Hacker News Reader

Comment by williamtell | Hacker News Reader

I'll be interested to see if downstreams of AOSP ultimately weaponize updates against Google. For the kernel that's a minefield but Google made plenty of stuff Apache/MIT to keep its options open..

View on HN

As a custom ROM maintainer in that position, it's unlikely to cause a difference since Google has effectively monopolized their Play Integrity API for attestation. Even Graphene itself runs into this roadblock, and why in the current day it's still a minority user group using it or other ROMs

I’ve had some trouble with apps refusing to work because of Play Integrity, but it’s not ubiquitous yet. We can still fight it.

Normie apps simply don't anymore. WhatsApp will refuse to log you in if it feels your device is modified and then fails a verdict. Google Wallet won't let you tap to pay. Most banks in the EU and basically all virtual ID systems require it

That's a big pain point for the average user

I'm using WhatsApp on my GrapheneOS handset without issues.

I’ve been using WhatsApp on LineageOS with microG and it worked just fine for me too. Even with Magisk (had to do some integrity trickery for another app, which didn’t work out ultimately but eh).

Both WhatsApp and banking apps (Santander/Openbank) work perfectly for me. You really shouldn't use Google Wallet because of privacy concerns. But if you absolutely want to, there are other equally questionable alternatives, such as PayPal, that work just fine on GrapheneOS.

They work fine for me too personally, but not for everyone. Banks are ofc by institution, but with whatsapp there's some flag that can be put on an account which makes them get an "unofficial app" warning and not log in. Which gets cleared by using a stock device or something passing integrity. Definitely a weird situation, but there's plenty of proof out there that they're doing something strange

And you can't tap to pay with PayPal, at least not in my region. Tap to Pay is the big thing

PayPal only supports tap-to-pay in Germany. Curve Pay supports tap-to-pay on GrapheneOS in the UK and the whole European Economic Area. Many European banks have working tap-to-pay too, and the trend of those replacing their independent system with Google Pay has subsided. It's mostly a non-issue in Europe but there aren't similar alternatives for most of the world. Japan does have their own alternative which works on GrapheneOS with Japanese models of Pixels.

Klarna also offers tap to pay in their app, at least in Germany. Not sure whether that's the case in the rest of Europe or elsewhere.

There is a guy in Denmark working on a G wallet/ A wallet alternative. He has a discord and the release of tap-to-pay is scheduled for early next year. Very enthusiastic for the app because the guy refused to compromise on app compatibility with GOS, regardless of the 2months delay this introduced.

Google Wallet is the one I miss the most.

EU banks are hit and miss, but e.g. LHV and Wise both work fine. (Wise might limit some functions if it detects root, but custom ROMs seem to be okay. It also has most of the functions available in the web version anyway.) N26 is flaky (sometimes it just works for me, sometimes refuses to even log in; no idea what’s wrong). Revolut has lost me as a user.

Smart-ID (used in Estonia) has been working fine for me, but they seem to limit biometric signup on custom ROMs. But you can sign up using ID card and a USB reader, so it’s only mildly inconvenient.

Now, of course, YMMV in other countries, but I think my final point still stands: we can fight it.

I do hope we can, I continue to work on custom ROMs after all :)

I just also like to be a realist, and right now things look a bit grim

I'm not sure that's the reason a minority user group is using alternative ROMs. They have always been niche, even before the play integrity API took off.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com