Odysseus - Make your GrapheneOS a dumbphone

flourishdev

Hello, I made Odysseus.

Odysseus is an open source, tiny device owner app that helps you get the benefits of a smartphone without the distraction. Once set up, you will have a user profile that does not have a browser and cannot install apps.

Why I made it
I noticed a lot of people want to use a "dumbphone" (no browser or app installs) but don't want to sacrifice the privacy that GrapheneOS gives them. Traditional "dumbphones" are terrible for privacy, security, and usability. I use it myself and it has greatly improved my relationship with my phone.

What it does
Odysseus has 1 exported component, no permissions, no network access, and under 200 lines of Kotlin. Builds are reproducible. It creates a second "daily" user without the optional system apps, then blocks the Private Space and debugging in that user. The full list of what it does is in SECURITY.md.

AI
I designed and tested Odysseus. AI wrote all of the code. The security reviews so far were also done by AI. If you see any issues, please let me know.

ADB
Setup uses ADB once, to run the one command that makes Odysseus the device owner. After that, you should turn developer options off. Right now this is the only way to set a device owner on GrapheneOS.

I hope that in the future you will be able to use Odysseus without enabling developer options and debugging through QR Code provisioning during setup.

Links and info
This is a non-standard way to use GrapheneOS. The daily user doesn't get Vanadium, and GrapheneOS doesn't recommend removing default apps or using device owners to restrict functionality (you can see specific statements by them in SECURITY.md). The risks are covered in SECURITY.md.
See a lot more information about setup and limitations in the README.

If you have any documentation improvement ideas or any ideas at all, please let me know.

https://github.com/flourish-today/Odysseus

0xC0DED0D0

Looks pretty neat! Maybe not for me personally, but I like the idea. 👍

There's clearly a parental control angle here also. Much better "my first (dumb) smartphone" solution than the ubiquitous iPhone, for sure.

Once the codebase is mature enough (is it already?) I wouldn't mind seeing this being integrated within GrapheneOS, as a setup toggle, not requiring ADB.

Security and privacy (in that order) remains GrapheneOS' focus, but on that second point – "dumbing down" a smartphone is certainly within the scope of increasing privacy. Escaping the addicting algorithms and control, as you've rightly pointed out.

flourishdev

0xC0DED0D0 Thank you!

0xC0DED0D0 Once the codebase is mature enough (is it already?)

There's no bugs (tm) that I've encountered but I will update it if there's any found. I don't have any more features planned besides compatibility with QR code provisioning (I would have to look into it). I'm running it on my main phone so I'll definitely fix anything I find. It relies on the device management APIs already in Android, Odysseus (and other device policy controllers / MDM apps) just let you use them.

0xC0DED0D0 I wouldn't mind seeing this being integrated within GrapheneOS, as a setup toggle, not requiring ADB.

Once this issue is solved and this PR (or similar) are merged, then ADB-less setup should be possible. How it would work is that you'd scan a QR code during the initial setup (after install or factory reset) and Odysseus would be downloaded and made the device owner.

One thing I plan to do is open issues for apps that allow full browser access through the WebView because it's recommended against by Android and it allows people using Odysseus or similar to bypass the restrictions they intend.

So far the apps I've found that do this are:

Street complete, CakeWallet/Monero.com, all Ente apps.

So I had to remove them from my user profile until it gets fixed (if ever).

flourishdev

0xC0DED0D0 There's clearly a parental control angle here also

Yeah I imagine it would work well as managed by a parent (or friend/family member) because you wouldn't have to worry about the owner profile password management–they could just unlock it for you after a restart.

It seems to me that MDM type solutions are the only effective parental control there is, at least on GrapheneOS and iOS. iOS 27 may have made the built in screentime good enough, but Apple Configurator (Apple's MDM) worked great up until then and may still be better.

flourishdev

I don't want to bring this totally off topic, but I'm curious if people would recommend that I submit Odysseus to F-Droid. I would like to have it in IzzyOnDroid, but they don't allow AI generated code.

paul7285

This is great for a stand alone GOS offline navigation phone that remains in the car.

flourishdev

There was a bit of a mishap (my fault), but now this thread is back.

I improved the setup instructions, and separated out reproducible builds from APK verification, among many other documentation changes.

It would be wonderful if someone was interested in trying to reproduce Odysseus as a third party. I just did a fresh build in a different environment and it matched but a third party is valuable.

I moved the documentation from SECURITY.md to PRIVACY.md, so wherever my first post here says SECURITY.md, see PRIVACY.md (I can’t edit it anymore).