So I jumped straight to GrapheneOS, which was way easier and less extreme than I had been warned. So beautifully minimal, with no crap. Now my phone feels like a simple Linux (Void/Arch) PC. So wonderful.

Be careful, apps can still communicate with other apps, e.g. revoking the network permission doesn't stop apps from fetching and displaying ads over the network. I don't know enough about Android internals to understand the mechanisms behind it, but clearly there are ways for apps to exfiltrate data.

> Trying to use Network as a complete data exfiltration toggle isn't the intended purpose, and you should always consider apps within the profile being able to communicate for ALL data and access including permissions. It is not something only relevant to Network.

https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/4024-in-what-extent-can-app...

https://github.com/GrapheneOS/os-issue-tracker/issues/2197

There has been talk of developing 'IPC scopes', similar to how there are contact scopes.

Another example relating to tracking ad targets, also known as "users":

"Around September 2024, Meta developed a creative solution to evade Androids sandboxing restrictions. (Id. 4849, 52.) Devices have localhost ports, which simulate a communications channel by allowing applications or services running on the device to communicate with each other... without those communications leaving the device. (Id. 53.) Meta modified its Pixel code (the Modified Pixel) so that it would send the _fbp cookies contents to a designated localhost port. (Id. 55.) In turn, Meta modified its Facebook and Instagram apps to listen to that localhost port for incoming data. (Id.) The Facebook and Instagram apps combined any incoming localhost data with personal information and identifiers, and subsequently shipped that combined data from the users Android device to its own servers. (Id.) As a result, even though Meta would typically have a harder time identifying Android users, Meta was now able to perfectly deanonymize Android users browsing activity if they used its apps. (Id.)

Meta's conduct was unknown until a group of internet security researchers disclosed it on June 3, 2025. (Id. 4; Dkt. No. 104-3.)

Shortly after the researchers public disclosure, Meta announced that it decided to pause use of this tracking method. (Id. 69; Dkt. No. 104-4 at 5.)

In this consolidated action, Plaintiffs assert nine claims against Meta: ... (3) violation of the Wiretap Act, 18 U.S.C. 2511(1); (4) violation of the California Invasion of Privacy Acts (CIPA) wiretapping provisions, Cal. Penal Code 631; (5) violation of CIPAs eavesdropping provisions, Cal. Penal Code 632; (6) violation of CIPAs eavesdropping device provisions, Cal. Penal Code 635; ... Plaintiffs assert an additional two claims against Google: negligence and negligent misrepresentation.

Plaintiffs CIPA pen register, unjust enrichment, and negligent misrepresentation claims are DISMISSED. Dismissal is with LEAVE TO AMEND because the Court cannot conclude on the current record that amendment would be futile. All other claims survive dismissal."

The above is an excerpt from In re Meta Android Privacy Litigation (3:25-cv-04674, N.D. Cal., June 3, 2025)

https://dn711508.ca.archive.org/0/items/gov.uscourts.cand.45...

https://dn711508.ca.archive.org/0/items/gov.uscourts.cand.45...

Of course Meta will eventually settle, like Google did in Brown v Google, in Google's case on the eve of trial. The wiretapping claims would be catastrophic for these companies

But the Court's observations are interesting

"At this early stage in the case, and given the undeniably significant portion of mobile phones using Apples iOS, it is reasonable to infer an industry custom of placing tight controls on communications between apps based on Apples restrictions."

I mainly use native camera (good in most cases, can be brought up immediately with double power button press, from locked), Google camera (rarely), BlackMagic for when I need control over videos and ProShot when I need control over images (the last one might be hard to install - it's a paid app (I'm a paid user, this is how I got it), but not long time ago the moron of the developer made the app "incompatible" with devices without Google surveillance buttplug claiming it will prevent people pirating it form opening support cases....???).

So you can have multiple camera apps. Thankfully Google is not Samsung or Sony, and all the apps have full access to the cameras.

Edit: Apparently Motorola is doing just that.

Otherwise Huawei would have already jumped into that gap. They have their own Google-independent OS now so they could have marketed it to privacy enthusiasts where the lack of Google services would have been a positive not a negative.

Xiaomi? Privacy?

Apple didn't "cash in", their marketing dept made sure privacy/security engineering got just enough budget to pull off miracles & then spend even more to successfully make the public forget about the very nasty Celebgate.

That was a phishing campaign, not a breach.

Source you can't compile or install onto the device wouldn't be very useful.

The Linux kernel developers see what Tivo did as a "feature" rather than a "flaw" and refuse GPLv3.

Linux is no longer the community-driven choice. It's big business with billions hanging on the line. The grassroots origins are long over.

While I agree with your general sentiment, I feel necessary to acknowledge that it's just not there (yet?). GrapheneOS is a great option if you want to have a fully working and secure device.

In the end I just opted out of the android ecosystem altogether and went with a flip phone that I used as a hotspot for an iPod touch (we only used over VPN with locked down DNS and nothing google related).

My privacy lasted about two weeks, because unfortunately Spotify was able to fingerprint that device to Facebook.

At the time? They still are the only devices officially supported.

Having your freedom be tied to a handful of devices from Google, is a massive supply chain risk.

Your provider can run arbitrary code there.

Its just a matter of time before this cesspool will leak into the rest of the OS, AppStore shows us the temptation is too big for Apple. When my iPhone 12 mini dies it’s /e/OS or GrapheneOS for me. My devices should serve me and my thoughts are my own.

I don’t think it will leak. After the U2 debacle, Apple might have learned not to push too hard on this front.

Some of them have ridiculous secur... compliance rules.

Other banks that I use are there. Almost perfect...

Most banking apps work, but Google Pay/NFC payments won't work.

You bought a phone from an advertising company?

This is how users learn to not update anything.

I was sad that I had to go through the OOBE setup on the stock image to unlock the bootloader. At least it doesn't force an internet connection and login, unlike Windows.

*It doesn't actually wipe your data; it just destroys the symmetric key, making the data permanently unreadable.

so it's kinda pointless to wipe data prior wiping them again during the bootloader unlocking process

My understanding is that it is impossible to unlock the bootloader on a new recent (Android 7+ at least; possiblt earlier) Android phone until it has connected to the Internet. After that, the ability to unlock the bootloader is permanent.

On the Nexus 5, you could just `fastboot oem unlock` right out of the box, install TWRP (custom "recovery") and install CyanogenMod/LienageOS, without ever booting the stock ROM.

On my Moto G4 Play and Moto X4, you had to get an unlock code from the Motorola website (based on the phone serial number I think) and waive some warranty terms, but once retrieved at least the phone didn't need to be online to unlock the bootloader.

The process on the newer Pixels is disappointingly intrusive, like basically everything Google has done for the last decade.

I'm not looking to fully de-Google but I want Google as apps and not my OS.

