Just got a pixel and installed GrapheneOS - best way to install apps?

de0u

When I had my Pixel for a week with Graphene my wifi suddenly stopped giving out new IPs.

after checking the routing table was full. Deleted all entries manually and changed the MAC randomization settings on my phone. No trouble since :-)

soon404 The setup you're referring to is mainly for people who want a setup where their main profile is 100% google-free with only FOSS apps, while maintaining a separate compartment that has the Google stuff installed.

This will definitely offer better compartmentalization and privacy protection, but it comes with some downsides:

• A setup without sandboxed Google Play services (GPS) may result in increased battery consumption due to messaging apps needing to maintain a constantly open websocket for notifications instead of relying on GPS. From personal experience, Telegram is fine, but Signal has horrendous battery drain when used without GPS.
• You'll need to switch back and forth between different profiles and it is structurally impossible to have data flow back and forth between different profiles. This is usually a feature, not a weakness, but there are times when I want to have data flow from a trusted app to a proprietary app. An example is copying bank details from Signal and pasting it into a proprietary baking app.

Vagabond8630 The GOS community recommends using the Play Store, but if you are willing to sacrifice security for privacy, or do not want to use sandboxed Google Play services, you could use AuroraStore's anonymous account to download proprietary apps.

Compared to using an anonymous Google account, how does this increase my privacy?

soon404 Doesn't really seem like there's a way to make a completely anonymous one.

There is: https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/3366-how-to-create-google-account-anonymous/66

If by anonymous you mean that they don't know who you are, then this is anonymous. You are not giving up personal information.

soon404 Besides, won't having play store installed on the device just have it in the background.."spying"? Or won't it know my activities on apps and therefore be able to technically profile who I am?

That's not how it works, not at all. Play Store can't see your activities in other apps. Play Services on GrapheneOS run in the standard app sandbox, without the privileged access it has on stock OS. In other words, it cannot do anything more than any other app you install on your phone.

Being an app store, it will need to see which apps you install and have installed. Like any other app, it can collect your activities within the Play Store app itself. Of course also your IP address, if that matters to you.

I've basically paraphrased the entry about Sandboxed Google Play on grapheneos.org: https://grapheneos.org/features#sandboxed-google-play

soon404 I've seen people say to download them on a different profile but I don't really understand the benefits of this, still a big noob lol

There are several benefits to user profiles. But as a new user, I personally recommend not using them unless you have a clear reason to do so. I'm not saying that to dissuade the usage of profiles in general. Rather, I'm observing many users who start out by separating their apps into two or more profiles, because they think this is a necessity to use GrapheneOS (it's not; it's your choice) and then come here and express how exhausted they are with constantly switching between profiles, and then saying that GrapheneOS is not for them because it's too tiring.

It's interesting to discuss privacy practices, but when installing GrapheneOS for the first time, I recommend starting out simple. Use the Play Store, install the apps you usually use, then slowly go from there based on what you want/need further.

fid02 You wouldn't be connecting directly to Google's servers when using Aurora Store, and you can skip needing to create and log into a Google account altogether. You also don't have to have GPS installed at all if going the Aurora route. Whether that has tangible privacy benefits compared to using an anonymous Google account with sandboxed GPS, I'm not sure.

To be clear, thanks to your advice, I use an anonymous Google account to download apps through the Play Store, but I wanted to let @soon404 know of alternatives.

soon404 Apps on F-droid are all FOSS by definition, while Aurora store has both FOSS and closed-source apps. So, any apps that are available on both F-droid and Aurora store are FOSS apps that are also available for download on the Play Store (through the Aurora store client).

However, that sometimes means that apps that normally don't come with any Google dependencies on the F-droid version come with Google dependencies with the Play Store/Aurora version. An example is Bitwarden, a FOSS password manager that is on both F-droid and the Play Store. The F-droid version doesn't come with Google Firebase, while the Play Store version does (source):

Since the Bitwarden F-Droid build does not include Firebase Messaging, push notifications for live sync updates of your vault will not work.

In these cases, I always try to download the F-droid release to avoid proprietary code as much as possible, but directly from the source via Obtanium (Example Bitwarden release page with multiple release versions).

Privacy Guides has a great section on their recommendations for installing apps on Android. I recommend you to give that a read, together with various GOS-community recommendations on best practices (link1, link2, and so on).

The overall community consensus seems to be:

Obtanium > F-Droid Basic > F-Droid for FOSS apps, and Sandboxed Play Store with anonymous G account > Aurora store with anonymous user >= Sandboxed Play Store with personal G account for proprietary apps.

Vagabond8630 The overall community consensus seems to be:

Obtanium > F-Droid Basic > F-Droid for FOSS apps, and Sandboxed Play Store with anonymous G account > Aurora store with anonymous user >= Sandboxed Play Store with personal G account for proprietary apps.

This list, are you saying that people's first choice is Obtainium then next is F-Droid, and so on? Because that's not the impression that I get, nor is it the project's recommendation.

Google Play is the most secure way to install apps. Accrescent is another secure place to get apps, but since they're still in the early stages they don't have many apps listed.

Using F-Droid is pretty much discouraged across the board because there are many issues with how they do things, covered here: https://privsec.dev/posts/android/f-droid-security-issues/

other8026
To be fair, I think the "FOSS apps" half of the comment comes with the unspoken caveat of 'for people avoiding/de-Googling' as is often the case for many pro-FOSS users.

other8026

Right, I should have clarified that the "for FOSS apps" qualifier implies:

• Apps that are only available on public repos/F-droid and not on Play Store
  • ex: NewPipe
• For users who want to avoid as much Google code as possible
  • ex: Google Firebase Messaging that is included in Bitwarden's Play store version but not in the F-Droid version
• Apps that offer better experience on the F-droid version
  • ex: Apps that require in-app purchase on the Play Store version, but offer the full functionality on the F-droid version, such as Tasks.org

For "regular" apps that aren't included in the above, I agree that the Play Store is definitely the most secure app installation method.

Using F-Droid is pretty much discouraged across the board because there are many issues with how they do things, covered here: https://privsec.dev/posts/android/f-droid-security-issues/

I agree, which is why I put Obtanium (direct download from source repo) above F-Droid and F-Droid basic. F-droid Basic is slightly more secure than F-Droid due to reduced attack surface, but I still prefer to get apps directly from their source repo. However, I still use F-Droid Basic for apps that don't have .apk releases or recent updates on the repo, such as Shelter.

In the case of Shelter, I use the custom F-droid repository, which is both signed by the author and has faster updates, which alleviates most of the security concerns with F-droid.

With that said, I choose Obtanium over everything else for FOSS apps whenever possible for the reasons I gave above.

Whoops. Looks like I was reading too fast and missed an important point.

Dumdum thanks for pointing that out!

Vagabond8630 sorry for that! I do see your point that the FOSS versions of certain apps aren't available on Google Play. Also, other apps aren't listed there for various reasons.