GrapheneOS Overview: The Good, The Bad, & The Privacy Fortress
GrapheneOS is considered the top tier mobile OS for privacy AND security. In this video I'll go over the incredible features it has, including some caveats to know about.
How to Install GrapheneOS The Privacy Focused Mobile OS: https://youtu.be/XwWD-BgV3UQ
Visit my website: http://www.babblingboolean.com
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#smartphone #privacy #android
00:00 Intro
00:15 Things Of Note
02:37 How to Install GrapheneOS
02:51 GrapheneOS Overview
Transcript
Intro
0:04 · Hey, welcome everyone. In this video, I'm going to be going over Graphine OS, the privacybased operating system for mobile smart devices. Now, if you want to see the written version of this video, you can find a link to my website in the video description. Now, Graphin OS is available on cell phone and tablet devices, but with a catch. In fact, the operating system, I've been using it for several months now, and I'm a huge fan of it. I don't see me going to any other operating system. But it's not perfect.
Things Of Note
0:25 · A lot of videos will say it's the ultimate privacy based operating system.
0:28 · There are some nuances to it. I mean, it's hard to get a perfect operating system that's going to appease to everyone. So, I'm going to talk about some of the gotchas in here. They're they're not really bad, but there are things you should be aware about. Um, the other thing I'm going to be talking about is the requirements. So, first and foremost, in order for you to install Graphine OS, as of today, and for the last few years, it'll only work on Pixel devices from Google. Why is that? It's because it has something to do with them uh releasing the the bootloader information. Basically, I guess in layman's terms, long story short, Google used to release a lot of the source code information regarding the device.
1:00 · So, it's really easy for the graphine OS team to load the operating system on here and you get, you know, full driver updates. So, from a security standpoint, you're secure. And of course, security and privacy are two separate concepts, but they overlap heavily. If you have good security, you tend to have good privacy, and the privacy is based on that. Lately, Google has announced some evil doings, typical of Google, is that they're starting to lock down a lot of the uh source code for the information about the devices for Pixel. So, it's a little bit harder for the Graphine OS team to start releasing versions of it.
1:32 · However, that change was made recently, but I'm still getting updates. So, the Graphine OS team is still accomplishing what Google doesn't want them to. So, that's good news. And there's some other news that I read in an interview recently with a graphine OS member team saying that they have officially partnered with uh a cell phone manufacturer that's not Google. So there's possible there might be graphine OS official devices coming out soon. Who knows? And the tablets that I mentioned that it supports are obviously Pixel tablets. So you're kind of limited there for now. Okay. So what is the whole thing about this? It's based on Android.
2:04 · It's similar concept of how Android is classified, you know, with Linux distributions. You have different flavors of Linux. You know, it's the same concept. Graphin OS is kind of like an offshoot of Android. It's based on Android open source project. You know, Android being open source. The entire thing about graphine OS is that you don't have to use Google Play services if you don't want to because it's all spyware. It is right.
2:22 · So, you can use Aurora Aurora Store which is a uh kind of like a anonymous version of Play Store or you can use something like Froid or you can use the app store built into Graphine OS. you have that capability. Now, if you want to see how to get Graphino OS installed on a Pixel device, I have another video explaining how to get that done. I'll put a link to in the video description. It's super easy thanks to the way they did it. It's kind of like a web-based installer. You connect it to your computer and it just does half the stuff automatic for you.
How to Install GrapheneOS
GrapheneOS Overview
2:51 · It's pretty easy. Okay, so the first thing you see is my home screen. It's super bare bones. In fact, when you boot it up, it's not even this colorful because the app icons, there's very very minimal. There's next to no apps available on the device. I mean that's the entire purpose of it is that I had to sideloadad these or rather I had to get these from the Aurora store which is this one here which is anonymous version of Google Play as well as Froid. So you'll notice that I have very minimal apps because here's the thing the more apps you have the more likely to be tracked by the app provider and Google.
3:22 · The other thing is that a lot of these services require Google Play services and Google Play services is spyware.
3:28 · It's tracking your information and data.