The Owner profile itself doesn't run Google Play Services, so when that Private Space is locked and dormant it's effectively a degoogled stack.

Some will invariably argue that an old pocket-sized Linux PC with a cellular modem is a superior experience, and for some specific things it may well be, but GrapheneOS is the only viable option for someone looking for a user-respecting modern phone with very few limitations.

Biggest caveats that I've encountered: tap to pay via Google Wallet is a no go, Android Auto can be flaky, MDM managed work profiles don't work at the moment, and some apps that use the Google Play integrity API fail to validate and refuse to work (I've only encountered one app that fails, and plenty others that work.)

In general, I'm moving towards a de-Googled life and GrapheneOS is a great entrypoint towards that.

Google Wallet bans using anything other than an unmodified Google Mobile Services stock OS but there are alternatives in certain regions. In Europe, there are a lot of banking apps with tap-to-pay compatible with GrapheneOS and also Curve Pay. PayPal also has a limited tap-to-pay launch in Germany.

Do you mean actual employer-spyware MDM work profiles? I suppose I never expected those to work.

Or do you mean things like Shelter, which uses work profiles and which I use to quarantine certain less-trusted apps?

Its all fun and games until the company gets hit with a lawsuit and discovery hits your phone and ALL your accounts, corporate and personal.

I'm hopeful that an OEM Motorola device will get certified for Google Pay.

So I get to use contactless payment at maybe 50% of the stores, which is annoying, because it's sometimes hard tot tell ahead of time.

I had a very weird (bad) experience with Curve support so I couldn't recommend it.

NFC payments work, it's only Google who claims a phone not patched for 8 years is safe and secure, but phone with working hardware attestation and patched 6 months ahead of everyone else is insecure.

Edit: Apparently that's Europe only? I'm in Europe so yeah. I didn't know that.

This is entirely possible as other posters have explained. But I think it kind of defeats the point of Graphene, at least somewhat. Google is already profiling every aspect of your life by reading your emails, files, calendar, location, etc? In that case, OS access becomes moot.

I think that GrapheneOS makes most sense as part of a broader move towards privacy-respecting alternatives. I see the sandboxed Play Services as something useful perhaps in a secondary user profile, for the odd commercial app required and only available from the Play Store.

Not really.

1. A non-Google OS can shut off background running access to Google apps, as well as supply Google apps with mock location data and other data

2. Google does other things to the OS that drive me nuts. Like allowing apps to restrict screenshots. I own the phone. If I want a screenshot, it should screenshot. This is not something for apps or Google to determine, and if the OS listens to me (not the app) it should allow screenshotting the display 100% of the time regardless of what the app cries about.

PREACH!

I hate this.

Maybe for cars Google is better but I don't use those. But even there I see really detailed stats.

OSMAnd is a really great full featured mapping app. A real tool that you can configure in detail. And Organic maps is more simple and quick like Google maps.

There's just two things I still need Google for: most businesses don't bother keeping their opening hours etc updated on other mapping services, and in my city they have live data on the public transport network. This should really be mandated to be offered to open street map too.

I actually find that it blows Google Maps out of the water for cycling (which is why/how I discovered it). I haven't really used it for driving much because my own car has a builtin nav, so can't really comment on that.

YMMV of course.

Left from Maps.me to OM because of drama and intrusive features, do I need to leave OM for CM?

edit: seems CM shouldnt have that annoying gift icon

edit 2: CoMaps doesn't display (colored) hiking trails, so completely useless compared to Organic Maps, also can't even display tram lines after tapping on tram stop in Prague

https://www.here.com/products/wego

https://here-wego.en.aptoide.com/app

https://k2-fsa.github.io/sherpa/onnx/tts/all/index.html

LOL Bruh... this has a 1.7 rating on Android based on 42k reviews

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.generalmag...

You can install nonprivileged google stuff on the main account.

Alternatively you can setup a private space (accessible to the main user but mostly separate from the main system) with a few clicks in the settings.

If you prefer more friction / isolation you can setup a separate user where you can install the google stuff.

Small point of critique: it would be nice if it was a little bit easier to switch between personas, for example by simply scrolling to a different workspace. Because now the feature is mostly unused on my phone.

My understanding is that even with pseudo-D2D (device-to-device) transfers Seedvault doesn't backup everything[1].

Are there more-functional, non-root, local (non-cloud) alternatives?

[1]: https://github.com/seedvault-app/seedvault/wiki/FAQ#why-do-s...

Ever since seedvault implemented local D2D API for app data availability and changed their repository format (inspired by restic's hashing) I've grown to trust seedvault enough that it's my sole phone backup.

Seems to schedule/backup/restore just fine, even cross-device. Gets all the apps and files I care about. Incremental runs are slow but efficient (<1MB transferred).

I have some UX gripes and would prefer if key and snapshot management was more flexible but the sentiment I see seems to be rooted in the earlier days when seedvault was more naive.

Look forward to a GOS-native solution all the same.

However, some apps that I need for work, like Microsoft Authenticator, no longer work under GrapheneOS.

https://www.theregister.com/on-prem/2026/03/10/microsoft-tig...

Compliance =!= Security

You want me to have email and teams/slack on my phone? Sorry, I won't install the spyware. Want to pay for me to have a second phone with it? Okay. No? Well then, I just won't have email on my phone.

It needs to be made illegal imo. The company should provide you a device if you need one for the job.

Scenario: Your account gets compromised somehow. It's signed in to your personal phone. Company data gets leaked or ransomed.

Your phone and its contents are now evidence.

Is this an antithesis to Don't Be Evil?

The vast vast majority of apps (99%+) are compatible and those that are broken is due to bugs in the apps which GOS catches, but these exploit protections can be disabled, and apps that use the monopolistic play integrity api.

The only apps that are permanently broken are those using the strongest play integrity api which is security theatre.

Here's a community created list of banking applications and their current status on GOS.

https://privsec.dev/posts/android/banking-applications-compa...

Again, this isn't about me. I'm fine giving up some convenience, but I know other people aren't. The average person is just going to simply install the app. Part of me asking this questions is gauging what the average user experience.

Authenticators should work normally, as far as I know (unless Google Authenticator does anything special). Can’t say anything about Google Wallet. There might be more lists/forums where people share which setups are (not) working well for them.

In general, I had these concerns as well until a few months ago. But I am much more optimistic these days that things will just work well out of the box (have read many positive sentiments in blog posts and here on Hacker News).

GrapheneOS is often better for testing apps due to it being trivial to test with and without google services, most of the hardening options can be used for debugging and provide a crash log to determine what failed, and there is an easily accessible log viewer available in app info.

There are alternatives for payments (scroll the thread, maybe look up on GOS discussion site).

If you live in the EU then you can use curve pay which can tap to pay.

Why is no tap to pay significant enough to stop you from switching to a phone that is private and secure? You can just carry a card and tap—they're tiny.

