Graphene OS Day 4 😀

Phones
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Hey All,

First… Many Thanks to Jeff and CMZ for the life changing nudge into new frontiers!… I have never been tech focused… just enough to do what I needed to do and what I picked up along the way… I am now unexpectedly enjoying the challenges of new tech as I have added Linux to my life and am in the final stages of De-Apple’ng and De-Googl’ng!

@GrapheneGoat ‘s inspiring post on GrapheneOS De-Googled Phones Explained, pushed me forward to jump into that pool as well… I thought his idea that it didn’t have to be an all at once changeover was sound and am pleasantly surprised to find myself comfortable switching a temporary SIM card out for my IPhones card and making the switchover complete at 4 days in…I have used IPhones for the last 10+ years so both Android and GrapheneOS were uncharted territory… I found an excellent video on YouTube ( now viewed on New Pipe ) by Android Privacy Lab on how to Sandbox Google and it was a perfect compliment to the instructions on the GrapheneOS site…

Anyway… if any of you find yourself wondering if you should jump in the pool, all I can say is …do it! … The water is fine!…If I can do this, so can you!

Onward We Go Brave Patriots!

D.A. :raising_hand_woman::sunflower::two_hearts:

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Great to hear! Onward indeed, in sharing that initial post as a PDF document, I’ve captured a lot of interest among my coworkers as well, and a few are actively moving to also go Graphene OS and de-Google/Apple their lives, I love seeing other success stories. Each one starves the tech oligarchs of data and moves the needle towards freedom.

The hangup for most seems to be lack of time (I very much appreciate that, I’m a busy critter) and fear of the unknown for lack of better term, but the reality is that we can all dabble in this and take baby steps, within a month or so, it won’t be a big deal, but you will have accomplished a huge layer of privacy and control over your devices.

FOSS for the win! Tell your friends, some of mine are tired of me pestering them, but I won’t stop! Don’t forget to tell them it’s freeeeee :muscle:

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@GrapheneGoat …I’m preaching Linux and Graphene OS to whoever will listen!… changing hearts and minds can be quite the process!!!… I switched over my sim card… today’s challenge has been trying to get voice prompts working with OsmAnd navigation on my main profile or with Google Maps on my sandboxed secondary profile… I am getting hit and miss results with GM but no luck with OsmAnd if anyone has any ideas or can recommend a TTS app that works with them …

Onward we go Brave Patriots!

:raising_hand_woman::two_hearts::sunflower:

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For sure, I pester my friends, mostly with their increasing interest in making the switch, or at least trying it out for some things, there’s zero excuse to not be able to use a Linux for web browsing at a minimum. Some folks use MS/Apple for production and Linux for their private/personal stuff, but I’ve had no need to use anything MS anymore. (Never was an Apple person ever, and working in gov’t for 20yrs, it’s all MS stuff there, so that’s what I used always at home as well)

OsmAnd is good, but is not quite as accurate as Google Maps for certain info, for example, it still shows the West Seattle bridge here in WA state as being open, it’s been gone for a while now, and won’t be rebuilt until another year perhaps. Kind of annoying, but in fairness, it recalculates quickly and gets you back on track. But then again, OsmAnd is getting very little data and input from people compared to Google maps. So the more of us who report and use the app, the more useful it will be. Does 99%, although I have not used the voice prompt feature, I’ll mess with mine and see what issues I run into. It seems like OsmAnd has more features, which is both nice to have, as well as confusing when you just need a few simple things quickly. If you download Mapillary, it provides street view, and there’s other street view programs you can integrate to get that.

I have been experimenting with running both OsmAnd and Google maps within a browser to see how they stack up as far as route and ETA, etc. So far, I’ve seen it be similar, but not always matching routes or ETA’s (more so the routes, ETA is pretty spot on) Map app is really the only significant difference that I’ve had using Graphene, so far otherwise it’s been not only sufficient, but more enjoyable.

Same with Linux, with MS I was screaming at my computer every day (it doing who knows what, grabbing my keystrokes, pictures and microphone???) but since being on Ubuntu, Pop!OS and Kali, I’ve had not only less computer woes, but am fascinated at the whole new world they offer!

Keep preaching the good word of FOSS!

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Inteltechniques.com Episode this week (246) did a decent run down of how to sanitize and customize standard Android phones using a computer and terminal code. Great to know, not the most private option, but great tool for those who don’t want to give up key features, or want a phone with more features than a Pixel for example, the link for the podcast has all of the technical detail on how to harden your existing Android device, including removing bloatware manually, and customizing things to make your life more private, and certainly easier for your experience when using any given Android phone.

For the purist and more hardcore privacy folks, Graphene stands out as the clear win, but we should not play into the idea that your phone has to be X or you’re an idiot; rather, be informed of options, and make the choice that is best for you. Good approach.

Gabriel Custodiet seems to be another up and coming privacy guy, he has similar content along these lines, worth checking out. If you have other favorites that do phone and/or Graphene phone info, please fire away on this thread! Tons of options out there, all have pros and cons.

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I like how you worded this and it describes my journey so far as well. I imagine many of us are on the same path with all of this at first. I imagine as time goes on we will each branch out into more specific areas that interest each one individually. In that first few months (some sooner, some later) you would have distro hopped a little and degoogled a phone and shared your excitement with others. I wasnt looking to add technology to my life…but here we are!