Asking for a family member who still uses lots of Google apps, has no immediate plans to stop using them, and if they were to switch, would want a simple one profile setup unlike the multiple profile setup I'm using.
Would the remaining privacy and security benefits of switching to GOS be worth it for them?
They plan to keep using:
Play Store
Gmail
Google Contacts
Google Calendar
Google Drive
Google Docs/Sheets
Google Photos
Pixel Camera
Google Maps
Find My Device
Google Earth
Google Messages
Google Dialer
Google Voice
Google News
Google's text to speech synthesizer
On stock, they've already switched to Brave and disabled Chrome. I got them to switch to Heliboard since potential key logging spooked them. And they switched from YouTube to using Newpipe and Brave. They do have Signal installed, but they mostly use RCS/SMS and sometimes WhatsApp.
I understand that play services are sandboxed, but given that they'd likely need to allow almost every permission just to get all of their Google apps working, would that not break the sandbox?
Given that they will lose some features like Google wallet/Pay and RCS potentially, are the remaining GOS benefits worth it for someone like this or should I stop bothering them about it? They don't really use google wallet, but they do use RCS daily, especially in the future since most people they know use iphones.
They don't have a high threat model. They more or less trust Google when it comes to day to day security. Right now, its more of the "creep factor" than anything else. They're comfortable using specific google apps. But they're unsure what else google is getting without their knowledge simply by using an Android phone. With the advent of all this new AI stuff, they're more concerned about device spying and telemetry than they were before. I'm just not sure how much Grapheneos will help in that regard if they "break" the sandbox with so many allowed permissions nor am I familiar with the full scope of what stock pixel is doing in the background compared to GrapheneOS when the same apps are installed.
I understand people will have different thoughts. I'm asking this to gain additional perspectives more so than asking for other people to make a decision on their behalf. I really look forward to reading responses!