Still boggles my mind the fact Google doesn't sell their phones worldwide. Obtaining a Pixel has proven to be quite difficult for me.

https://grapheneos.org/faq#future-devices

might as well list all features of pixel phones

Other OEMs can make devices that meet the requirements, and Motorola is doing just that. We should get Motorola devices with official GrapheneOS support next year.

There is nothing crazy about doing something properly.

Motorola has stepped up to meet the baseline requirements for GrapheneOS support, and we should get Motorola devices with official GrapheneOS support next year.

What other phone would you pick?

I’m not an expert, but all the listed points there sound reasonable. If indeed only the Pixels support them, well, it’s too bad there’s not other, similarly secure hardware out there.

If you want Graphene level security you need to have the hardware for it.

https://volla.online/en/operating-systems/volla-os/

They are kind of the opposite of GrapheneOS. Ancient kernel trees, ancient firmware bundles, etc. And since downstreams like /e/OS just take their kernels/firmware, they are ancient as well. Using Volla phones opens you up to a lot of known vulnerabilities.

Besides that, Volla is basically a marketing company (with some external contractors) that does Eurowashing. E.g. one of their phones (Quintus) is a phone designed by an Emirates company, produced by a Chinese ODM, marked up by 500 Euro by Volla (they probably turn some screws and flash the firmware to be able to call it 'from Germany'. You can get the same 719 Euro phone here for ~160 Euro:

https://www.amazon.ae/Android-Smartphone-Storage-Octa-Core-M...

I don't understand why people do free promotion for Volla, given that they are mostly snake oil salesmen.

For the curious: https://marbit.substack.com/p/worse-on-purpose

Which is not to say that's not enough for most people, but why highlight them? It doesn't seem comparable to the laser-focus GrapheneOS has on security

[1] https://volla.online/en/operating-systems/ubuntu-touch/

https://www.amazon.ae/Android-Smartphone-Storage-Octa-Core-M...

(If you don't believe it from the identical specs and design, you can look at the committers in their kernel trees and it is basically maintained by Daria people.)

Their new Plinius model is just the Gigaset GS6 with a 250 Euro markup:

https://www.gigaset.com/gigaset-gs6/

At least this is made by a German company, though Gigset is Chinese-owned now.

At any rate, these are just rebadged phones and IIRC, but don't hold me to it, in both cases the original phones also support bootloader unlocking.

https://github.com/Gigaset-dev

I am not sure about the Daria Bond, but in Ubuntu Touch (which seems one of the very few Linux systems that supports the Daria Bond, ahem, Quintus), most of it seems to be the work of LineageOS developers (probably for generic Mediatek support, since it's a run-off-the-mill Mediatek phone), with some changes from Daria people on top of it.

So, I think you are giving credit to Volla that should go to the upstream ODMs and Lineage.

Or just go to the Volla about page:

https://volla.online/en/about/

It's just sales, marketing, and customer support people.

Snark aside, desktop Linux userspace (or gnu Linux, call it how you want) is nowhere near production ready. And even for the more general point, giving out root willy-nilly is not more freedom. It's more like letting your child play on the 5th floor of a half-constructed building that's about to be exploded. Your kid can enjoy their time just as much in the safe forest trail.

Like even `rm` added a flag to not do that without explicitly asking.

Also, there are plenty of immutable OSs now among Linux distros, are they also limiting your freedom?

Grapheneos is fully open source and comes with 0 Google services.

>so called "security"

Grapheneos is widely recognized as one of the most secure operating systems.

Without all of those details, your statement is meaningless.

  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48571526

The main things I miss are (1) when I'm entering text I can't swipe left and right on the space bar to scroll the cursor left and right, and (2) the texting app doesn't just attach reaction emojis to a message -- it quotes the whole message and prefixes it with something like "Marty like blahblahblah". When there is a whole family text chain it isn't uncommon to see the same message 7 times as various people react to the original message.

Anyway, I looked at Google's Android 17 blog and yikes:

"With deep integration between hardware, software and AI, we’re transforming Android from an operating system to an intelligence system. It's about delivering new helpful experiences that anticipate user needs, and it brings more opportunities for engagement with your apps."

https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2026/06/Android-17...

GrapheneOS is compatible with the vast, vast majority of Android apps, so you can use GBoard or FUTO keyboard (which I recently switched to from GBoard), to get the ideal experience.

FUTO recently revamped their swipe to type model and it's now more accurate than GBoard in their testing. I am a huge swipe type person, so this is what held me in GBoard's clutches, but now I'm free.

The dataset is open source and anyone can add to it if you're on a mobile device here: https://swipe.futo.org

And you can learn about it here: https://swipe.futo.tech

> the texting app doesn't just attach reaction emojis to a message -- it quotes the whole message and prefixes it with something like "Marty like blahblahblah". When there is a whole family text chain it isn't uncommon to see the same message 7 times as various people react to the original message.

Google messages, the experience you get on PixelOS, is also compatible with GrapheneOS, but you will have to afford network access to sandboxed google play, among other things. I couldn't tell you specifically, but it will work out of the box before you restrict anything. Many people choose to use this setup because it opportunistically adds e2ee for chats between iPhones and other Androids using Google messages.

There's also other SMS apps, but I focused on switching people to Signal so I barely ever use SMS.

Once I replaced the default apps, GrapheneOS became a premium phone experience.

The voice recognition is built on Whisper, and is amazing. You can speak conversationally for a long time and it gets everything right, with smart decisions based on context.

My stupid thumbs text no more.

I've found graphene's keyboard far more error-prone than the stock android keyboard, but I also don't care to learn swipe to type.

The feature I'm missing is simply that rubbing my finger left or right on the spacebar in text mode causes the cursor insertion point to move left or right on in the text I'm entering. It makes it sooo much easier to correct typos.

Graphene's keyboard is the stock AOSP keyboard. Most Android systems ship with their own one instead of it, but that's the one that is built into the system by default.

So I still use gboard but block its internet access.

Maybe you can try installing another SMS app for problem (2)? Much like the stock keyboard, the stock Messaging app is just the AOSP app. Honestly it works fine for me so I don't have a recommendation.

RCS is different, which you can sometimes get working by installing Google Messages¹, which is essentially the only app that supports RCS any more. Google runs essentially all the servers too.

---

1: There are no third-party RCS apps² because, unlike SMS which has an API and a shared database on the device, RCS is extremely locked down and it's literally impossible to create one in stock Android. This is also why it's only "sometimes" on GOS, the details are very complicated and rather enraging.

