For those who use GrapheneOS, is it worth it? Do you like it?
My backups are done, all that is left is the final choice to wipe my whole phone.
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I’ve been on it for a bit over a year now and honestly, it’s just the new normal. Can’t really say I miss anything, and things like the separate profiles are pretty neat.
Although, I have bricked myself once by enabling developer settings and accidentally changing my language to a dev-only language that made the os crash on boot. But the Graphene Devs fixed it and unbricked my phone within a week after I posted the problem to the forum.
is it worth it?
I’ll try to be objective.
The Pros:
- Graphene gives you more “control” over your data “out of the box” than any other custom firmware. Yes, you can patch and mod your favorite firmware to your liking, but graphene “just works”
- It’s rock solid and reliable. It only supports one hardware family. I’ve never had graphene lock-up, crash, camera stop working, etc
- The installation and upgrading is amazingly easy (compared to other cfw) and streamlined. After the initial setup, it behaves just like any ofw.
- You’ll see just how much of an intrusive cancer Google has become (Google play has a “feature” where they’ll dynamically load code and try to run it - graphene blocks this kinda crap).
- Going back to stock Google (with locked bootloader) is rather easy. So you don’t have much to lose (other than a few hours) in trying.
The Cons:
- Some apps will crash. Graphene hardens how applications behave (in terms of accessing memory, for example) some apps are buggy and will not work. Not many apps (may 1 or 2 out of 30+) but it does happen and you can fittle with the app settings to try to fix it, but it’s tedious through trial-and-error
- Some apps won’t work, like maybe your bank because it will never pass the “Google integrity” checks. The fear and concern is that more and more apps will start to block cfw. So expect that you might need a second device.
- Any apps/processes that deal with money (tap-to-pay, Google wallet) probably will not work (again, it fails the “Google integrity” checks).
- (personal preference) I don’t like the graphene launcher nor their store nor their (boring) default icons. However, graphene empowers you to change/replace all this.
Made the jump a couple of weeks ago, and couldn’t be happier with it. Everything just worked out of the box. The web installer is literally point and click, zero hassle. Google store installer is bundled by default, and you can install it right away. All the apps I use worked fine for me without any issues.
I’m pretty sure they don’t “guarantee software integrity” as it is. At least not in any meaningful way.
It’s 100% worth it. As someone who’s been flashing custom ROMs since the Windows Mobile 5.0 days, it’s never been as safe or as easy to do as GrapheneOS.
There’s only 1 app I can’t use on GrapheneOS (Australian government MyGov app), and that’s a small price to pay to get Google out of my life.
Easily the best phone i ever used. Graphene on a Pixel that is.
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Most apps typically use Google services for notifications, so all apps use one single service running all the time.
Without Google, apps can develop a fallback where each app polls for its own notifications, but continously running a service per app costs battery, so the services do not run all the time. This is the reason why notifications are delayed.
One reason can be if the involved apps don’t have unrestricted battery access. Then the OS will put the app to “sleep” when not used. Could be worth checking.
Welcome to the cool side Peter! (Family guy joke). No but seriously, jumping over to GrapheneOS was the best choice i’ve made in years.
GrapheneOS is absolutely the best thing going right now.
Just buy a phone wallet hold your credit card and transport pass.
Honestly man god bless I’m here for the cause but it’s a real pain as a daily driver.
What makes it a pain to daily drive for you?
my work stack is all google. i tried using it full time last year with a pixel and i just found the sandboxed google services to be too unreliable in a pinch
Why don’t you elaborate and say why?
Welcome, I also use GOS and I will say its amazing. If you want support or just to chat with other GOS users I reccomend the GOS matrix chat or Discord chat (note due to recent events the bridge is no longer online)
I’m using GrapheneOS to type this and have been using it (periodically) for weeks. I just noticed today that it doesn’t have visual voicemail, and I haven’t the foggiest idea what my vmail PW is. But all in all, it’s solid (knock on wood).
You should be able to call your service provider to reset password for vmail. I had to do that a couple years ago as my voicemail was full and I needed to empty it and have access while applying for jobs … don’t wait untill you need to do it it is kind of annoying to deal with!
Noted, thank you for the tip.
And all customer service interactions have become annoying! In my book, it’s just businesses acting entitled, which irks me.
Besides setting up my Samsung watch for the first time its been painless. My bank app works without issue. Honestly the worst part was moving from android 9 to 16. I had my last phone for 8 years so I splurged one got a 9 pro with extra storage and I don’t regret it. Its snappy, has all the features I need and I get security updatea frequently
I bought a Pixel for it (I needed a phone upgrade) and installed GrapheneOS immediately after bringing it home. There was a little bit of friction because a few things weren’t working out of the box for me, like Android Auto and a few apps that use GPS (I tried to Pokemon Go, for example) but all these issues went away eventually. The only thing I miss is tapping my phone to pay for things, but this isn’t a GrapheneOS issue, (bank/card providers in north America and their reliance on Google Wallet/Apple pay are). There are financial institutions from other countries that offer tap to pay using their own app.
I love being able to select what files/contacts each app has access on my phone. I like being able to disable my camera/microphone for all apps with a simple touch.
I wonder why nobody found a way to trick Google Wallet into running anyway
They just need to learn how to trick Google’s Integrity API
It is so obscenely easy to install graphene on your phone. I bought a pixel just to try it like a 6 for 60 bucks or something and it took no time whatsoever. Online easy peasy and it is so much better than googles Android
