Daily Driving GrapheneOS
blog.matthewbrunelle.com
blog.matthewbrunelle.com
https://gitlab.futo.org/keyboard/latinime/-/blob/master/LICE...
Semantic arguments over what "FOSS" means aside, for most people, calling it "not FOSS" probably makes them more confused than if you just said "it's FOSS", even if the latter might not be technically correct.
But they can? It literally says anyone can do it as long as it's non-commercial.
>not being FOSS means that FUTO [...] requires a payment on other stores.
What are you talking about? It's free on google play.
> But they can? It literally says anyone can do it as long as it's non-commercial.
Commercial use doesn't only mean payment. If you modify FUTO, you can't use it at work for example.
In addition, FUTO License says this -
"Notwithstanding the above, you may not remove or obscure any functionality in the software related to payment to the Licensor in any copy you distribute to others. You may not alter, remove, or obscure any licensing, copyright, or other notices of the Licensor in the software. Any use of the Licensor’s trademarks is subject to applicable law."
> It's free on google play.
You are right. I had confused it with the donation link.
That said, I wouldn't last 8.4 months like the author. Even though he admits to some Google app usage, I'm in too deep — I'd never be able to get out. But if I get the chance, I'd like to try it on a secondary phone. Those solid black icons are one reason. They look cool.
also you can restrict some apps network permissions, for example i use the google camera app with the network disabled :p
Running Graphene for a long time now, everything works perfectly fine, but I don't do mobile banking.
I also work in mobile app/SDK publishing as a business dev and it's critical that I can install my clients' apps (thousand+) in private space.
It works great for me.
I personally just encourage people to take a look at what you are using, and if you could gradually change some of it. Who knows sometimes alternatives even offer better services. I am not saying never use anything google ever again. Just question your tools regularly and peruse the alternatives.
I'll also echo the ideas from everyone else here. You can just use it as a normal Android phone the way you do any other and there's still big benefits. There's also really big benefits in terms of carrier privacy that aren't often talked about, like vpn routing and hotspot usage.
My experience with seedvault is not as positive as the OP, it fails for about half my apps. I guess I have another year to fix this when the GrapheneOS enabled Motorola flagship comes out.
I carry both my iPhone 16 Plus and my Pixel 8 Pro, but limit my iPhone use to mobile banking, Apple Pay and Find My.
Two backup runs can give different results (failing in different places or failing to restore everything), and I haven't heard of the one person it works for every time.
I wish I could just run Titanium Backup :(
sync files,
new phone set up.
Do you really need access to banking apps on the go? I get that it can be handy and maybe you legit do, but I'd wager most people don't really do. If you can pay by phone you can pay by card and the card has less potentially to weirdly break.
And if your bank demands a phone app to be used, you can always have a cheap stock android lying around at home. Can't get stolen or lost. Doesn't give big G any data on you, because that phone doesn't have anything but those apps.
But I also understand "just have a second phone" is not a tempting idea for many people. I am not much of a phone person, so I'm not a good case study, but it works fine for me.
(Not saying that you claimed they didn't.)
In my case, I often spend multiple days at my parents' house. Now, I mostly don't order online, but sometimes something comes up and in that kind of situation, most merchants will have me go through the verification.
Since this doesn't happen frequently, I'm more likely than not to not have hauled my secondary phone, especially since I very much prefer traveling light. Now, could most of those occasional purchases not have waited for my return home? Eh... most probably could've. Doesn't make it less annoying, though, for no good reason.
[1] Like probably 99%+. I scarcely ever have a card on me and never use cash.
So you're not just sacrificing "on the go" banking, you are likely sacrificing use of the best interface your bank offers.
Where I live, people still carry cash (though not absurd amounts) and credit cards, and I understand that's what most pickpockets are after. Especially since, after covid, the limit for contactless payments has increased.
I would assume its more and more the case with phones as well. ~10-15 years ago I heard often about smartphones getting stolen out of people's pockets, etc. Not so much anymore.
Non-Apple laptops is probably a different game.
I should note that the website is pretty janky itself, but at least it works fine (meaning "not worse") on Firefox on Linux, and it doesn't even pester me to change browsers or anything.
I also have an account with one of those new "online" banks for when I travel, since they have better exchange rates, and, importantly, no conversion tax. Their app is somewhat better, but they have no website whatsoever, AFAIK. But, at least, they allow me to set up a proper password instead of clicking on 6 digits as the other bank.
I've had a government app not working once and one of the devs actually showed up on the GrapheneOS forums and now it does.
Not strictly, no, but it's useful to be able to relatively-quickly check my balances (and possibly shuffle funds around between checking/savings and my credit-union-issued credit card). I could use my credit union's website for that, but it's faster to open the app and scan my thumb.
