I'm addicted to root for rights management. Are there alternatives?

Gold95

Hi there. I want to switch from LineageOS with root to GrapheneOS without root for security purposes, but I'm not sure if I need to drop some privacy measures I have become used to.

For example, I use Easer to grant location permissions to my navigation app once a bluetooth connection is established with my car. And when bluetooth is disconnected, some pm revoke and am force-stop commands make sure the app doesn't keep following me. In the same way, my smart watch app only receives permissions to track my hikes in certain areas and then permissions are revoked again. These actions require root.

Are there alternatives for this nuanced control with or in GrapheneOS that can function without root rights?

GrapheneOS

Gold95 You don't need to grant persistent Location access. You can grant one-time access. You're making things more complex than they need to be.

matchboxbananasynergy

You can grant apps one-time location permissions. There are of course also global toggles for location, Bluetooth and other things like the camera and microphone.

In my opinion, what you see as "privacy measures" that you're achieving with root doesn't really amount to much when you've sacrificed your device's security, which in turn makes any perceived privacy benefits null.

I'd recommend checking out https://grapheneos.org/features to see what GrapheneOS provides over standard AOSP if you haven't already, and see if that fits what you want.

P.S. If you do decide to root your device while running GrapheneOS, we can't help troubleshoot anything or provide support. It's an explicitly unsupported setup, and in most ways, you wouldn't even be running GrapheneOS anymore.

Gold95

matchboxbananasynergy thank you for the response. Ease of use is usually a trade-off versus security. I have trouble using my fingers, which is why I became addicted to automation in the first place. I would love to do what I do now without using root. I can imagine it should be possible, because I can manually grant and revoke permissions without re-auth.

I don't plan on running GrapheneOS with root. I am however sincerely interested to find out what the possibilities are for automation.

Panda-na

Gold95
You could probably do all of this with "NFC Tools" and "NFC Tasks" by wakdev. These apps are great for automating stuff like this. You don't even need to use NFC to activate features, you can have it as a shortcut on home screen. Maybe some of the features recuires you to purchase the Pro-edition, but it's cheap.