edit: thank you all for your replies! They are all very helpful. I am reading through them and will ask follow-up questions if needed.
I made a post some days ago asking about LineageOS, but my curiosity towards Google Pixels and GrapheneOS has been growing. As somebody who has always used regular Samsungs and iPhones, I hope somebody can clear up some questions I have regarding this OS.
I plan that my next phone is to be either a Motorola (LineageOS/SailfishOS?) or a Pixel (GrapheneOS). My first question about GrapheneOS, or really any non-standard OS, is this:
- how does having an account on the device work? For example, Samsungs require a Samsung account and iPhones require an iCloud account. How does it work on non-standard OSes?
My second question touches on built-in apps that you often get with every phone:
- does GrapheneOS have its own Notes/Drive/Photos/Messages app? If not, how does one go about obtaining these? Related question:
- how do I sync my notes/photos/files/etc to the “cloud” of GrapheneOS?
My third question regards the app store of GrapheneOS. I have heard that the sandboxed Play Store is better than FDroid, for instance; what are your thoughts? Do I go for Aurora Store instead? Is there any major difference at all? Is it possible to use multiple app stores?
- note that I likely won’t be solely relying on FDroid since I need some non-FOSS apps (FB Messenger for contacting family for example).
I know that in the privacy community, it’s very common to fix up a cloud of your own (i.e. NextCloud). I have no experience doing this, but is it something I must do when I install atypical OSes? Then comes the question about pricing, how private and secure it really is, which one to choose… and so on.
I understand many of these questions will sound stupid to those who are experienced, but I have not been part of this community very long. Feel free to link any educational videos or articles that answer my questions. I hope to learn more about this subject and one day installing a more secure system on my phone. Cheers!
- Your user account on GrapheneOS is just a local user account
- GrapheneOS comes with its own camera, gallery, contacts, sms, phone, and file manager apps, a hardened fork of Chromium called Vanadium, and an app that lets you install sandboxed versions of google play services and google play store, if you so wish. Nothing else. You can install other apps using F-Droid, or by installing the google play store app.
- GrapheneOS does not have a “cloud”, aside from the web services it uses to check for and pull new updates. If you want to sync files somewhere, you can install whatever you want (Nextcloud, Google Drive, etc)
- F-Droid is a fine choice, and the google play store is as well, all depending on what your priorities are for your phone. I only use F-Droid and have no non-foss apps on my phone for privacy reasons, for example.
- Running your own Nextcloud server is a great learning exercise, but it’s a big commitment of time if you’re not already familiar with linux administration, and if you want it to be secure and accessible remotely that’s even harder. Don’t let that be an impediment to getting a secure phone though - you can always keep using Google Drive for now, and then learn how to set up Nextcloud or some such as you go along.
Good luck!
Can we use Google maps and Google pay/wallet and Android auto? A previous look a while ago said no and I was bummed on that
Yes to google maps if you have the play services activated.
No to pay/wallet.
Yes to Android Auto as of recently. The grapheneos team just released a implementation of it.
Google maps does work if you give it the right permissions. Google Pay does not, as NFC doesn’t work under GrapheneOS.
NFC is working as expected on graphene. As is mobile payments, if your bank supports it.
Google pay does not work because Google does not allow it to work, there is not a technical reason behind that.
- There is no GrapheneOS account.
- GrapheneOS has some built in apps, namely for SMS, gallery viewer, camera, PDF reader, calculator, contacts, files, phone and web browser (vanadium, based on chromium). GrapheneOS offers no cloud. You are responsible for using the service of your choice to manage and backup your data. It is currently undergoing a transition for backup management, but otherwise you can make use of a selfhosted service like nextcloud.
- GrapheneOS does come preinstalled with its own app store but that it is reserved to GrapheneOS apps and the distribution of certain google services which can be optionally installed using their sandbox. Besides that, you can indeed install the aurora store to get access to the free apps on the google play store, or actually use the google play store. They can all be installed and used simultaneously. Though you might want to be mindful of you install an app on one store to not update it on another as the two versions could work differently (e.g. an app installed on f-droid might have a different notification system than one on the google play store). You do not need to use nextcloud if you don’t want to. GrapheneOS has no dependencies on any other additional app. It is a standalone OS. Once you install it, you use it however you want.
Edit: one key advantage of GrapheneOS is the possibility of using multiple users. You can (and I recommend it) separate apps into different user profiles. You can for instance dedicate one user profile to apps requiring Google services, let’s call it Gapps. GrapheneOS then allows you to then pipe your notifications between user accounts, so if you are in your main user profile you can get notifications from apps running in Gapps in the background. Very convenient.
Android provides a multi-user setup since Marshmallow(?), definitely with Nougat (I’ve used it on a stock Android N phone).
Some vendors hid it/didn’t expose the UI.
Graphene takes advantage of it and makes it more fluid.
Its interesting, because multi-user is a native functionality of Linux… It’s likely always been there, just not exposed.
