Hi folks!

After many years of deliberating, I finally installed GrapheneOS. Glad to be here! I have a question regarding notifications, and I was hoping one of you could give this junior SE some sage advice.

I'll be honest, mobile is not my area of expertise beyond CI/CD setup. I purchased a new pixel 7 to degoogle my daily driver as much as I practically can. Going into this I was already aware of the issues with apps that lean on fire base, and I've been trying to come up with something that works for me. The thing is, I need someone to tell me whether what I'm planning is impossible or not. I understand that anything else depends on my threat model.

So I have an existing google account. For me, it seems it would be simple to host an android vm and sign into it with my preexisting Google account. I could sign into the apps I need notifications for, and write a small app and grant it access to notifications. From there I'd just forward them to my phone. I'm okay with Google knowing I'm connecting through a vm. That's not a problem. My main goal: I just don't want google services running in the background on my phone.

Given my main objective, does this seem reasonable? Or is this what the google play sandbox is doing big picture wise, and I'm wasting my time?

Also: I've been absent from the online dev community for awhile. Is this a question better asked on matrix? If so I'll make an account later. Thanks!

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    • Post #2

    RocketBoots That's too overkill but its your choice

      If you really want to, then go ahead.
      But sandboxed Play services just keep Play services running on your phone as normal, BUT they are a user (not system) app and have most (depending on your needs it may even be all) permissions revoked.
      If you want to isolate the Google stuff from degoogled stuff, then you may consider using separate user profiles. It's the same as on a PC, you basically have a separate system for all your apps. You cannot communicate between these profiles.
      GrapheneOS added a very useful feature to that, which is notification forwarding. Self explainatory - it forwards notifications from other user profiles to the Owner / Administrator user.

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        • Post #4

        GGORG You cannot communicate between these profiles.

        You actually can via localhost (needs Network permission)

          RocketBoots what type of notifications ? Some work without Google , could also use profiles to separate Google from non Google profiles.

              Alright, good to know. I'll give the profile isolation a shot first, and then go with my original idea just for the hell of it later. Might use it as a bit of a learning exercise.

              Skyway The notifications were for protonmail (this appears to be something they're working on) and discord. Kinda stuck with the last one I think. I use it for friends and family.

              Thanks for the replies! I really appreciate it.