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First new phone in 6 years! (GrapheneOS) What else have I been missing? (lemmy.ca)
submitted 4 months ago by to c/android@lemdro.id
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Hi all. My Samsung S20 finally gave out after 6 years and I needed a new phone, so I got a Pixel 9 Pro with GrapheneOS! It's been a blast learning all of the various new features I haven't had access to. What are some "newer" things that you have been taking advantage of?

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[–] 2 points 4 months ago (4 children)

Your texting conversations will just default to SMS/MMS even if the other party is capable of RCS. For me, this is no real detraction as I don't have need of any of the RCS features and SMS/MMS suit my needs fine. Backing up your texts on a phone with RCS enabled and restoring them on the graphene phone without RCS will still succeed, although I've noticed some sms apps(like Fossify Messages) won't sort them by timestamp properly, I'm assuming because it either can't read the RCS timestamp or it doesn't count it as an SMS. The content is there, it just isn't sorted by time received.

I use Signal for conversation with my family and it works seamlessly across Graphene and desktop. Just make a backup and restore it on the next phone you'lll be using signal on.

It's really not that hard to run it without Google apps/services. In my case, I lost my MTB tracking apps as all of them require Play Services and my Starbucks app does as well but everything else I need , including banking and medical work without issue. For everything else needing Play Services, I was able to find a suitable replacement(for instance, Paralino in place of Life360, as they offer a specifically degoogled APK).

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  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (3 children)

    Thank you for the info. It is encouraging though I did plan on using the fossify suite as well.

    I try and pay attention on these threads and have been fleshing this GOS phone out, but how does one obtain a banking app without the play store? I wouldn’t think you’d find an apk for my regional CU anywhere but the play store. Am I wrong? If I log into the play store, then it “compromises” my privacy, no? Or is there some way to fence off or sandbox things? Apologies for the bother of so many questions, but do appreciate the education.

    Edit: Shit, too many questions.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago (1 child)

    I did plan on using the fossify suite as well.

    It works fine and everything sorts correctly once you're using the app, it's just an odd sorting quirk I noticed on install and SMS import.

    how does one obtain a banking app without the play store?

    I use the Aurora app store found on F-Droid. This is a private client for the Google Play Store. It allows you to download apps from Google Play without having to use or link a Google account. The app page on the Aurora store will also tell you if the app you're looking at requires the Play Services and how successful running it without the services would be.

    There is an argument that Aurora Store is vulnerable to malicious apps being downloaded instead of the proper app but I've used it for years and have never had an issue.

    Or is there some way to fence off or sandbox things?

    Graphene does sandbox Play Services but if you use an account to interact with Google, Google is going to have that data on you. I see a lot of people setting up different profiles to try to further isolate Google on their phone but IMHO, it's just a lot of hassle for the perceived minimal benefit. I think everyone needs to decide whether they want to use Google services and if they do, simply use them. If not, I don't think all of the hoops you jump through to try to sandbox the services are actually doing anything beneficial privacy-wise.

    If you want to use Graphene but want to use Google Services and apps that rely on them, that's completely doable, you can always reset down the road if you decide to stop using them. I will say that Graphene and Google services are not set and forget. You will likely spend a few days searching solutions on getting apps relying on Google to work properly since Graphene does try to isolate Google. Graphene is a fantastic and easy-to-use non-Google OS but requires a lot of legwork to use like a normal Google OS.

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