Advice before Pixel purchase

mandrake

Hi, all!

I have recently discovered the existence of well-advanced, privacy-oriented Android distributions. GrapheneOS seems to be the best of the lot.

I have researched it and have only one issue, which is important to me. Maybe people here can help with some clarifications.

As far as I understand, there is no way even temporarily to enable the Playstore. I know that there is Aurora, but that doesn't allow for financial transactions with developers. I have several paid apps (some directly bought from the store and some from in-app purchases). Many of these are important to my daily use and are only available from the Playstore.

I would prefer to have my existing account available to install these apps. I would even be willing to purchase them again from a new account, as long as the apps work. Is this possible? Can I receive updates after the purchases but without having Play services?

If I can figure this out to my advantage, I'll be getting the Pixel 7 Pro. Otherwise, I have to consider other options.

Any other advice and knowledge are also welcome. If I can clarify anything, please let me know.

matchboxbananasynergy

mandrake Hi there, welcome to the community and thank you for your interest in GrapheneOS!

You're likely referring to outdated information, or are being misled by someone.

GrapheneOS does in fact allow you to use the Play Store. You can do that via GrapheneOS's Sandboxed Google Play compatibility layer which allows you to run Google Services Framework, Google Play Services and Google Play Services within the full app sandbox, instead of those apps getting special treatment/privileges on your device like they would on Stock OS.

I would highly recommend going through the project's FAQ, Features and Usage pages in general, but for this specific feature, I would recommend giving these sections a read:

https://grapheneos.org/features#sandboxed-google-play
https://grapheneos.org/usage#sandboxed-google-play-installation

You don't need a new Google account, you don't need to re-purchase any other apps, and you don't have to jump through any hoops to purchase new apps. Pretty much everything works as expected after you properly install Sandboxed Google Play.

mandrake

Amazing! That is great news indeed and pretty much decided what I'll go for.

Thank You for the links. I read through them and the info seems clear to me. I will obviously need some time to really "get" it through direct experience. The potential problems with banking apps can be an issue, although that is a compromise I can live with given all the advantages of GrapheneOS. Is there even an unofficial list of (in)compatible) banking apps?

matchboxbananasynergy

mandrake Is there even an unofficial list of (in)compatible) banking apps?

There actually is an unofficial and community-maintained list of banking apps compatible with GrapheneOS. Keep in mind that this is not an exhaustive list of apps, and that something may have changed since the initial report. This should be used as a general unofficial guide, and not as gospel. :)

https://privsec.dev/posts/android/banking-applications-compatibility-with-grapheneos/

mandrake

Thanks, much appreciated! :)