3:30 · Not only that, it's kind of nice to have a minimalistic approach because I'm less likely to use my cell phone. Like when I want to access something like Uber Eats, there's no app here like I used to have on my Galaxy device. I use the website because they can't track me. So, how do you get services to run that need Google Play services? I'll explain that very shortly. There is a workaround to it.
3:48 · But the entire idea is that there's no Google services whatsoever. There's no YouTube app. There's no Google Maps. You can get this done. There is workarounds to it. But out of the box, it just doesn't apply. Some apps act a little funky. Like for example, I have Ring for my video doorbell is that when I open it up, it quickly flashes. You're missing Google Play services, might not operate properly. It operates just fine. There there's no issues whatsoever. So, that's one thing to keep in mind. The basic camera app that comes with graphine OS is not that good. This is the first big limitation.
4:17 · The first big limitation here is that I noticed that the video recording is only at 30 frames per second, whereas I'm using the Google Pixel 8 Pro. It can record in 60 frames per second. So, I had to get a third party app called Open Camera. I believe it's open source. I'm not 100% sure on that. But, uh, the the objective of this app is that it's privacy based. It's not using Google Play services. A lot of customization. You can ignore half of it. I do to be honest, and it records in 60 frames per second. You can adjust these settings there. So, that's one of the nuances I had to get around.
4:47 · Another nuance is that I don't use Google Maps primarily. I try to avoid it and use Magic Earth. It's uh it's not open- source, but it's heavily privacy based.
4:59 · For example, it doesn't even ask for your Google account and ID. Google Maps does that. It mandates it when you log in with your Google device on Android.
5:06 · The problem here that I I noticed on Magic Earth and Google Maps on my other profile, which I'll explain shortly, it didn't know where I was. This is another caveat that I had to learn the hard way with Graphion OS. How did I fix it?
5:20 · There was no documentation online. This is the most annoying part is that graphine OS didn't have documentation on this. I had to experiment and find it myself just because I'm techsavvy. If I wasn't techsavvy, I would have been messed up. So, how did I fix this? So, I went to the main system settings menu and you just go and search for GPS at the top. After that, you click on location and then you'll notice some stuff at the bottom here. Uh, secure user plane location and tap that. This was off by default and I don't want to use standard server. I rather use uh graphino OS proxy because I think it's masking a lot of my data.
5:51 · So I had to turn on graphine OS instead of off. Same with predicted satellite data services.
5:58 · This was set to off. I had to turn it to graph OS uh server. So once I did that, Magic Earth and Google Maps on my other profile worked phenomenal. There was zero issues. It started working perfectly with navigation and what have you. Another caveat here is that you have multiple profiles which uh I'll explain the caveat shortly. The entire purpose is that you know when you have multiple apps they can kind of scan and see what other apps you have installed.
6:21 · So for example if you have a banking app it can scan your phone and see what other banking apps you have. That's the whole reason you have profiles. Your main profile should be as minimalistic as possible and keep it very secure like only the necessities like open camera for camera usage. I use signal for video calls and texting because SMS and regular phone calls are are not encrypted. your uh telco company like your cell phone provider can sell your data. It's been very common globally.
6:47 · So, you signal. Now, there are sometimes apps that I want to use like Google Maps. Let's say I'm on uh in my uh newer car, my Highlander. It supports Android Auto. And sometimes you just want to use it because you're going a long trip.
6:58 · Magic Earth is great, but not having the screen navigation, all that set up. I need Android Auto connected, which means we need Google Play Services, but I don't want that on my main profile. So to get profile set up is from the top of the notifications. You swipe it down all the way and it's like a little red icon.
7:13 · It's the default. Uh you tap on that and here you can have profiles. So my secondary profile if I were to tap it will go to my secondary profile. My second you don't have to do this but this is how I set up. My secondary profile has all the apps that uses Google Play Services but it does not have Google apps themselves. So for example I think in my second profile I have Microsoft Teams. It will not open without Google Play services, but it's not a Google app. So, I have that in there. I have other services like I have the actual Uber app. I was talking about Uber Eats. It's installed in my second profile in case I ever need it.
7:44 · Uh, so you kind of get the idea and it's locked down in there. And when that profile is turned off, it turns off everything in there. They cannot track me. You notice that I have Google and Smartome as my last profile because there I have Google Play services and Google apps and smart home apps because they're constantly tracking everything I do. That is the ultimate unprivate apps. I guess you can say the most privacy invading apps or my third profile. But when that profile is on, of course, it can track whatever uh except for GPS.
