Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

GrapheneOS – Break Free from Google and Apple

blog.tomaszdunia.pl

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 967 posts

Re: GrapheneOS – Break Free from Google and Apple

#171

Post by 72deluxe »

sandreas wrote: post #115

I personally tend to own two Phones. One all-day carry GrapheneOS device (Pixel 8) and an older WiFi and at home only iPhone for all payment and ensurance stuff. This is inconvenient in some ways, but at least it is sort of privacy as good as it gets while still being able to run official apps when I need them at home. To de-google the phone, I use F-Droid as primary App store, Aurora as fallback for non-f-droid Apps…

I like Organic Maps because it isn't full of the social things. Every time I open Google Maps it shows that card at the bottom with "what's popular in your area", full of pictures of people's breakfasts and other nonsense. Organic Maps is free of this noise.

Also, the desktop client on Linux is quite useful.

Alternatives for Windows etc. are Cruiser Maps, a Java application (and also available as an Android app).

Re: GrapheneOS – Break Free from Google and Apple

#172

Post by walthamstow »

sandreas wrote: post #115

I personally tend to own two Phones. One all-day carry GrapheneOS device (Pixel 8) and an older WiFi and at home only iPhone for all payment and ensurance stuff. This is inconvenient in some ways, but at least it is sort of privacy as good as it gets while still being able to run official apps when I need them at home. To de-google the phone, I use F-Droid as primary App store, Aurora as fallback for non-f-droid Apps…

Voice audiobook player is so nice and simple, a pleasure to use

Re: GrapheneOS – Break Free from Google and Apple

#173

Post by stephenr »

palata wrote: post #130
stephenr wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I fully understand this. Why are GrapheneOS releases dependant on Google releases?

They are dependent on the AOSP releases (which Google develops) and on the manufacturer updates (and because GrapheneOS runs on Pixels, then it goes back to Google again).

I can understand relying on an OEM to provide hardware support for a given model - but I'm finding it hard to understand why they're unable to continue supporting a release just because the upstream removes support for something.

I'm not even really sure what you mean by "manufacturer updates".

The more I hear about this project, the less is sounds like an alternative OS and more it sounds like a thin skin around whatever shit Google throws out, to be honest.

Re: GrapheneOS – Break Free from Google and Apple

#175

Post by direwolf20 »

voxadam wrote: post #51

While I admire GrapheneOS and its goals, I feel that until we free the proprietary baseband processors and their RTOS from the grips of Qualcomm and friends it's a pyrrhic victory, at best .

Do you also need the WiFi chip to be fully free?

Re: GrapheneOS – Break Free from Google and Apple

#176

Post by direwolf20 »

joebe89 wrote: post #79
ordainedclicks wrote: post #3

One of the only big downsides I've noticed with GrapheneOS is that several banking apps don't work with it at all thanks to being tied to Google's verification ecosystem. Luckily I have hardware 2FA keys from my bank so I can authenticate using that. It also slightly decreases the suck-factor from whenever the phone decides to fly off down a drain. This may not be the case for you, so do your research on what you nee…

What about the small matter of having to purchase a Google phone in the first place?

Google makes high quality hardware and untrustworthy software. Graphene's approach is to take the hardware and leave the software.

Re: GrapheneOS – Break Free from Google and Apple

#177

Post by sandreas »

72deluxe wrote: post #171
sandreas wrote: post #115

I personally tend to own two Phones. One all-day carry GrapheneOS device (Pixel 8) and an older WiFi and at home only iPhone for all payment and ensurance stuff. This is inconvenient in some ways, but at least it is sort of privacy as good as it gets while still being able to run official apps when I need them at home. To de-google the phone, I use F-Droid as primary App store, Aurora as fallback for non-f-droid Apps…

I like Organic Maps because it isn't full of the social things. Every time I open Google Maps it shows that card at the bottom with "what's popular in your area", full of pictures of people's breakfasts and other nonsense. Organic Maps is free of this noise. Also, the desktop client on Linux is quite useful. Alternatives for Windows etc. are Cruiser Maps, a Java application (and also available as an Android app).

All map apps I tested so far were kind of usable but nowhere near Apple or Google maps. Especially for longer trips I often got lost and had to re-navigate by different reasons (voice announcement too late, no lane instructions, etc.).

However, I listed it because it is a "usable" alternative that works offline.

Re: GrapheneOS – Break Free from Google and Apple

#180

Post by stephenr »

palata wrote: post #131
stephenr wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use qr based payments regularly where I live, and in my home country I use nfc payments (watch/phone/card) essentially always, when we visit. NFC is by far more convenient and reliable.

I can't say about "convenient" because I don't use it, but I have been using QR codes for years and I haven't had a single issue. I don't know anyone who has. QR codes are reliable .

It's regularly unreliable here, because it's reliant on a bank app which in turn is reliant on an internet connection, and banks here are kind of shit.

It's pretty common here that people will be told they need to turn off an otherwise working Wifi connection when facing problems because bank apps will often just not work properly on wifi.

But as I said, even without that, the convenience level is ridiculously different. It's arguably quicker to open your wallet and use a debit card with an NFC chip than it is to use QR codes, before we even talk about the convenience of watch/phone payments using NFC.

Post reply on HN