Just installed GOS on my phone, really like it. I want to know how GOS users setup their profiles to learn from them. So far, i found out the followings:
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everything in Owner
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leave Owner blank. Put everything in another profile names User.
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leave Owner blank. Put all Google stuff in user Google. Put all FOSS app in FOSS user. Put all bank stuff under Sensitive user.
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use Owner as an app repo. So install Google Play, Acrescent, Fdroid. Install apps from there, but dont use them. Instead, when create new user, push those apps from Owner. This is similar to Side of Burritos on Youtube.
anything different?
All you people with multiple profiles better have insane backup strategies and love doing it often and it’s a removed. You have to backup each profile and restore individually once booted back up starting with owner then one after another. It’s a nightmare.
You also cannot use a single drive to backup each profile as the backup reading process that distinguishes each profile does not understand.
Meaning the same drive cannot even be partitioned to have a save of each profile. It requires different drives entirely. The absolute simplest process for backups are having a flash drive for each profile. Graphene os is very cumbersome to backup and DOES NOT backup all data. Once you restore from a backup you’ll understand all the pains I say, including the data you have to restore separately. A good backup is only good if you know you can restore and it works.
Hope this helps people refine their profile strategies. Most people avoid owner usage. I think there are pros and cons to that strategy. Like no pop up messages, notification delays, many other lacking options outside of owner profile like certain settings are unavailable to tweak. Including dev mode.
I’ve used graphene for years, across multiple pixel generations. It’s not the white knight made out to be. Their project is very silo’d in security and lacks the true polish of a complete OS. I still use it and think it has great merit just note the drawbacks are many. There’s so much more to add. It is late in my timezone. Hope this helps someone.
I think after testing multiple strategies that the best is to main owner, business and Google stuff 2nd, sketchy apps and things you don’t care if they get lost to delete the phone back to factory. Backup 1 and 2 only. 3 or more are throwaways. You have far more threats to lose your data from theft or social engineering by friends or family etc. than you do someone hacking multiple encrypted browsers with sandboxes of apps and then across encrypted profiles. Most of those scenarios are too complex but your imagination makes them appear big and real because of movies or TV.
Reality is the true threats are often much easier and simple. Bad actors tend to be least effort to get their goal. Nor are most Jason Bourne.
This thread is illuminating and makes my GOS use feel very pedestrian. I just use a single profile, I keep everything off my default and only enable what I need when I need it (GPS for instance which is rare) and then disable again, and I have no accounts logged in to anything on my phone.
Everything in owner because I don’t understand the implications well enough to do otherwise (so thanks for the thread).
Same. I need to step my game up! Profiles don’t look that hard, just something to learn 🙂
You might also consider the new private space feature depending on your needs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G94V5I2xH1E
I have 7 profiles
- owner - network setup and app management (mullvad vpn)
- Daily - no google services and 95% of my daily usage app (always on VPN to my home)
- GPS - navigation and other apps that need location services (mullvad vpn)
- PS-USA - playstore account and google services with USA identity (fake of course), (US residential VPN for sports streaming)
- PS-CH - playstore account switzerland and google play services, my banking stuff lives here (residential vpn CH)
- PS-DE - playstore account germany and google play services (mullvad vpn) - used for apps not available in US and CH when traveling through Germany
- NOVPN - this account only has vanadium and connectbot (ssh) for network diagnostics in case I have issues with a wifi or something. My only account without always on VPN
hmm i really like the idea of navigation apps with location service in 1 profile. So you just dont listen/stream music while driving? Because thats another app right?
Also thats a lot of vpns lol.
I usually listen to radio while driving, I am kinda old school there.
Also, I think having some commercial service like Spotify or TuneIn track my taste in music, radio stations or podcasts is an invasion of my privacy. I actually selfhost an internet radio service if you wanna call it that by running a DVB-C tuner on my homeserver that grabs my favorite channels from my cable provider and streams them to my phone on demand if I wanna listen to radio on the go.
Owner profile for main use, shelter w play services for apps that need them.
I also keep a Duress pin enabled which i have written down inside the phones case, so if Anyone “finds” my phone and tries to unlock it they will just end up wiping it.
The downside of letting someone wipe your phone is they can then sell the phone. It’s a lot harder to pawn a “found” phone if it is locked.
You can always wipe it without the duress pin
Doesn’t a stock android need to unlocked before it can be wiped? I doubt if GOS would remove that security feature.