8:16 · Graphino OS blocks GPS tracking unless I open Google Maps, which is pretty neat. Unlike your smart device, if you turn off GPS, it's still tracking everything you're doing. Um, so just keep that in mind. So when I'm in that profile, all the privacy based stuff just kind of goes out the window.
8:31 · Google's tracking everything. But when I turn off that profile, I shut it down.
8:36 · Imagine as a virtual container, all the apps and everything in there shut off.
8:40 · The easiest way to explain it is that each profile is like having your own separate phone. Each profile is like its own phone container, which is pretty neat. So, and if you have apps installed in your primary uh profile, you can sync apps. So, if I go to manage users and then you can see there's a button to switch user profiles, which I enabled.
8:58 · And you can modify and switch. So, for example, if I go to secondary, um I can switch to secondary from here. I can allow running in the background, which I don't want because that's defeats the whole purpose of um privacy based stuff.
9:10 · It here's one catch is that I noticed the hard way. Okay, I learned this the hard way is that when you're in your other profile other than your main one, you cannot receive uh notifications for calls and texts. Okay, you can have mobile data on. That's fine, but you will not receive call and text. It just it gets blocked unless you go back to your main profile. That could be bad, especially in emergency. So, you want to make sure to turn on phone calls and SMSes on.
9:33 · The only caveat with this is that when you turn that on, any services from like Google, for example, if if you have something like Gemini, for example, Gemini scans everything on your phone. I don't have it installed on any profile, but if you did, it would scan all the texts coming in because it has access to your calls and text then. But if you don't have this on, you won't receive calls and text. So, you really need to kind of figure out where the the border for you lies with having that feature on or off. I have it on, but I don't have super privacy invasioning apps like app AI apps.
10:05 · I have no AI apps on any of my profiles. Apps installed and updates.
10:09 · Uh, you can have that enabled if you want to or not. Install available apps.
10:13 · So, what it'll basically do is list all the apps on my main profile. And if I just toggle on, it'll automatically pre-install it on the next profile. I don't have to go to Aurora Store or Google Play and download it all over again. And of course, you can delete the user and all the profile and all the data associated with it. So there's another thing. All the data on my camera reel for example or any files even my MP3 music on my main profile is not available on any other profile. That's good and bad.
10:40 · It's good because Google services on my third profile can't scan and see what MP3 music I have and it can't see the pictures and videos of my children. Especially if you want to install Gemini, which you know screen records and will upload all that data of my kids. That's great. It's bad because when I plug in Android Auto, my third profile, my music's not there. So, I have to copy all the music from my first profile, connect it to my computer, load my third profile, which is a Google Play one and Android Auto, and then load the music again. That's annoying, right?
11:12 · Because it's extra work and steps, but it also doubles the space used. So, if my MP3 music is 5 gigs on the first profile, I have to copy it over to the second, sorry, the third profile, which is another five gigs. was doubled for the same songs is now 10 gigs. So that's another good and bad thing to keep in mind. Another thing that I keep active you want to make sure of I personally recommend is you can have a guest profile that means they have access to like ne next to nothing and when they exit the profile everything gets deleted and wiped off the face of the planet.
11:40 · On your regular user profiles that doesn't happen. You have to specifically go in here and say I want to delete the user.
11:48 · With guest profiles, the second someone stops using it and they exit it, it wipes all the data immediately. So, it's good if you want to have hand over your phone to someone without them accessing your sensitive data. You can allow the guest to make phone calls or not. And send notifications to current user. I have this one on. So, for example, if someone messages me on Signal, which is on my main profile, but I'm using my second profile, it'll allow notifications to pop up saying, "Hey, you just received this uh signal notification on your first profile." it won't show the notification in the preview of the message. Uh it won't do that.
