What can I do to help GrapheneOS get more public exposure?

Volatile161

I recently made a post asking how to best help & support the GrapheneOS project as someone without money or coding skills. The best suggestion seemed to be to simply advocate for it and hopefully get other people to support it monetarily or by contributing. This also has the positive effect of helping more people increase their security and privacy. I'm already trying to achieve this by making contributions to different forums, helping new users, or recommending GrapheneOS when appropriate.

However, I'd like to hear your input on what you think the "average person" can do that would be most impactful in spreading awareness, helping GrapheneOS and advancing its goals. Thank you:)

N1b

Volatile161 thanks for wanting to make a difference in other people's life. I think it's important that you take it slow and easy on the people. Don't make extreme claims or push anyone to change their lifestyle against "evil big tech" or any such comments.

Play the nice and humble card. Be honest that you discovered GrapheneOS not long ago and are on your own security and privacy journey. Link to videos from The Hated One, Side of Burritos or podcast episodes from Michael Bazzell, let them be the experts to explain details and have people get informed through their entertaining and well produced content. You don't want to be the evangelist that everyone turns away from, but the nice and approachable beginner that people can be eye to eye with and relate to.

Make your posts personal, let them know about your mistakes and what GOS has provided you with and what you are specifically most grateful for. Also make sure to let everyone know what GOS is not. It's not a magic pill for full security, privacy and anonymity, you need to learn good habits alongside. It's dangerous if you don't have a threat model because you easily go crazy and paranoid. It's not protecting you from all the reduction in convenience and living the privacy lifestyle is a marathon and no sprint, so let everyone take it slowly.

At least that's what I do and would recommend you doing. Let people make their own decision, don't judge them if they want to stick to their iPhones and Samsungs (it's already a big win if they for example start using Signal over WhatsApp or Brave over Chrome). Provide them with easy information so they are empowered to make an educated decision for themselves, and then respect that decision. I'm not speaking for GOS, but I'd assume the devs don't need a mass of uneducated people looking for the quick and easy solution to all their problems. The devs could use some curious, knowledge-hungry people willing and able to support them with their money, time and talents though...

That's my 2 cents, thanks again and have fun continuing your journey. You're on a good track and I'm impressed with your communication (especially on that Linux Distribution thread of yours), so if anyone can make a big difference, it's people like you.

applesbana

Volatile161

I think more video content like side of burritos does on YouTube is very helpful.

Most ‘regular’ people are not going to read all the grapheneos user guide and faqs. But they will watch bite sized chunks of info online and the more people showing how easy it is to use graphene the better.

Blastoidea

I gave up.

Too many “I don’t ever say anything wrong.” or “I don’t have anything to hide.” or even “Honest people don’t need that, it should be illegal.”

To hell with them.

TrustExecutor

Blastoidea Why?! You are preaching to the wrong target group my friend.
It is with this as with any other "fringe" topic that seems too far-fetched to the uninformed, you cannot try to get anybody to see something they do not want to see or care about. That way you will burn yourself out, and in the long run the society will be in a worse position than before since a freedom advocate was lost.

Better is to scan your environment for people who already showed signs of, in this case, being concerned about data harvesting and online privacy. Strengthen and empower them by telling them in a positive way about GOS features as a user friendly and secure way to take back their rights to their data by allowing them what they want to share and what they do not want to share. This way all parties will come out strenthened and positive, and society at large will benefit in the long run. Cheers!

N1b

TrustExecutor Better is to scan your environment for people who already showed signs of, in this case, being concerned about data harvesting and online privacy

Totally agree. People are different and have different needs at different points in their lives. You won't convince anyone, but you can help those who care convincing themselves.

I forgot to add: When talking to friends and family, make sure that you don't make their life unnecessarily harder because of your privacy lifestyle. For example don't demand they use Signal when everyone else they talk to is on WhatsApp. If you used to share photos on Google Drive, don't try to move them to Proton Drive right away. They will just associate negativity and inconvenience with your privacy.

I like W1zardK1ng's approach, convince them with features and cool benefits when possible, but also be willing to compromise for them when you want them to compromise for you.

Here are some benefits most people would like to have once it affects them:

This Network Toggle will disable the annoying ads in all my apps that don't need internet access. It also leaves me with more of my mobile data volume.
This open hotspot is limited to 500MB, but fortunately my device will register with a new identity upon reconnect so I can use it as much as I want.
I can use this 300€ device for 5 years and get all the newest updates as if it was brand new, finally saving some money without missing out on features.

Of course there are many more advantages, but think of convenience features rather than security and privacy features. The same way you can show them Newpipe/Libretube over YouTube, InnerTune over Spotify or Brave over Chrome and have them benefit right away in their old and locked device (except if it's an iPhone, which makes them doubt it when they come to you for new phone advice you'll recommend one that supports GOS).