2: Samsung had one, but they're shutting it down in favor of Google Messages. A tiny number of other devices / telecoms have their own too, but they're rapidly shutting down as well. RCS is very nearly fully controlled and implemented by Google now, except for iMessage as a client only, for now, and there's no encryption between iMessage<->Google Messages last I checked (but there apparently is between Google Messages... but no normal person can really verify that because it's Just Google Everywhere).

https://grapheneos.org/usage#rcs

And AFAIK they have only been desiring to build their own RCS app, and researching it, but have no concrete plans. It'll probably be extremely hard to do, given how much interaction it requires with individual telecoms, and how large the specs are and how much they change - it'll be signing up for significant dedicated eng/business/etc effort that will never decrease. Though I would very much like it if it does happen.

Personally: it worked for about a year for me, then stopped for several months, then worked for two, then I disabled it. All on the same phone, same OS install, same carrier and phone plan, and same location. No issues at all on stock Android with everything else identical which my wife uses. You can find tons of cases like this with Graphene users, RCS just doesn't work/activate/??? as well for some reason.

I'll definitely be curious about the source code when that happens, and if it'd be reasonable to get it into a SMS-provider-like shape eventually. Particularly since the original PoC did that, but it was abandoned for some reason.

I had installed graphene os on a pixel but after a couple months and a couple loops between lineage, stock, and graphene, I eventually settled on stock android. I have group messages with family and some of the family are on apple, some on android, and RCS only works with google messages and google services installed.

It's infuriating that I can't send RCS messages unless google allows me to. I want to go back to email or MMS. Supposedly after a month (!!) RCS group chats will fall back to MMS, but that was not my experience. Also, if you turn RCS on/off you may get kicked out of group messages [0].

[0] https://support.google.com/messages/answer/7189714?hl=en

Initially there were some promising details planned, but much of it hasn't panned out, and plus now it's Just Google™. Like, roughly everyone has heard that RCS brings E2EE privacy, right? Would it surprise you to learn that it was only added to the spec around a year ago, and nobody has it implemented yet? Google has their own thing between Google users, Apple has their own iMessage-only thing, and they both drop crypto when you cross the streams because it isn't in the spec. And neither is practically auditable (allowing auditing is part of the spec btw - have you seen that UI?).

And that's before even touching on the utterly massive amount of the spec that's clearly designed for businesses only, to send you highly customizable interactive UI. Which you can't use as a person. Or build your own app for. https://developers.google.com/business-communications/rcs-bu... / https://rcsforbusiness.google/

It just does not smell good. It's not in our best interests to let it win.

Unfortunately Google revived it but it's a very poor standard for interoperability. Not only because the lack of true E2EE in the open spec but also because you need to be a blessed party to run an RCS server and communicate with others. You can't run your own or choose a party you trust. It's either your carrier if they bother to run one, or Google.

It's just another power grab. Don't fall for its 'open' guise. They want you to use it so they can make you dependent and lock you in again. There's nothing open about it. If you want privacy, use signal. If you also want an open and federated network, use matrix or xmpp with OMEMO.

I strongly disagree with this negative characterization. RCS was a replacement protocol for the extremely outdated SMS and MMS protocols. Apple only supported SMS/MMS chat with Android users in iMessage, which meant that cross-platform chats were strongly limited in many ways (e.g. the mentioned emoji reacts), which caused many US American kids to be socially punished for having an Android phone, which is likely part of the reason why Apple is so dominant in the US now, especially among younger users. (Other countries mostly don't use iMessage/SMS, but something like WhatsApp, so they never had this problem.)

RCS was the solution to these iMessage/SMS/MMS incompatibilities. It took years for Google to convince Apple to adopt it, and Apple only announced doing so after EU regulations were on the horizon. There were even internal emails which revealed that Apple used their iMessage dominance and the poor Android compatibility via SMS/MMS to boost their market share in the US.

In summary, RCS is great because it is both a modern chat protocol, unlike SMS and MMS, and an open standard, unlike the closed iMessage and WhatsApp protocols, and available cross platform, unlike iMessage.

And the social problems are not a technology problem, it's more a result of the harsh competitive American society. Without blue bubbles there'll be something else that kids will be bullied for. Only when the whole concept of "everyone except the #1 winner is a loser" is dropped this will disappear.

And Google didn't try to convince Apple to do this out of the goodness of their heart. Like I said most of the protocol (except the E2EE) is open but the implementation is not. It gives google even more control. You also won't be able to use it on a PC without a google account which is a big dealbreaker compared to Whatsapp and Signal. iMessage isn't a thing here in Europe anyway (neither is SMS/MMS).

https://grapheneos.org/usage#rcs

My single (minor) issue with GrapheneOS is the adaptive screen brightness. On the stock Android OS on a Pixel I'd mess around with the sliders for a week or two on a new phone and then it learned what I liked. Now it has a few set values, one of which is always too dim for me in darker conditions so I have to mess with the slider each and every time. I don't believe there's a way of fixing that.

Other than that I'm glad I switched, especially when I read about new "features" they add that I know I'd hate.

Now I use Heliboard with the swiping library added. It's not perfect, but has improved, and at least it can give more than three correction options (long–press centre suggestion with ellipsis below).

I really miss Keymonk — two–finger swiping, accurate, and no crap.

Open source with limitations on commercial use.

The point is, I'd like to be able to set up services, configuration, and run tasks on my phone this way too, ideally offline. If this system integration is what gives me programmatic control of my most personal computer and the ability to finally set up decent automated tasks and workflows then so be it.

Why would we expect the same company to exhibit a completely opposite philosophy as they add LLM features?

Support expires? Upgrade to custom ROM Ads? Upgrade to custom ROM Want to use it as server? Upgrade to custom ROM.

If I would use Apple iPhone, these old phones would be trash very soon.

For context, that would put it at the same release as Pixel 3 or Pixel 4. Those devices stopped receiving updates in 2022-2023.

I've got almost everything working the way I want. There were a few non-essential banking apps that won't install. The most annoying problem I had is when I tried to install Strava, which I cannot get working. The app installs, but it will not let me sign in. I guess I need a replacement, because I use that app a lot.

  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48571526

I suspect this is an attempt to prevent folks from spinning up many new accounts to get these deals.

For example, McDonald's has a long running campaign, 99¢ for coffee. Any size, iced or hot.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42462354

There's also been some discussion of spoofing MEETS_DEVICE_INTEGRITY, since before Android 13 it didn't rely on a TPM, and many apps don't want to lock out older devices, but it's been decided against it [0].

[0] https://github.com/GrapheneOS/os-issue-tracker/issues/1986

My bootloader is locked, because I re-locked it after installing GrapheneOS. The app runs, but refuses to let me log in. I even tried (temporarily) using a browser to login, and let the browser switch to the app in the process. Nada.

It's ridiculous that Google bills their "DEVICE INTEGRITY" initiative as a security feature, when GrapheneOS, which is a more secure platform, cannot use it.

[0] https://developer.android.com/google/play/integrity/verdicts

Sounds like spyware, to be honest.