Thankfully, my credit union's app has no issues with GrapheneOS, aside from needing to enable “exploit protection compatibility mode” to keep it from crashing on startup.
If they ever stopped working, I would just CASS to another bank. A bank that has a posture that something like GrapheneOS is too insecure to use their app on is a bit of a red flag.
In my case it's also the 2FA for credit card usage (as I have the visa/mc via my bank), not only bank transfers.
And there is 3 kind of people that do one of the above and go around in real life and online and tries to convince everyone that THE THING that they are doing is THE ONLY, TRUE SOLUTION. Like vegans or cyclists.
In reality none of this is true. If Graphene OS would tomorrow became, magically the only mobile OS in existence they would became next evil tech company in few years. Because power corrupts.
Are you putting me in the third kind of people?
But I see I already was down voted. So yeah...
Yes, I do.
Sure you could say I do not go out and do not need that but realistically this is just how the world works now.
I'm assuming that most people will carry the card with them anyway.
Leaving and coming back home and only have to mentally track one object that I can't forget is great. If it breaks, I'll temporarily use cards or physical money until I get a new phone and install everything again.
"Use a card" is not really a good alternative for those that prefer not to use them. Sure it works for you, but not everyone has your preferences of walking around with a wallet.
You don't get TANs in the browser, can't tap "approve" on the application-only notification, can't pay with the banking app (for those banks which offer it) without the banking app.
...and willfully ignorant given that some banks are mobile (app) only.
Luckily it works well on GrapheneOS though.
I currently have accounts with 3 different banks in Belgium. They all offer an app which I ignore. Online banking works just fine, heck, better than fine, it's excellent. One bank uses auth derived from my debit card (which I have to insert into a card reader to sign transactions). The other two use hardware tokens. The hardware token for my business account has a built in camera which scans QR codes displayed by the website. When signing a payment, I scan the code and the token asks "Confirm payment of 123eur to XYZ?".
It's plenty convenient for my needs.
I would look for a new bank.
https://privsec.dev/posts/android/banking-applications-compa...
Paying by card in 2026 is akin to sending physical letters.
The larger population is getting pushed towards banking on the phone, and on top of that, many people don't own a PC/Laptop anymore.
It'd be more than just a bit inconvenient to lose all of these things…
Luckily, all of my personal and business banking apps work fine on Graphene. Even the apps for the crusty old "bricks and mortar" banks that I still have backup accounts with.
[0] As an aside, Revolut Ultra in the UK costs less than the FT Digital subscription it includes so if you're an FT subscriber, all the other stuff that comes with the account is cheaper than free.
I routinely use my (U.S.) credit card abroad and never had issues. I don't have any banking app on my phone, which runs Graphene, because I do not need access to banking on the go. Things such as airport lounges, co-working spaces, exercise classes, may be valuable, but none of these things is more important than my freedom. I do not tolerate the thought that some company may track which services I use and where I go without my consent. I therefore do not use proprietary apps on my phone. If something does not work in the browser (Vanadium), I will do without it.
When chip and pin was first rolled out, Europeans were shocked by the low security of swipe cards in the US. The reason that wasn’t an issue for Americans was (and still is) that credit cards have excellent fraud protections.
If someone steals my credit card, it is the bank’s problem, not mine.
The risk of paying by debit card on a regular basis is unfathomable to me, even with fancy tech to try to make it secure.
Your comment on the risk of paying with debit cards surprised me. I've never considered it a risk at all. It made me realize that perhaps here (in the Netherlands) we have consumer protection systems in place, in addition to the payment systems, that prevent any issues.
This is an Americanism, my European debit card had consumer protection clauses pretty much on par with credit cards.
And yes, phone NFC payment is one of those technically unnecessary conveniences that's really easy to get used to. You probably already have your phone out or at least accessible in like one second, paying with it instead of pulling out your wallet and finding a card or even cash is just sooo nice. I hate that I've gotten this used to it.
That being said, you can still get NFC payment on a rooted or reflashed phone. Instead of Google Wallet, find a bank or card provider that has their own app. I use the Curve "proxy card" and it works fine.
I also see a lot of people struggling because they need to pay while being on a call or because their smartphone is just way too big to be handled comfortably with one hand given the size of their hands.
Physical CC can be used by anyone holding it or actually just standing close.
Contactless payment with phone only after the phone is unlocked().
Physical card contactless payments have a limit (don't remember it) after which you have to use it with pin. At least all mine. Boring. Payments with apple/hoogle/Garmin have higher transaction limit.
I could probably go on longer but these are for me.
() I know it can be done without, but it also can be done with.
If I'm going out I'll have both a debit card and cash in my wallet. Given that large scale outages of payment networks are no longer theoretical but to be expected, not carrying cash is just silly. Since I have a wallet in any case, I see no point in using contactless payments on a smartphone — I usually don't take it with me when getting groceries.
