Aftermost8040 will it make a huge difference if I merged the sandbox with my primary profile, and used e.g. Shelter on the 'bad' apps? I find it highly inconvenient that I am constantly switching between my primary user and the sandbox to check up on notifications.
I believe I read a dev say that work profiles are less isolated from your main profile than user profiles. I don't know the details, or even if I'm remembering correctly. Just want to mention that.
tbh, there's not much that apps can do in the background anyway, so it's not really that big of a deal. For apps like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc., I'd suggest using their PWA instead of their apps. (If you don't know what a PWA is, just go to their site in Vanadium, tap 3 dots in the upper right-hand corner, then tap install app.) PWAs support notifications and everything, but PWAs have less access to stuff on the phone.
Since these apps don't have a lot of access to your phone by default, they will try to get you to launch the app all the time or give them permission to things. I put my cancer social media apps in a profile and quickly found that I never open that profile anymore. I'm now, mostly, cancer free! Maybe keeping them in a separate profile is good if you want to learn new habits.
Aftermost8040 will notifications work as normally if I only install Google Play Services, but not the Google Play Store?
Google Play Services doesn't work correctly without Google Play Store.