How much do different profiles protect me?

TickleMan

Leaving iOS after the changes they’re making. I don’t want things on my phone to be open to an AI.

Graphene OS has been on my radar for a while and it seems like it’s ready. I’ve installed it on a Pixel 8a and wanting to transition to using it as my main phone.

I understand that google apps are sandboxed, but how I have it set up is anything that doesn’t need GApps integration is installed on the main profile, while things like my banking profile, and other apps (such as android auto) are installed on another profile that I only access when I need those things.

My question is, how much more privacy from google does this give me over just using everything on a single profile? I’m not really pro google tracking me everywhere and them getting all of my data, that’s why I set profile 2 up, so they only get that info when I use that profile. However, if there’s almost no difference due to how GApps sandboxing is set up, I would rather just have one profile.

Any insight into this would be greatly appreciated.

matchboxbananasynergy

Apps in the same profile can see each other, and can communicate with each other with mutual consent (both apps would have to agree to communicate or share data). Apps in separate profiles cannot do either of these things.

Another benefit of profiles on GrapheneOS is the exposed "end session" option which can put a profile back at rest, so that nothing is running when you don't want it to. You can also make it so a profile doesn't run in the background, so that it's put at rest whenever you switch away from it.

I think for most people, especially newcomers, and even more especially from iOS, I would encourage you to keep things simple, and if you're finding that using more profiles or doing anything involved is likely to result in you giving up, you shouldn't do it. Simply using GrapheneOS without changing any settings, with one profile and sandbxoed Google Play installed puts you miles ahead already.

TickleMan

matchboxbananasynergy

Thanks, seems like you’re confirming my suspicions on how sandboxed GApps works. I was hopeful that it may mean each app is in its own sandboxed environment, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.

Will stick to multiple profiles as I’m assuming this data is also transmitted to Google on the regular as well if it’s running in the background.

de0u

TickleMan Seems like you’re confirming my suspicions on how sandboxed GApps works. I was hopeful that it may mean each app is in its own sandboxed environment, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.

Apologies for quoting myself, but:

Also:

https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/13490-can-sandboxed-google-play-services-access-data-of-other-gapps

matchboxbananasynergy

Google Play on GrapheneOS is not in some special sandbox. It uses the same sandbox that all other apps you'd install use. Every app on Android is sandboxed. The things I mentioned above don't just apply to Google Play, but rather all apps.