"Here is the rest of the network activity, all of which is TLS-encrypted by keys buried in the stock Google operating system, and thus not controlled by the device purchaser:
Hostname Downloaded to phone Uploaded from phone
storage.googleapis.com 383 MiB 8 MiB
fonts.gstatic.com 137 MiB 3 MiB
afwprovisioning-pa.googleapis.com 18 MiB 1 MiB
www.gstatic.com 8 MiB 287 kiB
googlehosted.l.googleusercontent.com 8 MiB 345 kiB
ota-cache1.googlezip.net 3 MiB 175 kiB
dl.google.com 3 MiB 86 kiB
instantmessaging-pa.googleapis.com 1 MiB 300 kiB
www.google.com 46 kiB 24 kiB
ssl.gstatic.com 25 kiB 3 kiB
ota.googlezip.net 17 kiB 6 kiB
digitalassetlinks.googleapis.com 17 kiB 4 kiB
clients.l.google.com 14 kiB 7 kiB
gstatic.com 13 kiB 3 kiB
mobile-gtalk.l.google.com 8 kiB 1 kiB
mobile.l.google.com 5 kiB 1 kiB
lpa.ds.gsma.com 5 kiB 4 kiB
connectivitycheck.gstatic.com 3 kiB 3 kiB
app-measurement.com 1 kiB 0 bytes
time.android.com 180 bytes 180 bytes
Only Google knows precisely what all that data is and what it is used for."
Why should the owner of the computer be allowed to see what is being sent to Google? (Maybe the strange folks at Google cannot think of any reasons.)
Who pays for transport of the data to Google? (Is there any reason Google should not pay?)
Putting the data sent aside, there is the question of whether the computer owner should have a choice in whether they want to send it, and there is the fact that these unauthorised connections are all pings to the mothership.
Using NetGuard, it's possible to block all these connections without rooting or installing GrapheneOS. It's also possible to log all the DNS lookups and attempted connections, without rooting or installing GrapheneOS. The log will indicate which software is making the connection attempts. One can also create PCAP files showing the patterns of network activity, again without rooting or installing GrapheneOS. It's relatively easy to determine what connections are actually necessary for the computer to work as desired.
After installing GrapheneOS, I wonder if it is possible to selectively stop connections to GrapheneOS servers. There are probably some connections to Graphene servers enabled by default.
Would be fun to compare PCAP files from a device running NetGuard versus one running GrapheneOS.