W1zardK1ng

I would say start with the family first.
I bought 2 pixel 6a, one fore my mom and one for my dad and flashed graphene os on it, installed google play services, created a new email account logged in to playstore and gave them. I enabled automatic reboot for system updates also.
Its been more than 6 months they never know whats in it, they never complained like something is not working. They are using it how they used to use their old phone.

For my friends, when ever im with them and get a chance i show some cool features like contact scope, storage scope, disabling installed apps. I barely speak about the privacy aspect because they dont care. but occasionally i share some privacy related videos to them.
Most of them are not making a switch because of the android auto not working and there are much better value for money phones than Pixel devices.
But i managed change two of my friends and they also didnt complained like something is broken.
I really wish if android auto was working just like the sandboxed googleplay, then i could have made more people to switch.

Dont argue with anyone by saying graphene os will protect privacy and its more secure, no one cares.
Just show some examples of something happening in world and tell them like one day its going to happen to us and try to change their mindset.

You can simply take their phone and show the google history, it shows their past locations, at what time they open an app, and many more. Just by showing this i made many people understand that google is seeing what they do on their phone, at that moment introduce graphene os. For the iphone users its much more difficult to make them understand that they are being tracked by apple.

Its not easy and we cant change everyone.

dgzeij

A phone and phone OS is such a huge part of people's life and identity that you can't easily convince anyone to switch. Those who have switched are very happy to tell about the end-products they have used and installed, and what they think others should use as end-products. Almost noone are interested in making proper guides with detailed and 100% correct steps from start of idea to getting end-product installed and done.

If you want high adoption rate make sure everybody have everything they need and all the info they need, but do it properly so they aren't bombarded with "irrelevant" info. And make sure it's ALWAYS up to date, and everything is at one site.

Remove all friction. Make it easy. For what that can't be made easy, make the walkthrough that is easy to understand.

You can either do this or be someone's personal IT consultant for the rest of their life. Not even the ones attempting to do the switch want to be reliant on others like that. Not even those who prefer others do it for them.

Doing it on this forum simply won't work. It's a flat forum like Twitter. Need a wiki or git-page with proper versioning, issue tracking and discussion.

And yes, family and friends are easier to convince since you are not "the others", just someone who does weird things, sometimes interesting.

Blastoidea

Background, although this is not about me.

I have already dragged my Other Half, daughter, three granddaughters, and one grandson-in -law over to Session. We were on Wickr, but we bailed out.

Two fairly close friends are on Signal, and three other friends refuse. Two have flip phones.

I fit well into what could be considered an “older demographic” and two of my friends could be described as troglodytes, if you were being polite, and the third one is a bit of an odd Duck.

I haven’t even bothered to raise the subject of GrapheneOS as many of my descendants are irreversible and committed iPeople.

I did the best I could.

dgzeij

applesbana Videos are good for intro, but they are close to absolutely all ignoring lots of steps and missing lots of info. It's very rare to find a video guide that can be followed and get the expected outcome. And videos can't be updated other than text overlay, which doesn't work for lots of missing steps.

Should absolutely get exposure with videos, but it's only that. Exposure. And intro.

Written is best for accuracy and constantly changing environment.

In any way, it's a community effort. 1 person can start it, but to get satisfactory results it's impossible for 1 person to complete it. So if 1 person want to be the owner and the one starting it, then do that, and then let others join to continue and complete it.

mmmm

dgzeij

Off topic a little but there is a fairly thorough guide I read recently by a guy called Michael Bazzell. It was a pdf, and I think it’s supposed to be paid for so I won’t link it here. Was a bit extreme for a regular persons phone usage but interesting nonetheless.

N1b

I can confirm the PDFs from Michael Bazzell are great and constantly updated, I bought them all (currently 3 for Linux, MacOS and mobile devices) and will continue to buy whatever he releases in the future if he keeps the quality up like this.

It is extreme, but that's what he explains even in the title. I'd recommend new people to listen to his free podcast and the videos from Side of Burritos and The Hated One. There are more than enough trigger points for everyone interested to have a good starting point. This can be followed up with GOS website, privacyguides.org and maybe even this forum for the specific and niche topics. Only then I'd point them to the PDFs, but most people would figure this step out themselves once they get that far in their journey.

Anyway, the information is out there and obtaining it is not a great effort. The main obstacle for people will likely be their motivation and figuring out how far they want to take their privacy and security lifestyle. We can only give them soft impulses and be available for their questions, they have to want it and act upon it themselves. Or in Gino Wickman's words (author of "Traction" which is a business guide for entrepreneurs): They need to "get it, want it and have the capacity to do it".