I have spent the last few days setting up a new pixel 9a with GOS. Needless to say it is a rather steep learning curve to learn the detailed setup of GOS. I took a deep dive into the GOS guides, YT videos and forum information trying to learn as much as possible about the OS.
I have a low threat model and am mostly interested in keeping apps and Google from doing as they wish with my data and analytics. Just doesn't seem right to me. I pay for the phone and the service and they make money off me. This entire security and privacy journey has been rather complicated for person new to the phone vulnerability problem and I find few complete discussions on the topic.
After reading much of what is available, I deiced to set up the phone with the idea of loading the app stores, including Google store and Aurora in the Owner profile. Plan is to use the Owner profile as an app command center only and running google play services in that profile. My understanding is that google play services is necessary to run the google play store.
I then set up a daily profile for the majority of my apps that run without GPS.
I had seen recommendations to then create a third profile with GPS to run things like google apps that require GPS and was planning to do just that. However, it occurs to me that the Owner profile already has the play store and GPS installed for app updates.
My question is this. Instead of creating a third user for Google dependent apps, why not just install those apps in the owner profile and keep the profile app quantity to a minimum? Does this make sense? It seems to me that a third profile for google apps with GPS is redundant in this type of setup.
It is a little inconvenient to use various user profiles, but the privacy tradeoff seems to be worth the effort thus far. My goal is to keep any apps dependent on GPS, like google navigation, Android Auto and some that I need which require GPS for accurate notifications in just one compartmentalized user (Owner profile) that can send the daily user timely notifications from apps that require GPS.
So far, I really like this OS, but have found the systems complexity a little daunting. I do understand that the complexity is due the granular control options available in GOS. I had contemplated purchasing a Brax3 phone, but found the GOS a more compelling options as presented on the main GOS site.