My only issue with it has been a few apps not working correctly, and not the ones I expected. I did my research before hand and knew that my banking apps would work, thinking those would be the main challenge.

Turns out the bike-sharing system in my city, Madrid, won't work. I ended up installing Google Play services (that run sandboxed in Graphene, but still wanted to avoid), and it works sometimes, but mostly doesn't. I use these bikes a few times a week, so this is a major hassle, and I end up carrying my ancient iPhone with me sometimes just for this.

This and Trade Republic have been my only two problems. Happy otherwise, but do your research before switching, and don't assume only the apps you expect to be problematic will be.

Also never have that feeling anymore that my phone is spying on me.

I'm using NextDNS for DNS level ad blocking as well as iOS built in tools, and I get ads for women's hygiene products (I'm male), travel, dining, server parts, cars, and everything in between.

The main difference between Android and iOS is (or used to be?) that Android typically phones home with everything, frequently visited locations, calendar appointments, voice commands. On iOS most of that runs on-device. Siri voice to text/text to voice runs on device, various "ai" things in photos runs on-device, frequently visited locations are device local.

GrapheneOS has zero ads in the OS and main services.

GrapheneOS has some hardening in this phase, which as I understand, essentially has to rebuild all apps without cache.

And as I have a ton of apps, I was parked for 30 minutes waiting my phone to boot up.

And because of this app optimization thing, I always delayed OS update finalizations, which probably isn't the best thing.

Unfortunately, GrapheneOS recommendation to this was to have fewer apps. Had to let it go after that.

I've seen payments being another problem - but Garmin watch handles it for me. And paying with a watch becomes a conversation starter with merchants for some reason.

However Wallet didn't like this setup. Tokens expired at varying delays, sometimes a day, sometimes a week or payment failed without reasons.

Nowadays, I just use my bank's app which work fine on GOS.

I was actually very surprised Garmin supported the country I'm in. They don't even support the language script, I get squiggles, but payments - better than Google Wallet.

GOS has much better battery than stock pixel ui because of less services and telemetry.

Sounds reasonable. People tend to install way too many apps on their phones and than blame the phone about short battery life or too many notifications.

Android also takes permissions away from apps after they haven't been used in a while anyway.

So most of the battery consumption will be from the apps that you actively need and use. Android's battery usage screen backs this up.

The metro app I installed when I was on a trip in Istanbul is still on my phone, but it's dormant. Yes, I should definitely uninstall it, but I really can't be bothered to do this all the time. On stock Android, phone takes care of this for me. On GrapheneOS, either I take that responsibility or face the consequences - which I don't really want.

Curve demand a "video selfie" and I've never been comfortable with sending companies such biometric data.

Commercially, this makes sense.

I am surprised that most nations of the whole world are fine with every citizen relying on one of two american companies for their lifestyle interactions though. I would have thought more nations would legislate their banks must support other options for sheer sovereign resilience.

Does it though? The people in this thread are like "just use a card". Well I've done that for years and had my card skimmed, lost, and stolen over the years. The cost wasn't trivial either. The credit card company knocked it off my balance but also lost on sales when I didn't have my card while they issued me a new one. It cost the credit card company actual money in both lost sales and in dealing with the fraudulent transactions.

Now if I was allowed to use my rooted Android phone during those years? It would have been locked down tighter than the vast majority of Windows boxes.

People forget that one of the value-adds of credit cards in the first place is that suddenly you didn't have to walk around with a big wad of cash. Credit cards gave you that extra level of security. Even if someone stole it, it's useless to them as soon as you make a phone call to the CC company. We can verify a transaction with a yubikey-like secret store on your device that never shares the private key with the operating system and which generates a virtual credit card on the fly. That's literally how Apple Pay and Google Pay already work. So whether a device is rooted or whatever literally doesn't matter.

You'd struggle to find a POS terminal that even has a reader for them in the UK. I've only ever had to enable them in the US or Japan.

however grapheneos isn't rooted anyway

> Attention required!

> Sorry, you have been blocked

> The action you just performed triggered the security solution. There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase, a SQL command or malformed data.

Thanks cloudflare *handshake* garmin. I suppose I'll stay with chip and pin for now

https://support.polar.com/en/payment-wristband

https://fidesmo.com/consumer/wearables/

I definitely use one of those wallets. They're quite convenient too.

If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.

+ my country already has a mobile driver's license app

And most places take card (or nfc via google/apple pay)

https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/24134-devices-lacking-stand...

https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/116353973732143171

https://community.e.foundation/t/voice-to-text-feature-using...

https://codeberg.org/divested-mobile/divestos-website/raw/co...

https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/24134-devices-lacking-stand...

/e/ and Murena have repeatedly claimed providing strong privacy and security mainly benefits criminals and claim devices doing it are mainly used by criminals. Here's one example of many:

https://grapheneos.social/deck/@GrapheneOS/11635397373214317...

An iPhone is a hardened device with drastically better privacy and security than an /e/ device. It would fall under the claims from /e/ and Murena about hardened devices.

https://xcancel.com/GrapheneOS/status/2066908368560656652#m

e/OS is clearly a step up from default Android

It has many default enabled highly privileged Google services including downloading Google Play executables such as droidguard and running those with similar privileged access as they have on a Google Mobile Services OS anyway.

https://eylenburg.github.io/android_comparison.htm

Fairphone quickly stops providing Linux kernel updates and has months of delay for Android userspace backports along with driver/firmware backports. The delay for yearly updates typically starts at a year and gets longer as devices get older and they've always skipped the quarterly updates.

Using a modern SoC, properly configuring it, using proper signing keys (Fairphone has repeatedly used publicly available sample private keys) and providing proper updates is most of what's needed to meet the requirements. That's entirely doable by the few OEMs designing their devices in-house such as Motorola Mobility. Samsung and Google along with many of the ODMs making devices for Nothing, Fairphone, etc.

https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/24134-devices-lacking-stand...

I can also recommend Gadgetbridge for BLE smartwatch integration.

1) What's a reasonable Pixel phone to buy to try out GrapheneOS? Is a 128GB Pixel 7 "good enough" or will I get a significantly better experience with a newer phone and/or more storage?

2) Is there a Graphene alternative that would let me de-google an Samsung A12? Back in the day I had some Galaxy S3 and S4 phones that I installed Lineage on, I have no idea if that's compatible to Graphene and/or still a going thing?

it ships with Memory Tagging Extensions (armv9 security feature) and two more years of support than previous generations; pixel 7 might be eol in oct 2027 https://grapheneos.org/faq#device-lifetime

official recommendation page: https://grapheneos.org/faq#recommended-devices

2) there is no real graphene alternative for other devices. I would say DivestOS at least made sane compromises to support less secure devices, but it's unfortunately defunct now. Yes lineage is still around and still the go-to clean 'ROM' but far from security focused. just avoid stuff like /e/ os

Besides doing many other shady things, like putting a proxy between their App Louge and F-Droid (cleanapk.org), while simultaneously not wanting to reveal who owns/controls that proxy? Remember that Android relies on trust on first use. Or running Google proprietary DroidGuard blobs in a privileged process for Play Integrity/SafetyNet? Or giving certain Google Apps elevated privileges when you install them?

