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GrapheneOS – Break Free from Google and Apple

blog.tomaszdunia.pl

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Re: GrapheneOS – Break Free from Google and Apple

#381

Post by tonylemesmer »

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…

yep - tried GrapheneOS for the first time today and my banking app detected that the phone was jailbroken.

Re: GrapheneOS – Break Free from Google and Apple

#382

Post by edoceo »

askonomm wrote: post #222
Tharre wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not in Spain. I can access my bank's website but I can't do anything without their bank app. I don't know about Spain specifically, but as far as I understand it no bank in the European Economic Area + UK should allow banking via just the website alone anymore, because of the "Revised Payment Services Directive" (PSD2) regulation. Essentially, banks are required to implement "strong customer authentication", which…

In Estonia you can easily do banking via the website on all the banks (LHV, Swedbank, SEB). That said, we do have it all integrated with our digital-ID (which every ID card has private keys encoded into with a PIN you know) so it's not like you can access it with a simple password (our online voting works the same way).

Can the PIN change? How to issue new key if needed? How does it integrate with the voting?

Re: GrapheneOS – Break Free from Google and Apple

#383

Post by dotancohen »

dangus wrote: post #319
dotancohen wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope and pray that is a Samsung S Ultra device. The built-in stylus transforms the whole user experience, I would not go back to a device that I must swipe my dirty fingers across.

I’m just imagining myself pulling out the stylus on the train/plane, dropping it, and watching it roll away forever.

They thought of that! The cutaway of the stylus is a rounded rectangle, comfortable in the fingers but does not roll.

In any case, replacement stylii are very cheap online. Less than a screen protector.

Re: GrapheneOS – Break Free from Google and Apple

#384

Post by barbazoo »

empyrrhicist wrote: post #374
ACCount37 wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh how I fucking wish "security" wasn't a stupid cargo cult checkbox list 3/4 of the times. Unfortunately, the rot runs too deep.

Your password must be between 8 and 12 characters, and must have lowercase, uppercase, numbers, and punctuation. Pick up the can!

> Pick up the can!

Gotta admit, this triggered me. I don’t think those are the same thing. If no one had a good password we wouldn’t affect each other negatively. If no one picked up trash, we would.

Edit: Sorry folks, didn’t get the reference.

Re: GrapheneOS – Break Free from Google and Apple

#385

Post by InitialLastName »

empyrrhicist wrote: post #374
ACCount37 wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh how I fucking wish "security" wasn't a stupid cargo cult checkbox list 3/4 of the times. Unfortunately, the rot runs too deep.

Your password must be between 8 and 12 characters, and must have lowercase, uppercase, numbers, and punctuation. Pick up the can!

My favorite is when it must have punctuation, but certain punctuation is silently banned, so I have to keep refreshing my password generator until it gives me an acceptable combination.

Re: GrapheneOS – Break Free from Google and Apple

#386

Post by vladms »

ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #294
vladms wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I remember, last time I needed to use Google play on a shared phone I could just create a random Google address (I mean, completely invented name, etc.) and it allowed me to do anything, just as my normal Android. I am too lazy to test, but did this change? Can't you just make a "fake" account and continue with your life? The phone company knows where you are, the bank knows what you purchase. Compared to t…

No, they will either immediately or shortly thereafter require you to link a phone number, etc

The original comment was saying:

> If you are not in good standing with Google, you cannot bank!!

> I cannot stress how inane it is, to have Google or Apple as the gatekeeping to identify verification. How not having an active, in good standing account with one of these two, means you cannot bank.

Having to register some phone number (does not need to be your main number, a sim card is quite cheap) to a "fake/unused" email address (even if as you say you are required yo) does not require you to "be in good standing with Google" and they are not gatekeepers of identity.

At this point in time I feel the banks and the mobile phone operators are much worse managers of identity, because, for example they even accept stolen identifiers to make an account in "your name" - for me that's more ridiculous, not that they require some multiple factor of authentication.

Re: GrapheneOS – Break Free from Google and Apple

#387

Post by microtonal »

stephenr wrote: post #337
palata wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why they're unable to continue supporting a release just because the upstream removes support for something. If you have an EOL Pixel and a new major version of Android is released, Google will not port this new version of Android (and therefore AOSP) to it. So GrapheneOS would have to do it. GrapheneOS just say they don't have the resources to do that, so they follow the Google releases. Could you keep an EOL Pixe…

Sounds a bit disingenuous then for an article to have a title that includes the phrase "break free from Google".

I think they mean breaking free from Google Analytics, Google Play Services, Google Play, Google Location Services, etc. Play Services and Play are not installed on GrapheneOS by default, so it is possible to run your phone with just GrapheneOS with your choice of open/closed source apps on top.

I think breaking away from open source Google code is not really meaningful. It's kinda like saying "I don't want to run Linux because it contains code from IBM/Google/Meta". AOSP is a great and useful project. If the day that Google stops releasing AOSP ever comes, a consortium of interested organizations can fork it. But it does not make a whole lot of sense to start a new mobile ecosystem completely from scratch, if one that is great and open source already exists and buys you compatibility with millions of apps.

Re: GrapheneOS – Break Free from Google and Apple

#388

Post by dotancohen »

jlokier wrote: post #378
dotancohen wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does a banking app that I'm not currently using need to ping a server occasionally? When I want to do banking I'll open the app, do my business, then close the app. A banking application does not need push notifications.

My comment was about push service sharing generally, not banks, from a technical point of view that many people aren't aware of but may find interesting. Clearly, real-time notifications are useful with many apps, notably real-time messaging, even if you don't think they have a place with bank apps. For bank and credit card apps, I find their push notifications to be very useful. They are among the most useful notifi…

  > But SMSs are just push notificatons with a worse UI and worse visual cues.
... and no dependence on Google or Apple.

Re: GrapheneOS – Break Free from Google and Apple

#389

Post by raincole »

rcMgD2BwE72F wrote: post #287
raincole wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where is it? I had a really hard time finding the irony.

If they switch mostly for privacy reason, then starting using Gemini might be counter productive as Google might learn far more about the end-user than if they just did some basic search on any other Android devices. To enable Gemini, one was to accept some crazy T&C and accept that Google collects an incredible amount of personal data. I prefer to use intermediaries like Kagi Assistant, thanks to the strict privacy…

I mean... yes? But I really don't think there is any 'irony' here. The author clearly stated:

> It’s thanks to them that we even have the option of at least partially freeing ourselves from Google (Android) and Apple (iOS)

partially. And I do think they successfully did this. Asking Gemini questions when you really have something to ask is very different from integrating your whole digital life with Google.

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