I have two questions, if anyone has any advice.
1) What's a reasonable Pixel phone to buy to try out GrapheneOS? Is a 128GB Pixel 7 "good enough" or will I get a significantly better experience with a newer phone and/or more storage?
2) Is there a Graphene alternative that would let me de-google an Samsung A12? Back in the day I had some Galaxy S3 and S4 phones that I installed Lineage on, I have no idea if that's compatible to Graphene and/or still a going thing?
1) any currently-supported device is good, but i'd say go for minimum pixel 8a if you can
it ships with Memory Tagging Extensions (armv9 security feature) and two more years of support than previous generations; pixel 7 might be eol in oct 2027 https://grapheneos.org/faq#device-lifetime
official recommendation page: https://grapheneos.org/faq#recommended-devices
2) there is no real graphene alternative for other devices. I would say DivestOS at least made sane compromises to support less secure devices, but it's unfortunately defunct now. Yes lineage is still around and still the go-to clean 'ROM' but far from security focused. just avoid stuff like /e/ os
Thanks! (And thanks to the others responding here too.)
What are the reasons to avoid /e/, according to you? (And not according to the GrapheneOS maintainer).
Because why would you trust an operating system of which the companies CEO says that security hardening is only for criminals and spies?
Besides doing many other shady things, like putting a proxy between their App Louge and F-Droid (cleanapk.org), while simultaneously not wanting to reveal who owns/controls that proxy? Remember that Android relies on trust on first use. Or running Google proprietary DroidGuard blobs in a privileged process for Play Integrity/SafetyNet? Or giving certain Google Apps elevated privileges when you install them?
I could go on for a while.
(I made the mistake of installing /e/OS on a phone once and then started poking around and it really has many security issues, questionable choices, etc.)
>I could go on for a while
Well I am genuinely interested so I am all for continuing that discussions in details. I am happy to finally meet someone who had a real look and isn't just repeating things read online. So if you have time to share the result of your investigation I'm super interested. But here is not the good place I imagine, where can we continue that discussion?
I would suggest Pixel 8 series or later, since they get 7 years (instead of 5) of updates, which is also decisive for Graphene support duration.
1) I'm typing this in a pixel 7 pro running grapheneos. I'd say these are plenty good enough. Device support is pretty solid compared to cyanogenmod of previous times. App installation is a bit slow using sandboxed play store. Not sure why that is.
For security reasons, GrapheneOS uses ahead-of-time compilation for apps. The stock OS compiles the heavily used parts of the code dynamically in-memory and then does partial ahead-of-time compilation later in the background. The install-time compilation will become more asynchronous in the future so the app can be used right away.
We Have been successfully using graphene on a pixel 4 plus, 5 plus and a 6pro. They all work. Very well. They were cheap to buy. Super easy to install graphene (remember they have a very easy stepu by step process, takes about 10 minutes) It's a good way to test and see if you like it. Truly amazing operating system. Simple and beautiful control of your apps and their behaviors.
Any phone that is good enough with stock Android for your case is good enough with Graphene. If you really just want to try it out, it's the cheapest old Pixel *a you can find.
Checking which phones are supported by Lineage and Graphene can be done by everyone in a matter of minutes.
Pixel 7 is definitely good enough if you don't have special needs. I'm writing this from a 6a right now.
If you want to try it out, you can easily buy an 8a for like 250 euros used. 128GB is certainly good enough, unless you plan on migrating your mp3 library to it or you take a lot of videos. My only qualms is the lack of SD card, for the aforementioned mp3s.
And trust me you'll like it ;)
299CHF for pixel 9a NEW in my local electronics webstore - the only difference between this and 10a is increased level of flatness of newer one..z