How many User Profiles Should I Have

d9780

How many User Profiles do people have and for what purposes do some people have. I understand this is a subjective question but I'd be interested to see how some people do it.

Do people primarily do their web browsing in their personal profile or do they keep a separate user profile for web browsing

MetropleX

d9780 I have my owner and a play services profile. I may create adhoc profiles for certain purposes but that's really all there is for the majority of the time.

d9780

MetropleX Great. That keeps it simple. I guess I'll just create a fake Gmail account and use Google Play gift cards to purchase any apps like MySudo that require payment. Sound ok?
It sounds like linking a prepaid debit these days to GPS is not a walk in the park.....

Kenny33

d9780

Slightly unrelated, but how have you liked mysudo? I’m considering using it for all of my voice communication for work and ppl who don’t use things like signal. Also keeps the sim number away from the public, would ,I’ve to hear your experience!

d9780

Kenny33
Hey Kenny
I linked MySudo with Google Play Services. You can link it by QR code from a non graphene phone but if you lose access to that phone or should I say if I lose access to that phone then I won't be able to access my banking apps because the SMS codes are sent to Mysudo (after the subscription expires that is I would lose access to it)
Good we want to basically I have a a real identity in my pseudo with an email and a phone number so that I can communicate with all of my banking apps or those requiring SMS messaging codes. I have a fake identity I'll use to make phone calls and send text messages from, I wouldn't send out any text messages from the one with my real identity attached.
There's no harm in using one of the identities has a real identity in my pseudo as long as you don't link your credit or debit card to the account because that's the only way the information can be subpoenaed and identified by my pseudo the account is encrypted on their end and records only accessible if you have your banking information which makes them required by law to do it.....

I think there can be a lot of other uses for it such as having an online profile although I'm not real big into social media for privacy reasons but it's a work in progress for right now it's just really those two identities and I create a third for online shopping as I think it makes sense but then I'd have to link my banking information to the account which I don't want to do

deign

With all humbleness: if you're asking this question-- two max.

One to fall back on when you delete the second one for the 8000th time. :)

Kenny33

Thank you! Just to clarify, do you use one mysudo as your primary for friends/family etc… and one for more sensitive things like banking?

And also, I’m assuming you don’t use your SIM card number for anything?

d9780

Kenny33 Str8 LTE wifi. I don't take the sim out but I don't use it, no.
Basically one for family and friends, one for banking/apps that need SMS access for verification and a throw away.

The throw away is key, it's needed for filling out things online like a car insurance quote, pizza delivery..... The throw away will get overwhelmed with junk eventually, then you can change the number.

Fulgrim

I use a more fine grained set of profiles:

Main profile: FOSS Apps from F-Droid only, Calendar and Contacts are syncted against my Nextcloud
"Pixel" profile: Fully googelized profile to use Google dependant apps, where I not yet have an alternative yet.
Messaging: Signal, Whatsapp and Telegram live here. This is seperated by two reasons: 1. I can limit the number of contacts that are visible to these apps. 2. When I don't want to use the messages, I just log out from the profile.
Access: Profile with OTP apps and Apps that opens doors. No access to phone, messages, or contacts
Banking: Apps for Credit Cards, Banking, Paypal. Also no access to any other functions
Shopping: Amazon an other online stuff
Streaming
Gaming: So that no evil game I install can get any data.

I'm using Graphene for a little bit more than a week now and I'm realy satisfied with this setup.

dcd-graphenediscuss

Two profiles: a "naked" Owner profile and my personal profile.

Naked Profile
The "naked" profile offers some additional security and benefits:

1. "Emergency Mode" I have minimum services running to use the device as an operational phone with texting when I'm not using my personal profile.
2. Security. It gives me an additional layer of security because I enter a Password to access the phone (Owner profile), and when I switch to my user profile, I have another Password to open the profile. I also setup Fingerprint access to the user profile that is not present on the Owner profile.
3. Warrant Required. If stopped by the police and my personal profile is open and its biometric enabled, I hold the power button then select "End Session," and the phone reverts to the "naked" owner profile, which has nothing of interest. If the police demand to see the contents of my phone, however unlikely, they'd have to get a warrant for my password since the knowledge is in my head whereas a fingerprint can be used without a warrant. I supposed I could also restart the phone, but leaving it on and ending my user profile session is good enough.
4. Battery Life. The battery life should be outstanding as there's next to nothing running on the phone. I'm currently doing an experiment to see how long the phone will last.

In the Owner profile ("naked profile"), I only have the base apps that come with GrapheneOS, and I disabled many of them:

Disabled Apps in the "naked" profile: Apps, Auditor, Calculator, Camera, Contacts, Gallery, PDF Viewer, Vanadium
Running Apps in the "naked" profile: Clock, Files, Messaging, Phone, and Settings

PROFILE ISSUE: SMS
The ONLY issue I've run into with a user profile is how AOSP treats SMS messaging between the profiles. Basically, ALL SMS is transferred through the owner profile to the current user profile (when enabled). Here's some bad news:

SMS only transfers from the Owner profile to the User profile through the Messaging app, which must be enabled and default for both profiles in order for the user profile to receive SMS.
SMS messages are treated as a normal notification, not an SMS notification. I know this because, in the user profile, I set a special notification in the Messaging app, but the Default Notification sound, Pixie Dust, sounds instead for every SMS I receive.

USER PROFILE
What's in my user profile? Why everything else! I initialized Google Play Store services, but did not log in, so apps could use Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM) for push messages because myParish and the Toyota app require these in order to run.

Graphite

dcd-graphenediscuss

Wouldn't your personal profile disable biometrics when you hold Power and click "Lockdown"? And thus only be accessible with a warrant?
There shouldn't be a need to have the "Owner" be naked.