Just a stranger trying things.

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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 16th, 2023

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  • The Hobbyist@lemmy.ziptoPrivacy@lemmy.mlPixel 8A and Grapheneos
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    1 month ago

    Congratulations on your first steps in GrapheneOS!

    In order to best help you and give relevant suggestions, we need more information of who you are trying to be private from.

    If your threat model is particularly sophisticated, it may be recommended that you do not use a sim card, or at least never when your phone is at home. Instead, exclusively rely on WiFi. It may also involve desoldering your microphone and camera and only make calls using an earpiece.

    These are not recommendations, but simply examples of how far one can go with respect to their threat model. If you would rather want to avoid “regular” spying by google, Facebook and the likes, you may be better off selecting a private DNS (for example Mullvad’s extended DNS which comes with social media filtering https://mullvad.net/en/help/dns-over-https-and-dns-over-tls ). You would need to make sure you do not install Google services (nor microg) and especially no google apps.

    Much more can be said, but we would need specific information about your case to provide better guidance.

    EDIT: I do not want to give the impression that GrapheneOS does not make a good job in improving your situation already. They do! But to do more you would need to justify it with your threat model, that’s what I’m getting at.



  • My personal experience with Linux over the past few years has drastically changed from before being limited by how few games work on Linux when many tools do a decent job, to almost all games running thanks to proton and being limited to some windows specific tools not existing/working on Linux (mostly adobe suite). I’m really in awe how much the Linux ecosystem has improved over the last few years. I’m daily driving it with so few roadblocks for day-to-day use that unless there is a specific program required for work, there’s no hurdles for the majority of my tasks.


  • I was wondering, does anyone know whether usernames are single use? As they can be created and disposed of at will, it feels like a loophole for phishing if someone else can claim a “no longer in use” username? I’m talking about someone using someone else’s previous username.


  • Well yes, but also no.

    Whenever you search for a solution to your problem, it stems from the realization that something is a problem. But sometimes, you have a thing which has been done for a longtime, it was a problem with no solution and you’ve had to accept that. How would you determine one day that things can be done differently and better without constantly reevaluating everything? It’s not realistic.

    In my view, it is a perfectly reasonable question to ask “what problem does waydroid solve?” To figure out if you have that issue and you didn’t know of this solution.

    Sorry, just my 2 cents.




    1. There is no GrapheneOS account.
    2. GrapheneOS has some built in apps, namely for SMS, gallery viewer, camera, PDF reader, calculator, contacts, files, phone and web browser (vanadium, based on chromium). GrapheneOS offers no cloud. You are responsible for using the service of your choice to manage and backup your data. It is currently undergoing a transition for backup management, but otherwise you can make use of a selfhosted service like nextcloud.
    3. GrapheneOS does come preinstalled with its own app store but that it is reserved to GrapheneOS apps and the distribution of certain google services which can be optionally installed using their sandbox. Besides that, you can indeed install the aurora store to get access to the free apps on the google play store, or actually use the google play store. They can all be installed and used simultaneously. Though you might want to be mindful of you install an app on one store to not update it on another as the two versions could work differently (e.g. an app installed on f-droid might have a different notification system than one on the google play store). You do not need to use nextcloud if you don’t want to. GrapheneOS has no dependencies on any other additional app. It is a standalone OS. Once you install it, you use it however you want.

    Edit: one key advantage of GrapheneOS is the possibility of using multiple users. You can (and I recommend it) separate apps into different user profiles. You can for instance dedicate one user profile to apps requiring Google services, let’s call it Gapps. GrapheneOS then allows you to then pipe your notifications between user accounts, so if you are in your main user profile you can get notifications from apps running in Gapps in the background. Very convenient.