DjogaRo Yeah, I can understand not wanting to roll your own mobile OS, its a decent amount of work... Not as hard as I would have thought though honestly because if the most excellent guide that was written though. I had very little experience compiling software from source, and I was following another guide that said it was only recommended for people with experience compiling software from source...
I used to program when I was a kid (in elementary school), and without the excellent guide I would have been lost, sane if I didn't have basic Linux experience! I learned A LOT by following it though I now I feel super comfortable with bash, compilation and modifying software. Its been a journey over 3/4 a year but I'm so very thankful to the GrapheneOS team for how theyvlaid everything out because I learned a lot, and I can now read the code when before I couldn't!
Yeah, I couldn't go back to standard Android made by Google... After I ran GrapheneOS (standard build) for a month, I flashed the regular stock OS back on my phone to see how it was, and it lasted on my phone maybe 12 hours before I was flashing GrapheneOS back on my phone! It just felt... Wrong! No control, lack of privacy, lacking security...
Sure there were more "features," but they weren't the features I cares for. Yes I had music recognition, Android System Intelligence (text selection in the app overview and more), and other Google features) but I was at the time using all Google apps on my GrapheneOS build, as per my guide, so I had most of the Google features on GrapheneOS! So I had almost all that on GrapheneOS but on stock I was missing so much!
Its so possible to have almost all Google features on a GrapheneOS phone. I'm currently running Gemini as my AI assistant, with Google Photos, and very few other Google apps too like Google Messages, in preparation for Apple integrating RCS. Google Messages is terrible for privacy though... (Sends metadata about messages to Google, sane with Google phone app, sends call metadata to Google if it has network days on)
I use App Ops to very granularity set permissions though. Give an app SMS and phone permissions, which is a broad permission in GrapheneOS, but with App Ops you then drill down and tweak it to allow an app to send SMS, but deny it to read SMS. Also make phone calls but not answer or monitor phone calls! So you get the benefit of the permission but not the privacy cost. If I can integrate App Manager as a system app then I can use it to set App Ops without using Wireless Debugging or root. One of the many things I want to use building my own fork of GrapheneOS for!
So far I've managed to make it so I can sideload temporary root, and then mess around with granting root to apps, backup/restore or mess around and tweak things (always root with maintaining a locked bootloader!) then sideload another OTA to remove root. Super useful, but I want to take it further!