GrapheneOS doesnt have FRP due to it being exclusively a google service (it requires signing in to the previously used google account that was used before the reset)
Afaik there isnt any equivalent service available to GOS, although it probably could be technically possible.
That is not the case in my experience. At the very least, you can wipe it from recovery without unlocking it.
I suppose its possible it varies between manufacturers, but I would be surprised because they don’t want the hardware to be useless if you forget the pin immediately after you set it.
Factory Reset Protection
"On modern Android phones, there shouldn’t be any problems as long as you choose to factory reset your phone through its settings. This will automatically remove all the associated accounts in a way that “frees” the phone from FRP. If you try to reset a phone through the bootloader, FRP will kick in, and it can’t be set back up without the previous account’s password.
I assume if I tried to reset through the bootloader the phone would become a paperweight as there isn’t a Google account on my phone. No password to enter. I’m just going by what android central says, haven’t tried it myself. Sounds like you have more experience with this.
https://www.androidcentral.com/factory-reset-protection-what-you-need-know
One profile on a 6a. If I had a Google account, I would likely have a second profile.
Most apps come from Github through Obtainium, I also use F-Droid, and a few get updated from Aurora Store.
I noticed a month ago that some apps aren’t being updated in Accrescent - Fdroid had a more up-to-date version for a few apps. I heard they have a funding issue which is probably why. Just something to be aware of.
The apps I have on board, that aren’t privacy respecting, either have their network access blocked or are disabled until I need them. These are Amazon Shopping, Roamless (data esim), and Sound Connect (Sony BT headphones).
No Google account but I do run Sandboxed Google Play for the notifications. Only two apps use the notifications through SGP - Signal and Protonmail but of which have taken steps to conceal the contents of the message from Google.
I have a Duress pin set. If being brute forced, the pin I set will likely be entered before my real pin and wipe the phone.
I mostly use a fingerprint for unlock so no one can see my pin while in public spaces. I also avoid unlocking if anyone is too close to me.
Phone stays in airplane mode most of the time to avoid cell tower triangulation. Using a voip phone service makes it possible to make and receive phone calls without cell towers being involved. My voip provider is very kyc but I do plan on switching to JMPChat soon.
Reboot is set for 8 hours.
If I disable the microphone I can never enable it quick enough to answer an incoming call so don’t turn it off system-wide but do deny for apps that don’t need it.
Disabling the camera permission system-wide has forced me to wait a very long time, after enabling the permission, before I can take a photo. I leave this permission on and just deny for apps that don’t need it.
I typically connect to public and home wifi so I leave this on.
My headphones are bluetooth (I can’t stand using a cable) so BT stays on.
Global PS is an incoming signal so I leave this on. GOS is transmitting a ton of data to Google so I don’t see the risk. Doesn’t seem to drain much power. Only really needed for my map app.
I have all of my open source apps in my main profile, a Shelter profile for proprietary apps (which I hardly use nowadays), a user profile for apps needed for my university, and another user profile for apps needed for a certain gig I’ve been involved with
Got 7 profiles actually.
- is the owner of course.
- Then I have my main profile.
- A untrusted profile. Shady apps cracked apps etc. This profile also is not allowed to run in the background.
- Then my finance profile. Has my banking apps and such.
- A testing profile. Used to test backups of grapheneos and such.
- A work profile. Dont need that to run in the background either. But is useful to stay in touch over the weekends.
- And a private profile.
This way I can still use all my apps. While not requiring google play in all my profiles. Also being able to disable certain things for profiles is super useful. Running in the background, allowed to make/receive calls to name a few
I have everything in Owner profile (including Sandboxed Google Play)
Owner
Pleasure
Banc
Work
Guest
PrivacyI have the main owner profile for my main Foss apps then the work profile for apps that need the play store. I normally leave my work profile paused and unpause it when I need to use an app. None of the apps in the work profile require notifcations so its fine.
Some mangled gargoyle looking shit that I cobbled together some time ago.
Everything in Owner and a secondary phone for all proprietary work and communication apps. The secondary phone is powered off or at least disconnected once I leave work. Google stuff and banking through a computer browser whenever possible.
If I were forced to use only one phone, the secondary phone’s contents would be on a secondary profile. This used to be my setup but switching between profiles throughout the day wasn’t my thing.
One profile. No Google sandbox stuff. All open source programs.
On my work Pixel tablet I have a home profile as owner with Aurora store just to be able to load it on the other profile. Then a secondary “work” profile with all the bloat