12:20 · It'll just tell you that you got something on your main profile that lets me know that hey, I should switch to my main profile and see what's going on in case it's an emergency. Someone contacting me. Okay. So, I apologize about the camera angle, but I want to show you how profiles work and I can't do a screen recording. So, I'm going to tap on uh the little icon here. I'm going to switch to my secondary. So, I'm just going to simply tap on it. And one of the things you can do with your profiles, even your main profile, is scramble the lock screen. So, for example, if my passcode is 2400, well, if you if someone's like shoulder surfing, which you they're looking over your shoulder, every time you type in 2 4 0, they'll know your pin code.
12:52 · But the fact that it scramles it every time. So, if I were to turn off the screen, notice zero's here in the corner.
12:59 · If I do it again, zero's moved to the second spot. They'll makes it very difficult for anyone to predict what number you're actually pressing on because it's scrambled. They won't know the pattern. So, this is what it looks like when I'm loading up a new profile.
13:11 · logging into it. Um, in my experience, it takes about 15 seconds for everything to kind of sync up. Uh, I also have ProtonVPN installed on every profile.
13:20 · And I noticed that once that VPN is connected, then it's it's pretty much done. Everything else is kind of the dust is settled and it's good to go. And if I were to swipe up, you'll notice that I have a lot more apps here because these apps require Google Play Services, which is installed on this profile. And some of these are kind of privacy invading like food tracking apps like Uber and what have you. Now the thing about graphine OS is that Google Play services are sandboxed. They're not exactly like on traditionally. Okay, so to load Google Play Services, it's pretty cool.
13:51 · What they've done here with the graph OS team is if I go down to my notifications, I'm still in my second profile I'm showing to you. And if I were to look at this particular one, you'll notice that it says um action required Google Play Store sandbox Google Play is running. What they've done is they've created like a very compre compressed and condensed version of Google Play services. So it has just enough permissions to allow certain apps to run but without tracking everything possible from your data.
14:18 · No matter which profile you go to this service, if you want to activate it, you have to activate it. You go to the App Store.
14:25 · The App Store, this is the one builtin with Graphion OS. This is Graphin OS's official app store. And you'll notice if you scroll down, you'll have one called Android Auto, Google Play Store and Google Play Services. So, in order to make everything kind of work from Google, you have to have Google Play Services first and foremost before anything else. Then you can activate Google Play Store and Android Auto secondary if you want to. So, that is how you get that up and running. Okay.
14:49 · So, I'm going to switch over and show you what it's like to close out a profile. And it shuts down all the apps on my secondary profile. Um, but you also notice at the top here, I have a notification from Signal on my primary profile. This is kind of what I was telling you that it alerts you. It doesn't show you the preview for privacy reasons, but at least you get that idea.
15:06 · So, I'm in my secondary profile that has all my junk apps and scroll down from the top twice. And here there's like a power icon. If I tap that, there's a whole bunch of options. I can restart the device, power it off, but there's a special one that only shows up while you're not in the main profile at end session. This is basically shutting down the secondary profile and all the apps associated with it. So all that tracking it it might have if you were to install Google Maps and this and this and that.
15:33 · It cannot track you because it's literally being shut down. That's what I mean. It's like each profile is like having your own secondary or third or fourth or it depends how many profiles.
15:42 · I think you can go like 20 or something crazy. The the privacy is there. It's like having virtual phones within a single physical phone. And as you'll notice, I didn't, you know, make it all roses and rainbows like a lot of other videos do. They make it perfect. It's not. It has some nuances. There are some trade-offs there. So, for example, I set up uh my um fingerprint lock screen on every single profile, but I had to do it three times because it's like setting up three different phones because they're virtual profiles and virtual phones kind of. So, that's what I mean. It is it a pain a little bit?
16:13 · Yeah, at the beginning, but honestly, you get used to it and I have peace of mind on not being tracked like crazy. So, that's pretty much it. Again, if you want to know how to install Graphine OS, I have a whole step-by-step video. Uh link will be in the description when it's live, which will be about a week or so from when I post this video you're watching. Hit the like button. It does help. Subscribe. It literally helps my channel grow. And also, I'm off work today. It's a vacation day. Uh so I'm recording this even though I'm a full-time employee on my own private time, which I should be relaxing. Uh so if you want to show some appreciation, you can hit that super thanks button.
16:43 · It's that heart icon just below the video, but you're not obligated to. And thanks for watching.