I could go on for a while.

(I made the mistake of installing /e/OS on a phone once and then started poking around and it really has many security issues, questionable choices, etc.)

Well I am genuinely interested so I am all for continuing that discussions in details. I am happy to finally meet someone who had a real look and isn't just repeating things read online. So if you have time to share the result of your investigation I'm super interested. But here is not the good place I imagine, where can we continue that discussion?

Checking which phones are supported by Lineage and Graphene can be done by everyone in a matter of minutes.

And trust me you'll like it ;)

Asking as an A11 user who will probably soon need to switch to a new device. I haven't noticed anything on other people's phones that isn't available on mine, including on my work phone that runs an up-to-date GrapheneOS (but I don't need to do much more than calling and 2FA, so I might just not be seeing it). Anything you guys are excited for, or any protips of things to check out that were released recently?

This should have the full list; it's not a ton of changes, which speaks to how perfected Android has become.

https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2026/06/Android-17...

Edit: not discontinued but 'merge with Android' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ChromeOS

https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2026/06/Android-17...

I'm not sure though if GrapheneOS gets mainline modules at all (most likely not).

I've used mine daily since it came out, and it's a great experience. I'd recommend picking it up for anyone who wants GOS on a larger screen. An iPad it isn't, but my iPad Pros have sat almost totally dormant since I got it years ago.

It lacks horsepower compared to the latest Pixel Pros, but that hasn't been a practical concern in anything I've done with it so far.

Pity. Genuine pity. Guess I'll continue using my 5 year-old out-of-support device until someone decides to make a decent GrapheneOS-compatible tablet with stylus pen support. If it breaks, I'll just go back to notebooks.

There's a shot of GrapheneOS on a tablet just past the three-minute mark in this video. I suspect that's a Pixel tablet (of which thee are several), though I'm not certain and the video doesn't specify:

<https://redirect.invidious.io/watch?v=aNgupWEV13M&t=188>]

Google Pixel tablet: <https://store.google.com/us/product/pixel_tablet?hl=en-US>

Discussion on Reddit says Google Pixel and Pixel Fold are both supported (tablets): <https://old.reddit.com/r/GrapheneOS/comments/16bp6e9/anyone_...>.

And they accept XMR donations, so instant credibility boost.

If you'd like to donate to the project, you can do so here: https://grapheneos.org/donate

Reqs: https://grapheneos.org/faq#future-devices

Currently that means modern pixels and the next generation Motorola flagships once they come out.

No love for 9 or 9a? I guess it's still coming eventually.

- A 9a owner running GrapheneOS

>Those are just the devices we initially tested it on which mainly has to do with which devices were available to the people working on the port.

>To clarify the 2nd paragraph, we've ported GrapheneOS to Android 17 for all of the supported devices. That's a list of the devices we already built and tested it. Our initial public release will be available for all the supported devices and we'll have tested it on each by then.

As an iPhone user, I really like what Oppo is doing with their ColorOS: https://www.oppo.com/nz/coloros16/

You can change any apps to different apps meaning the keyboard, homescreen/launcher, messaging app. The launcher is a primary UI thing which is different from iOS and is totally customizable by just installing a new app.

So you can change the look of anything that depends on an app, but stuff like the control center, lock screen, volume sliders, connectivity icons, notifications afaict can't be changed.

https://niagaralauncher.com is a cool looking launcher that I used to use.

It's a little confusing but I'll say there's nothing ugly like the stock GOS apps that can't be changed and tha unchangeably UI elements match the Pixel UI.

Here's a comparison which will show both the unchangable stuff like control center, but also the Pixel launcher, which you can swap out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwNicPJk4lY

I switched from iPhone and once I installed good looking apps I really prefer the look to iOS because it's a lot faster and smoother.

<https://redirect.invidious.io/watch?v=aNgupWEV13M>

Visually, it generally looks much like stock Android in terms of capabilities, though a stock install generally has far fewer apps installed.

Since they switched to QPRs and Pixel drops, major releases have become less important because feature roll out throughout the year. It's just that nobody outside GrapheneOS and Samsung (to my knowledge) rolls out QPR2, so for non-Pixel/Samsung, the major releases are... major.

I think another major source of work for GrapheneOS is when Google releases QPR1 and QPR3, because GrapheneOS had to rebase the driver/firmware changes on top of QPR0/QPR2.

The apps also need to be updated to the Android 17 target API level but that can happen over several months following the OS itself being ported to it. The app aspect is something all Android developers need to deal with due to new target API levels bringing backwards incompatible improvements.

https://source.android.com/

They've ported the patches to work on top of the latest release.

That’s why I have two phones. One runs GrapheneOS and is my daily driver; the other (considerably less private and secure) stays at home connected to my server so I can always scrcpy into it.

Few questions if you dont mind answering: - do you have to keep the phone screen switched on? - Do you access via VNC? - Can you access it from another phone? is it usable?

Thanks!

If you've confirmed your banking app won't work on GOS, have you considered accessing your bank's website through your phone's browser instead?

Fairphone cant be supported because it does not keep up with Android updates and in particular Linux kernel updates. Currently supported Fairphone’s have EOL (outdated, not supported) Linux kernel version. They are bad in terms of other aspects like lack of MTE, lack of USB port(s) control from software level on hardware level (Pixel 6 and newer have that), etc. You cant have privacy without security

But in 2027 this may change due to Motorola and GrapheneOS partnership

It's not one of the main issues with their devices but Fairphone has had a lot of issues with verified boot including using publicly available sample private keys for signing firmware and OS images across multiple device generations. It's not a strength of their devices.

In the USA, I think most people can easily afford a Pixel 9a at $56/year of device support starting from today. Calculator checks yearly cost based on device support: (https://ibb.co/xq82YQCw)

Sources for device lifetime from calculator: (https://grapheneos.org/faq#device-lifetime)

I used a New+Unlocked+Pixel+X on eBay to find a rough price of the phone.

Most people get scammed by their carrier and pay $25-45 per month just for their wireless subscription, and many more get caught up in the device bundles which gets you the "latest and greatest", at a huge price. So people are paying, per month, what you can pay, per year for a Pixel.

Pixels provide strong hardware and firmware security. Pixels have made multiple significant hardware and firmware level improvements based on recommendations by GrapheneOS. GrapheneOS now has a hardware partnership with Motorola Mobility which includes working with Qualcomm. It isn't only a software project.

Regularly leaked data on the capabilities of Cellebrite show they have the least success with GrapheneOS by far despite specifically hiring for it based on their job postings.

