Hello everyone, I recently purchased a pixel 8 after doing a lot of reading of these forums and other sources about the privacy implications of using an iPhone (which I've used for many many years). While I was hesitant making the switch, my first post on the forum definitely made me feel like this is a great community for support and that the privacy benefits of the change would be worthwhile.
I successfully flashed grapheneOS onto my pixel 8 (purchased from google directly). Before I start doing any setup, I have many questions as I don't want to make any rookie mistakes and I also know there are many decision forks that lie ahead. I have watched several videos from the Hated One along with reading a fair amount of Michael Bazzell's mobile privacy guide.
Here are some of the questions/decision points I'd love some input on:
I purchased a new prepaid semi-anonymous SIM card with a healthy amount of monthly data and unlimited calling/sms. However, per Bazzell's guide, he recommends not using your SIM card for traditional calling/sms and instead utilizing a voip service. I understand the reasoning being that a) your SIM card/cellular provider knows your location since it is pinging cell towers but the voip number provider does not (if someone tries to lookup your location history via your publicly known voip number(s) and b) it is more difficult to sim swap a voip number than a 'real' SIM number and c) perhaps by keeping your actual SIM card anonymous, you can avoid getting caught up in location based profiling situations like the hated one mentioned in one of his videos. So my first question is, do most people agree with these things and/or use VOIP numbers? Or is the juice not worth the squeeze of these additional privacy benefits?
If I do go down the VOIP road, I have narrowed it down to two choices that seem relatively simple to me. There is mysudo and jmp.chat. Mysudo seems to require google play services installed to receive notifications (which is critical for me to know when someone is calling or sends an sms) and seems to limit usage to a handful of countries (which could be a problem if I am travelling for an extended period). I have read that it has a tendency to be flaky behind a VPN. However, the pricing is pretty attractive for unlimited calling and 9 numbers. Also, mysudo requires you to have a different stock android device or ios device in order to make the actual purchase of service as they don't let you buy on grapheneos.
On the other hand is jmp.chat. They seem to be very privacy focused, don't require any KYC information and even let you pay with select cryptocurrencies. They do not require google play services to get notifications and you can use their cheogram app to manage phone/sms. However, they charge $5/month for 1 phone number and that only gets you 120 minutes of calls and unlimited sms. I would certainly end up paying a lot more due to the amount of legacy calling I do, but I don't think it would be prohibitively expensive. I would also need to pay more to them to get more phone numbers (which I would like at least around 3 numbers). I am leaning to going with jmp.chat for my primary number and perhaps paying them for 1 additional number per month for throwaway usage. Does anyone have better recommendations?
I know this topic has been beaten to death, but this one revolves around the decision to put google play services (GPS) on the phone vs. not. I understand that there is sandboxing on grapheneOS which prevents the highly privileged access GPS typically has. However, even after reading several forum posts, I still don't really understand the privacy implications of using google play services. It sounds like the answers range from, there is no privacy degradation because of the sandboxing to put it on a different user profile to never use it at all. I can think of two reasons why having GPS installed would be useful to me: 1) if I choose to go with mysudo, it is necessary for notifications and 2) I have been debating moving my email and VPN to Proton. Proton seems to require GPS for notifications (unlike tuta). The last possible reason I can think of for installing GPS is because it sounds like this may save battery life by consolidating all of the push notifications through one connection vs. many apps maintaining their own connection. The main apps I forsee myself using that would maintain connections with a server for notifications are: molly/signal, cheogram, proton mail, proton/mullvad vpn, perhaps whatsapp.
Does anyone have a recommendation on if I should install/use google play services or not based on my profile outlined above and battery life considerations? Also, forgot to mention, I have no issue getting apps from neostore or obtanium vs. the google play store, but I understand that could be a consideration for some people.
Thanks in advance for any advice you can provide during my initial setup phase!