Managing profiles and GSF/Play Services.

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Hi, just installed GOS, it is amazing, thank you so much !
I wonder how bad is installing GSF or Google Play Services (same ?) bad for privacy ?

My case : I installed all my apps from the owner profile from Google Play Store (because it is apparently more secure than Aurora) and distributed the apps I wanted on my profile from the owner profile with "install avalaible apps" option.
I have 1 owner profile (only used to download apps), 2 a general profile (general usage) without GSF, 3 a banking profile with Play Services (not logged in in Google), 4 and one profile with Play Services (not logged in Play Services) to try the Pixel features (google photos, recorder, etc.). Should I merge profiles 1 + 2 ?

I do not understand well graphene's website : "The simplest approach is to only use the Owner user profile. Apps installed in the Owner profile are sandboxed the same way as everywhere else and don't receive any special access. If you want to choose which apps use Google Play rather than making it available to all of them, install it in a separate user or work profile for apps depending on Google Play. You could also do it the other way around, but it makes more sense to try to use as much as possible without Google Play rather than treating not using it as the exceptional case."

Thanks in advance !!😊

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[deleted] In short, what the last paragraph is saying ideally you should get by without using Google Play Services using apps that do not rely on them. If you do succumb to the command of convenience, you should install GPS in different profile with associated apps (but I would first look for alternatives without dependencies).

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Ok thank you a lot ! So preferably no GPS. But if it is recommended to use Play Store... how would you manage the profiles and the installation of apps ?

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[deleted] I don't use them, for aforementioned reason, only one profile. But there are more learned people on this forum who can advise you, if you are a little patient. In any case I am very happy with GOS so far

unwat

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I don't really understand what they mean on the website either tbh. I always took that to mean don't worry so much about Google apps (GMS) installed in the owner profile or your regular use profile. Like some people seem to think that GMS apps all have special access to the hardware/OS because Google wrote them and the OS, but that's not the case. GMS apps have no special privs on GrapheneOS, so don't treat them as special cases that need to be isolated more than other apps.

My best advice is to keep profiles to a minimum. I've set up my phone and deleted everything multiple times then set up new profiles. I have just ended up using one profile for about everything I usually use and use other profiles for special uses (like work, testing/playing, social media that I hate and rarely use, dumb cheap games, etc).

Maybe consider a tidy owner, which would be nothing installed in the owner profile and just use secondary profiles for everything. That way if you ever feel like switching things up you can just blow the secondary profiles away and just start again easily.

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Just to add, while you can create a throwaway Google account to install apps that need Play Services, it is very hard to fake identity when using banking apps, which most of us do. That is where linkability comes into play and that is why I am very reluctant to use Play Services in general.

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unwat amazing answer ! thank you a lot !!
I ended having one profile with Google Play installed and connected with everything on it.

I've set up my phone and deleted everything multiple times

Me too !😂🤣😂

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[deleted] I've set up my phone and deleted everything multiple times

and in the process of doing that I haven't realized I have given away information I meant to keep private in the first place. Bummer...