Pixel owners, what are your thoughts about GrapheneOS?
Since GrapheneOS is the standard recommendation for a custom ROM on Pixel devices and comes up very often, I figured we should have a thread about it.
For those who are using it, what Pixel device are you running GrapheneOS on and how is the overall experience? What are the things that you like about GrapheneOS and what are things you miss from the factory Android install?
As for me, my curiosity got the better of me and I finally went and installed GrapheneOS on my Pixel 7a using the web installer on Arch Linux and a USB cable.
So far, nothing unexpected and I'll have to do a bit of exploring of the OS' security features. The OS works just fine and feels obviously way cleaner and less bloated, the annoying search widget finally went away without having to install a custom launcher. The only thing that scared me a bit in the beginning was the contacts not syncing and some purchased apps not transferring over as the sandboxed Google Play saw the device as a different one but that was solved by giving it permission to access contacts and also waiting for Google Play to do its thing. Google Camera and Google Photos also worked fine without network permissions.
I haven't tried Google Wallet's NFC payments yet and I have no hopes for that one to work on GrapheneOS, but that is certainly a feature I will miss.
I have been using GrapheneOS since the Pixel 6 came out and I have no complaints. I get regular updates, the OS is super stable and my phone is free of the pre-installed ad- and spyware.
I also remember the ridiculously easy and straight forward install, something that I wasn't expecting since I used to tinker with LineageOS and CyanogenMod way back. It almost feels like a stock rom.
The additional security features are great, though they come with the tiny inconvenience of not having access to system files (which is obviously by design).
Overall I couldn't be happier with it and I'll continue to use it for as long as I can.
still using my pixel 3a XL, graphene was great until suddenly it wasnt. As soon as google drops support for the device you're on your own. Most of the apps still get updated but the OS no longer gets security updates, which is understandable but unfortunate.
This is just to give people an opportunity to move off of the device.
Once this happens, and the phone is no longer getting hardware security patches, graphene OS and calyx OS both drop support for the device, with the exception of fair phone.. were they pretend they're getting hardware security patches but they're not. That's a separate discussion
For a device with no hardware security patches, you can run lineage OS, with an unlocked bootloader which isn't great.. or divest OS DOS.. which locks the bootloader, but strips out a lot of the Google services. It might be a more extreme environment than you want, lineage might be the sweet spot of usable but not secure.
I have a pixel 3A as well, and I went through this exact same thing. My only complaint with graphene OS in this scenario is they should have pop-up notifications when support is being discontinued, so that you know you need to start migrating.
I only really noticed when I thought, hey I haven't installed a operating system update in a long time.... That's not great.
Google Pay incompatibility is certainly a tough pill to swallow. Other than that is Google Maps working fine ? What about Android Auto? I'm definately interested to go this route.
I tried it out on my Pixel 8 Pro but I'm back on stock. I'm trying to be more privacy focused, but I use a lot of Google apps still, so I had almost everything enabled from Google anyways, so I might as well stay on stock for now. It was neat, but I didn't notice any battery improvements, which is also what I was looking for
I've been running Graphene on my Pixel 6 pro for about a year now and it's been pretty great. I have had a couple bugs here and there but nothing a quick restart wouldn't fix. I can honestly say I don't really miss any of the google stuff, I've switched to FOSS apps for pretty much everything ,except for what's required for work.
GrapheneOS is amazing. So many privacy and security features. I finally feel in complete control of my phone. It's not only secure and private, it's also smooth and stable too, much more so than the buggy mess that is stock Pixel OS. And did I mention that it updates faster than stock OS!? It's also far more stable than every other alternative OS on every other phone I've had. I loved it so much I sent my first 5$ to a FOSS project ever LOL. This is my endgame OS and I'm never using anything else ever again.
I also like it, but installing apps takes such a long time and auto updates don't always work. When you open aurora store or f-droid you'll get a dialog to allow an app to install.
Battery drain was also higher than on stock. Not sure why that is, even without Google apps.
pixel 7a - GOS - everything just works, just like stock android. No real change in experience, nothing i miss (gpay doesn't work in my country anyway for tap to pay), running the sandboxed google play and you would never know its not stock.
The network permissions are nice, the multiple accounts are nice. Honestly, I don't see any downside.
Two things would make it even better:
being able to share a vpn with tethered devices (calyxos and lineage can do this) - this is absolutely a killer feature and replaces a travel router
Work profiles for every account (calyxos has this), so that your second account can also have a work profile, not just the owner account.
I use it on Pixel 7 and my partner on Pixel 6a. I miss Android auto sometimes, but I would use it maybe twice a year so it isn't a big deal to me. Otherwise it's great, I had no trouble using NFC paiment and apart from android auto, every single app i've tried worked without issue.
Yes, I saw it too. I guess they still need time for this feature. It doesn't sound like a very trivial fix, at least not without compromizing on security and privacy.
Pixel 5a, been using it for 3 years. It's great. But don't put anything you need to receive notifications from in a different profile or you'll never see them.