where not all artifacts are being uploaded to GitHub.
You can see when you download from Aurora that it has multiple bundles.

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A fellow GrapheneOS user here. I didn’t see any mention here of InviZible Pro which I use the dnscrypt-proxy on to Anon tunnel my DNS as seen in this modified dnscrypt-proxy.toml config file. I would suggest others look into using different encrypted DNS solutions, which dnscrypt-proxy is one of them.

@donotspamplz
Why wouldn’t you just use the system Private DNS resolver?

InviZible has way too many foot guns imo.

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I guess I’m just use to using dnscrypt-proxy on my desktops and my phones, even before I was a GrapheneOS user. I like that it can be configured many different ways. I also really like the Anonymous DNS tunnels, which I mentioned before.

Personally I use the following set up:

Pixel 4a 5G with Graphene OS installed and without playservices

App Store: Aurora and Neostore

Email: Tutanota

Messaging: Signal

Music: VLC Player

File Manager: Material Files

Reddit: Infinity

Passwordmanager: Bitwarden

Browser: Brave Browser

Navigation: Magic Earth

Youtube: Newpipe

Notes: Simple Notes

Keyboard: Openboard

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What makes you use Molly over the official Signal app?

I have an Motorola G9 plus with stock android. All Google apps (except play services) are disabled.
I have blocked internet access for all Google apps by using ProtonVPN.

Unfortunally, there is no custom rom available for my phone.

I mostly use Fdroid and Aurora store for apps. I use a lot of Simple apps.

As I found out today, firefox apparently has google DNS servers hardcoded. So I will try and find a safe browser without that glitch

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