The biggest hurdles for me were - should I use separate profiles and how to get apps. Initially, I started with a separate profile for google stuff (like play store/services and apps downloaded from there, like Viber), but eventually I moved everything to the owner profile (and took a bit of a privacy and battery hit in the matter of convenience). Still, being able to control many app permissions, gives me a good state of mind that apps are not doing more then I expect.

Just looked at what android 17 brings to the table and I'm mildly excited - especially improving performance and adding more permissions (like ACCESS_LOCAL_NETWORK)

There are some apps I can't do without like ReThink DNS, NewPipe and other open source apps which I use regularly. All would get blocked under Googles new regime.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.celzero.br...

> ... Android 17 expands the capabilities of AppFunctions, a platform API with a corresponding Jetpack library. It allows you to contribute your app's unique capabilities as orchestratable "tools" for Android MCP, the on-device equivalent of the Model Context Protocol. AI agents and assistants (like Google Gemini) can discover and execute AppFunctions to perform workflows on behalf of the user with direct access to the app's local state.

Is that implemented in GOS? How is that done securely - giving LLMs power to control some apps?

If I try Graphene what do I lose? Similar to how if you use something like icefox or icewolf one of those very secure browser, lots of normie websites like banking just straight up don't work. What would I lose by moving away from samsung's default to this more private OS?

If you wish so you can gain root privileges on your own in your own build or with modifying GrapheneOS existing builds. It wont be compatible with GrapheneOS provided updates because of signature mismatch

That device, and the Debian derivative it runs, are not private or secure.

Freedom of computing on Librem 5 doesn't end with the root account. It also allows to natively run any desktop software and develop it in any language, without reliance on Google's decision on how one must use the phone, how your OS must evolve and when you may get your updates. Or install a completely different OS from different developers, because there is no reliance on anything proprietary at all.

How you can call a device with a ton of opaque binary blobs more private and secure without mentioning this fact is beyond me. I do not call Librem 5 more secure. But its security depends on what I choose to run on it. And I only run trusted software, so it can be secure.

https://grapheneos.org/faq#future-devices

Pixels were headed towards all of the device support code for the OS being open source along with open sourcing large portions of the firmware including for the TEE (Trusty OS) and secure element (OpenTitan). It was ended after the launch of Android 16. It's a major factor in why GrapheneOS is going to be focused on future Motorola Mobility devices. You can still see a large portion of the Pixel userspace driver libraries and services in the AOSP source tree but they stopped pushing new releases for a lot of it.

Many apps that work on microG don't work in GrapheneOS without installing Google services anyway. I'm by no means across the full privacy implications, but my feeling is microG balances privacy and usability better for me.

I've since switched back to LineageOS+microG and am happy with it. Just my experience.

not sure about downloads specifically, but app installs are slow because grapheneos forces AOT compilation (JIT is disabled), presumably for security reasons.

lineageos has built-in firewall for years now. no need for afwall.

https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/116353973732143171

GrapheneOS posts factual information debunking inaccurate claims from groups attacking it. Some of those groups react to their misleading claims being addressed with personal attacks. Threads about GrapheneOS on Hacker News usually have multiple posts with personal attacks towards our team from people influenced by those groups.

GrapheneOS is a privacy project highly focused on usability and compatibility. Privacy depends on security so it has to put a lot of work into security too and it has always been a major focus, but it's a misconception that it's all about security.

> This means they strongly advice against using other software many in their core audience are predisposed to like: Firefox, Signal, plugins for browsers, F-Droid, ect.

GrapheneOS doesn't recommend against Signal but rather it's the main recommendation for end-to-end encrypted chat from the project including via the Molly fork of Signal.

> The explanations are usually quite... blunt, and they're not exactly open for discussion (which makes sense, from a pure security perspective, those apps are indefensible).

This isn't true. GrapheneOS provides nuanced information with detailed explanations for these topics.

Buying a used Pixel is economical, environmental, and likely doesn't support Google. Pixels are the only secure and open android devices that could work for the project and meet the extensive requirements[2]. This is because GrapheneOS takes real steps to protect user privacy and security, not features that degrade security and don't increase privacy. You are going to be doing much more against Google by using GrapheneOS because it comes with 0 google services by default and takes advanced steps to protect you from all apps and services you install.

If you are still not willing or able to purchase a Pixel, GrapheneOS has a partnership with Motorola to help them create compatible devices which will be available soon[3].

[1] Privacy and security on computing devices need to become far stronger to protect people from pervasive violations of their rights. https://xcancel.com/GrapheneOS/status/2044440381803069778#m

[2] https://grapheneos.org/faq#future-devices

[3] https://xcancel.com/GrapheneOS/status/2028448871374803007#m

Interesting. What do you think are reasons for google to run Pixel then?

Not being sarcastic here, but what links you shared (thank you) say imply there are almost no benefits for Google to run Pixels and as we all know, Google is not a company doing charities.

Get millions of users using their services. The average person who buys a Pixel will likely go all in with the Google ecosystem giving Google every word they type, every message to a loved one, every search. It's a data gold mine.

I doubt they sell Pixels at a loss, but even if they did they could make up for it like how Amazon does with kindles.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2026/04/28/price-of-...

I think they also use pixels for testing android and such which is why they keep it secure and open.

Motorola announced it on 2nd of March 2026.

Okay, see, that's an important thing to add to your original post. Saves everyone a lot of time.

If they don't sell them in your country, it's not "no thank you" as you said, it's "this doesn't apply to me".

Graphene adds many privacy features on top of regular AOSP. But it only works on phones that has good security features that are not woefully outdated or completely closed-off. Google has complete control over Pixel supply chain and they can make their phones with all bells and whistles for their ends and they behave a bit benevolently and expose the interfaces to the user too.

Most Android phones use Qualcomm which doesn't give a flying fuck about giving control or privacy to the users.

FWIW, I've been looking at the mobile / portable computing space fairly intensively for a month or so. I share your quite dim view of Google.

GrapheneOS does seem to be one of the most attractive Android alternatives.

There are also Lineage (based on CyanogenMod), AOSP, KaiOS (based on AOSP, via Firefox OS), LightOS (by Lightphone, AOSP), AphyOS (used by Punkt. mp03, also based on AOSP). These tend to be minimal, used on feature phones / dumbphones / minimalist phones. And there are /e/OS and iodéOS.

Among Linux-based non-Android options are Sailfish OS (Jolla), Ubuntu Touch (Ubuntu), PineOS (Pinephone), and PureOS (Purism), Tizen, Mobian (based on Debian), postMarketOS (based on Alpine Linux). These tend to be maximalist, offering a fuller experience than Android, with support for native Linux applications and configurations.

