New Pixel 7 Owner: What is the best way to work with profiles?

[deleted]

Hello,
I recently became owner of a Pixel 7 and installed Graphenos straight away.
I still have a OnePlus 7T Pro, which I am still using until I switched to the Pixel and transferred everything.

I haven't created any profiles yet, but I want to work with them. My apps are mostly FOSS (Signal, NewPipe, Fairemail, Twidere, Infinity for Reddit, Nekogram for Telegram, Mull as Firefox Fork, Organic Maps etc.). In addition, I also have a few apps that require GSF or Google Framework, e.g. Google Camera, Google Maps, Whatsapp (for family/work colleagues, but I rarely use it), Nova Launcher, a few paid apps, etc.
With the past few months, I have less apps in use that require GSF. Signal FOSS or Fairemail, as far as I know, should also be able to send push notifications without GSF, which would be important to me. Regarding the launcher, I am still looking for a FOSS alternative for Nova Launcher.

My idea would be:
User profile 1: All FOSS apps, profile for 90% of daily needs, no Playstore/GSF.
User profile 2: All apps that need GSF, Playstore installed.

Does this make sense from your point of view or would you do it differently? Do you work with Shelter or do you simply create 2 profiles?

I am happy about support :) thx

unwat

[deleted]

The way you set up your profiles is up to you and your personal threat model. Some people don't care and put everything in one profile. Others care a lot and use tons of profiles to separate everything.

Many people who've shared their profile setup here on the discussion forum and on Matrix have said they've set up their profiles the same way. If this is the setup you'd like to work with, I'd say go for it.

mythodical

[deleted] As unwat said, it really is up to you and how you'd like to organize your apps.

Like you, most of my apps are FOSS. I do use Gcam which relies on GSF but it works fine with zero permissions, including no network access, so I consider GSF to be a very low threat to privacy and run in it on my main (owner) profile along with everything else.

Should the day come when I need to use the Play Store or Play Services, I will drop them into a secondary profile and keep any dependent apps within that silo.

mythodical

[deleted] Regarding Nova Launcher, Lawnchair v2 (Play store) and the v12-alpha (Github) versions may fit your needs.

I run a pretty minimalist setup for my launcher, but I rely heavily on icon swipe-actions in order to execute more than one app per icon. For that, I'm stuck with Lawnchair v2, as the feature has yet to be implemented in the re-written v12.