I have no idea if I can even do contactless phone payments on GrapheneOS, but since everything else works (including my bank's app), I don't care.
Such sweeping statements are impossible for "Europe". It's a big place. Plenty of people use credit cards in supermarkets. But it's orthogonal to the discussion. A creditcard can be contactless or on a phone. Or on a watch.
https://n26.com/en-eu/blog/taboo-of-credit
That article lists some reasons why using a credit card doesn't make sense in most European countries. It's not a way to build up your credit score for one. As a Dutchman, the only way I can lower my credit score is by taking on debts (with the exception of a mortgage).
The US is a big place too. I am fairly comfortable in making the sweeping statement that credit cards are a thing used by many people there.
Nonsense. It's hard to find actual statistics on the number of credit cards, but it's obvious that the Netherlands are an outlier, with a paltry 0.02 credit cards per capita, vs Luxemburg's 3.98 (wtf). If I filter out the non-EU countries from the dataset below, I end up with 0.5 credit cards per capita. That's nowhere near "not a thing for most people". They're just "not a thing" in NL. Big difference.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1395502/credit-cards-in-...
The median seems to be 0.25 cards/capita. Your own source already ~agrees that they're "not a thing for most people" (if we're really pedantic we can start looking at populations of those countries), but to find a more realistic estimate for the percentage of the population who use credit cards we would have to divide this figure by the average number of credit cards among people who have at least one.
In the EU we have some rules that even contactless payments with card sometimes, but not always, need to have some kind of additional authentication in the form of entering your PIN. Contactless payment methods via phone or watch don't have this need because they already have their own authentication methods. That's why so many people pay with their phone or watch. Its just more convenient and always contactless. (no PIN needed)
How is it in the US? Are things like Apple Pay still limited to certain stores?
We do not use pins with credit cards here, so that isn't a distinguishing feature of phone pay.
(you can use gboard, that was just an example - but it's always these small inconveniences, just like in the chrome vs firefox threads)
[1] https://privsec.dev/posts/android/banking-applications-compa...
GrapheneOS website in comparison contains a lot of things to read, so after a hour of thorough reading I had good impression what GrapheneOS is.
Your Pixel 10 is not in Lineage devices so i would also assume it's not supported. (maybe it's too new?)
This new glass UI and the Face ID kind of not working anymore since upgrading my iPhone, I think I’ll be going back to Android
Existing since 2009 as CyanogenMod and since 2016 as LineageOS, that would have been around the time where Android 7 (Nougat) was current.
PS: Not that we are in any way degoogled, other than what we are forced to by the license.
… and thank you for your continued effort! I have very big love for CyanogenMod/LineageOS, and that’s coming from a heavy pre-XDA user (I’ve had them all - PalmOS, Zaraus, XDA o2, Maemo, FirefoxOS, Ubuntu phone user).
it's very minimal ootb and has a better update schedule than 95% of oems (alas)
you can install google play store & services from the app store, and pretty much everything will just work as you might imagine
Any OEM right? Google is the fastest OEM with Pixel and GrapheneOS often rolls out patches earlier than Google (not bound by a monthly schedule + they do embargoed patches when you use the right branch).
I just found out today I can't call anymore due to 3G ending in my city
I'm keen for a Motorola Graphene and then just install Google services anyway. For me the value is being freed from manufacturers UI and software
I'm glad to hear that's finally fixed. That was my only pain point with GrapheneOS, but it got so bad I bought an iPhone when the 17's came out.
If the deal with Motorola helps GrapheneOS get better integration with the carriers, get a heads up about RCS changes ahead of time, get help fixing it, I'd happily switch back. I loved using GrapheneOS and iOS frustrates me daily.
0 ads, 0 bloat, 0 unknown connections with maximum security.
Uber couldn’t verify payment so I couldn’t take a ride when needed.
Google needs to whitelist graphene basically to work in the wallet app.
On that note, given that graphene is focused around security and privacy, perhaps not givng your payment data to google is probably a good thing
Mobile apps are mostly black boxes in that regard.
I have a fairly new ish Pixel phone, do you think I'll be able to go back if I don't like it?
Because when I had set it up, grapheneOS itself couldn’t install or set one up unless it was previously installed under the old OS.
So I had to set up my carrier and then install grapheneOS.
It can install eSIMs on its own now so this doesn’t matter other than confirming the eSIM carries over.
I’ve never reverted to stock android and I’m never looking back so idk if the eSIM survives the round trip.
Yeah, it is very easy, it's described here:
https://grapheneos.org/install/web#replacing-grapheneos-with...
Similar to GrapheneOS, Google also has a web installer (linked from the above section). Just in case you didn't know - both installing GrapheneOS and recovering the stock OS will remove all data as well.