There are some non-Linux OSes, of which I'm aware of System 30+ (a/k/a S30+, Nokia), OpenHarmony (by Huawei), and ... something described as "realtime OS" or "RTOS" which actually had a name, for a Japanese flip phone, but which has slipped my mind (probably something reviewed by Jose Briones on his YouTube channel).

And of course there's iOS.

Briones by the way is an absolutely excellent resource: <https://josebriones.org/>. He's also one of the mods of /r/dumbphones at Reddit.

There are trade-offs, and what you choose depends on what you value, in the marketplace, in capabilities, in your own peace of mind.

If you want a full-featured device with wide acceptance, few limitations, and want nothing to do with Google, look at iOS devices.

If you want (nearly) full Android capabilities, but without Google's prying eyes and ears, GrapheneOS or LineageOS are probably your best bets. Whilst Graphene currently only works on Google Pixel devices, there's been a partnership announced with Motorola, there may be others in future (my speculation, with no other basis). And ironic as it seems, Graphene + Pixel actually does get you further from Google in many ways, though I still understand your position.

If you want full freedom / maximal privacy, and are prepared to make compromises on capabilities and battery life, look at one of the Linux-based, non-Android options. I've heard of quite a few bugs with these.

If you're looking for specific hardware capabilities (e-ink, folding / candybar, keyboard (T-9, qwerty, ...), small, large, tablet, headphone jack, etc., etc., or specific software capabilities, you're going to further refine your search. (Briones has a Dumbphone Finder at his website which does this pretty well.)

If you want modularity or repairability, there are devices such as Fairphone or Keyphone with (some) replaceable components.

If you want minimalism, look at an AOSP-based device, or perhaps S30+. These will give you feature phones capable of calls, texts, and a few apps, but not much else. For more complete computing you'll need either a desktop or a laptop.

There are more extreme options. I'm considering, for example, whether or not a roving SIP WiFi-only phone might be an option, and if so, what would be necessary to make that work. It would rely on a WiFi network provider (public or non-public network, or a cellular modem), and wouldn't function everywhere but should function in many locations sufficiently to be useful.

Most non-smartphone options I've looked at, and in particular the usual "dumbphone" suspects (Light Phone, Punkt.) tend to run an AOSP-based OS, with Nokia being the principle exception.

Briones FWIW uses the Light Phone III as his daily driver. That's somewhat spendy, and quite minimal, but he has his reasons, discussed at length at his blog and YT channel.

I'm leaning fairly strongly toward an option now, though my main hesitation is that KaiOS devices have very limited phone/SMS spam and/or traffic management. I'd prefer known-contacts-only could reach the device, that doesn't seem to be possible (KaiOS has only specific-caller blocking, and apparently a limited API for enabling more robust phone blocking). On the flipside, the device can be powered off, and/or battery removed.... I'm also looking at some VOIP/SIP options.

This is one of my strikes against the Punkt mp02: it doesn't work with most of my carrier options. I was hoping that either that device's capabilities would be extended, or its replacement would follow a similar ethic and expand bandwidth / protocols, but neither occurred. Further reading on Punkt's offerings has further cooled my interest (bugs, fragile HW, spendy).

RCS and group chat support seems to be another sticker, though with a small-form-factor laptop or tablet you should be able to work around that.

The other sticker for me (mentioned in my original post) is voice/SMS/messaging filtering options. The increase in spam / unsolicited contacts across the comms spectrum is immensely frustrating, and few devices / OSs / apps really address the situation adequately and in a privacy-respecting manner. That's still giving me a lot of hesitency on what really ought not to be this complex a decision, though for now I'm thinking it's a good thing to spend the time.

Most of them also have really bad security, for various reasons, including:

- Since virtually no hardware vendor (outside Jolla) supports non-Android phones, they typically use phones that were made by their ODMs as Android phones and rely on kernel/firmware/device trees made available for those Android builds. Sadly, nobody outside Google (PixelOS) and Samsung really cares about giving their kernels and firmware timely updates. So usually the kernel and firmware are full of known holes (Qualcomm and others do monthly bulletins).

- For many reasons, Linux systems have never really focused on proper security isolation and sandboxing. So most of these phones have really poor isolation and you are only one browser/image parsing/... vulnerability away from full phone compromise.

- Unlocked bootloaders or otherwise compromised boot chain. So, it's easy for persistent malware to compromise a phone and there is no way to attest that the system runs unmodified binaries (as you can e.g. can with GrapheneOS' auditor or Android phones with fully verified boot and Strongbox).

Let's say, if I was a bank, I can understand why I would want to block such devices.

So as a bank, you would be forcing your customers into the duopoly of the American megacorps. Thankfully, there are banks that do not do this.

Obviously I want banks to support alternatives, but I can understand if they only want to support secure OSes. Some banks support GrapheneOS remote attestation besides Google Play Integrity at the strong level.

That said, Google's hardware is behind their competitors and they've had a lot of problems in the past few years. The Pixel 8 Pro has hardware WiFi problems, the 9 and 10 are both minor updates with prices that are far too high, the 10 is eSIM only, etc.

It's true that the SoCs are not that great for an expensive flagship phone, but the trick is buying a Pixel halfway the cycle, when the prices go to mid-range. For instance, currently in my country:

- Pixel 10 is 350 Euro off (currently 549 Euro).

- Pixel 10 Pro is 360 Euro off (currently 739 Euro).

- Pixel 10 Pro XL is 360 Euro off (currently 939 Euro).

- The Pixel A series are less interesting currently, because it's still early in the cycle, but the 9a is 200 Euro off (349) and the 10a is 120 Euro off (428). It's a shame that they switched to last-gen SoCs and modems now on the A-series now.

I know that the Pixel 100 is coming soon-ish, but the 10 series have floated around those price points since 5-6 months after the release.

the 10 is eSIM only

Looking at my P10P with physical SIM. I guess you are in the US?

The prime difference between P8 pro and P9 pro is that the newer one is nearly a usable size (just about fits in a pocket now). The battery also got substantially better in two ways: on mobile data (when you're on someone's WiFi, odds are you're also near a charger) you get 33% longer use time on all variants of the P9 and 55% on the P10 and P10p (9 to 12 and 14 hours, respectively), and hours of use per 30 minutes of charging went up from 4.6 for the P8 to 6.3 for the P9(p) and 6.2 or 7 for the P10 and P10p, respectively

The rest is indeed relatively minor but it's not an unwelcome upgrade. Prices didn't change much when buying second-hand 1.5 years after release, when the newest devices are out and nobody cares about the generation-before-last despite >5 years of updates remaining (plus however long you think it's fine without updates)

I still don't want a pixel, so I went with a used ebay phone and installed lineageos.

Everything else is meh, bad, or atrocious.

Next year we'll have Motorola flagship(s) to choose from. Can't wait.

See https://grapheneos.org/faq#recommended-devices for the device recommendations. There are going to be Motorola devices with GrapheneOS support within a year too.