Notifications are driving me closer and closer to a single profile setup

silentmajority

I'm new and I've read the community guide on there being no one best user profile setup, but I figured I'd start out trying to use the owner as just an app pusher (installations via Tor and a dummy Google account for anything I can only get on the Play store). Then day-to-day just live in a single user profile with a private space for anything needing google play services. At first I was happy with this approach. Then I moved Proton mail over for notifications and lost the ability to have the app pinned on my home screen. Then I had to do the same with Calendar. And my brokerage app. And my news app. Because I chose a private space, none of these have home screen icons. The only thing I've kept in my main profile that I actually rely on notifications for is Molly.

It seems like the only benefit I'm getting from the split is that google play services doesn't know all the apps I have installed on my other profile. Am I understanding that correctly?

I'm incrementally taking privacy-enhancing steps for my spouse and I; acting as the guinea pig but knowing that anything I set up needs to be low friction enough to work for my spouse. I'm leaning more and more each day toward claiming victory-ish just by sandboxing google play/services.

Outside of this one issue, I've been amazed at how low-friction Graphene actually has been. Everything has just worked. Huge kudos to the team.

dhhdjbd

silentmajority

I think i have pretty much the same setup as you,

i think the advantage is, for me, that
a) you like can turn the private spacd off completly and still use your phone
b) have two different ips and "identities"
- youtube in private space because vpn issues
- normal space with vpn to surf

or maps i have in private space aswell..
all these propetary apps might use the ip to try to ad track me, and i hope this helps essentially

BeepBeep

silentmajority

The only problem I've had with doing this is SMS/MMS failures in secondary profiles. These problems seemed to disappear for a while, but nowadays it's worse than ever.

DohnJoe

silentmajority

As already suggested, I would go with Main Profile + Private Space.
This is the most fitting for almost everyone, plus it's very user friendly.

Personally I use the Main Profile for FOSS apps only without PlayStore and the Private Space with sandboxed Play Store with those apps that requires Google Services, but this is merely a personal preference.

n3t_admin It might be smarter to use something like Insular for a work profile

While this can work for some users, keep in mind that you will have some downsides, like apps never going "to sleep" and as far as I know you would also miss the new (as in second/another) disk encryption that you would get with the Private Space.

Winston

silentmajority the main profile as an app pusher and multiple profiles for say "banking", "traveling", "foss", "work", etc. etc. is exhausting. Its pushed by the same crowd that push hardware keys and local pw managers etc etc.. I dont want to hate on them too much, i catch ~~some~~ flack for my own ideas, and those people have helped a lot including me. But yeah, try one owner profile with private space (notifications are a pro). Or, try owner foss-y and second profile google-y (pro is a home screen and full-phone-style for google). The owner is what you want to be more of a daily driver, so who knows you may want/need to make the owner googly and the secondary profile is the foss. Point is, you are learning more and are now able to make some personal decisions that fit you and the wife best.

mmobder

it can't be this way, the popular guide can't be that wrong)

seriously, drop that multiprofilemania and go owner+PS

silentmajority

mmobder it's the private space that's causing me more frustration because I can't pin those apps to my home screen. It's a small thing and better than a full profile switch, but it's pretty annoying nonetheless and I'm not sure what I'm getting in return other than my installed apps list being segmented. If I don't care about that, is there another reason to keep play services in a private space?

Johnnyloans

PS icons on the home screen would be great!

n3t_admin

Johnnyloans that's for sure, but I can imagine that this can become really buggy and glitchy and would need quite a bit of work to maintain properly, since it's touching AOSP code that needs to be up to date with upstream changes. So I'm not certain if this is even feasible.

I just think the private space isn't really a great place for always active or high demand apps. It might be smarter to use something like Insular for a work profile - that does have home screen icons and can also be paused and has a lot of similarities with private space.

ShoulderSurfin

I use a single profile. I deny permissions from apps that I do not use often and turn them on like networking etc as needed. I really do not have any apps that are concerning so a single profile is fine. But YMMV depending on what you do with your phone.

I do have Private Space (which is locked) installed for Google Play etc where I have Google Messages. I do not use it as it doesn't link well with my PC.

n3t_admin

ShoulderSurfin I deny permissions from apps that I do not use often and turn them on like networking etc as needed. I really do not have any apps that are concerning so a single profile is fine.

depending on your threat model (yours might be relatively lax), this might not be sufficient. Apps will still run in the background and complete their processes and afaik also buffer any data they might want to send later, once network is available. The best solution for rarely used apps, would be to disable them and reenable them once needed. But this might also turn out as a pretty tedious process. Considering you go to the same menu anyway (to change permissions), it might actually save you a bit of hassle though!

ShoulderSurfin

n3t_admin .. the reason I do not 'disable' the apps is cause then they disappear from the owner screen and from the app list. Thus it is hard to re-enable them. Maybe I am doing something wrong .. as you mentioned, disabling them would probably be easier. Thanks for the suggestion.

n3t_admin

ShoulderSurfin yeah, that's pretty annoying indeed. I thought you went into Settings manually anyway. I haven't really had much trouble running the setup like this, you really get used to it. Although it would be nice having a shortcut straight to the disabled apps list.

duckyfuzz

ShoulderSurfin
n3t_admin

Try this: long press the unlocked display > "Widgets" > "Browse" > find "Settings" > add shortcut > select "App info" as the shortcut from the list.
Now you should be able to use the shortcut to open all apps, select only the disabled apps via the drop down list, and immediately go to their individual settings.
Hope this makes your lives easier!

ShoulderSurfin

n3t_admin

Hi .. just wanted to let you know (you may already know but I just found this out). There is under Settings / Apps / See All Apps a Drop Down for Disabled Apps. That will help me greatly .. as I can now disable the apps I seldom use. The icons are removed from the owner screen but at least now I can access them in the future if needed. Thanks for your help.

n3t_admin

DohnJoe encryption - yes. Apps not going to sleep - no. You can disable the whole profile (or put some apps to sleep individually on Insular at least, forgot how it works). The question seemed more geared towards separation of different app groups, rather than the additional security against physical breaches.

AcclaimSublevel19

@silentmajority I may be a little late, but I wanted to mention that I solved the problem of no private space apps on the homescreen by switching my launcher. I forked Lawnchair (which is pretty close to stock AOSP launcher), made a one line change to enable moving private space apps around and rebuilt the APK. Now I can easily move private space apps to my homescreen and pin them.

I'm completely new to Android development, but I managed to do this in an hour and I think you could do so too if it isn't too much of a hassle for you.

Another workaround I found with the default launcher is pinning the apps you want from within desktop mode. This will limit you to 4 apps though and in specific positions. Still better than nothing. I've pinned my messaging app this way and it was enough for me. I use the other private space apps much less frequently.

TwinkleNose

I could be wrong but "owner" could be thought as "admin," and I've done testing to confirm that some apps & operations can't be setup correctly until they're fully configured in owner and then subsequently configured in another profile. I only use admin to load system updates & configure apps in as described, and I have multiple other profiles which don't annoy me at all... IMHO, this all boils down to a comfort/tolerance threshold in this new era of govt surveillance & aggression, and so if you're ok with PEGASUS unknowingly infecting your phone occasionally, using owner certainly offers convenience over the other setups