How many user profiles do you use and what for?

Subliminal

Want to get an idea of the possibilities out there

DeletedUser115

Subliminal owner profile for OS and apps updates, main profile for everyday apps not depending on Play Services, play profile for a very few apps depending on play services, bank for banking apps (I reboot the phone before opening this profile and reboot again after using it), temp for apps and data that I need to be able to wipe irreversibly without having to factory reset the whole phone.

cyberparty

I have a separate profile for some Google apps and other apps I'd like to keep separate that I use, including Google Maps, as an idea. I wouldn't feel comfortable giving apps my location permission on the profile where I usually use my day-to-day apps and travel around with, for instance. But for the profile with my Google apps, I'm happy to give them location permissions there as I won't always have that profile active, only when I need it to be: Once I'm done with it, I can end the session and put them at rest. It might not prevent total tracking of location, but it gives me a little bit of peace of mind.

Subliminal

cyberparty That's what I have right now. Looking to see if there's something I'm missing with having more than two

f13a-6c3a

One, the owner, is enough for me - further complication is not worth the benefits for my use

Subliminal

f13a-6c3a Based

cyberparty

Subliminal It really depends on your usecase. There's nothing wrong with using more than 2 profiles if that's what you like for your usecase, just like there's nothing wrong with people using a single profile with all of their apps on it (including Google apps) if that's what makes sense for them. The latter usecase is likely to be the scenario for the majority of people anyway, and they are already better off than they would be on the stock OS, given the privacy & security tools/improvements that GrapheneOS offers. (Sandboxed Google Play Services restricted to the same sandbox rules used for other unprivileged apps, hardened sandbox & malloc, storage & contact scopes, 4G only mode for reducing attack surface, etc.). If you want to further isolate apps, workspaces, and/or be able to put them and it's associated data at rest, profiles can help. It's all about user choice.

zkz

One with Google Play apps one without (owner)

I can't play from my local music (Owner profile) and use Google Maps (Google Play profile) at the same time though. Which is started to get annoying but I'll figure something out.

rarelyrare

zkz you can use shelter work profile?

lcalamar

i used to have 1 for general use and one for my apps that use a login..

after furrher research here i have gone back to a single profile as the benefits of using 2 profiles are pretty insignificant and the hassle factor is significant

E24

My owner, then a bank profile, a profile for the pixel buds app

Malternative

I just use a single profile. This should be reasonable for the average user, is convenient, and you still get the benefits from the sandboxed google and all the other additional settings.

luki

Malternative sorry if this is a dumb question, but how do you get the benefits of sandboxed google play if everything is in the same profile? Is the different profile not "the sandbox"?

DeletedUser29

luki No honest question is ever dumb.

On vanilla Android the Google Play apps are treated as system apps with full access to pretty much everything. GrapheneOS demotes and isolates them so that they have no more access than any other app you install.

There is however still more privacy to be gained by isolating apps to a single profile, since they can share data between each other if the apps themselves allow it. Which you might not want, so by putting them in separate profiles you isolate them from being able to do that as well.

See here for better explanations: https://grapheneos.org/usage#sandboxed-google-play
https://grapheneos.org/features#improved-user-profiles

Malternative

Unlike on stock pixel os, google play uses the standard android app sandbox like every other app on GrapheneOS. No higher privileges.

josen13

I use 32 secondary user profiles, 1 for each app so that Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg cannot communicaticate through my apps and make money from my data. I wanted to buy 32 phones to isolate them, but luckily I found out about grapheneos.

Subliminal

josen13 thats pretty wild. and you're not joking either

candroid_man

I use two, one with GPlay, the other without. Anything that is privacy respecting (which is most of my apps), I keep in the owner profile, anything that is proprietary and or requires GPlay like ProtonMail for example, I keep in my work profile. The only thing that really bothers me is how photos can't be synced between profiles locally. Like if I take a screenshot of something on Reddit, I can't then go to Signal on my main profile and easily send the image. I have to go into ente, wait for it to sync or go to the ente app in my work profile, hit the share button, and then share it to Signal and then select the person I want to send the photo to. I wonder if I should just keep my life simpler and use only one profile, or if there is a way to locally share files in between profiles that would be ideal.

Edit: Another thing is that I have to have 2 instances of Brave on my phone, one for each profile, because if I open an article or something on my work profile it won't open in the Brave app on my main profile because it is so separate.

Subliminal

candroid_man yea the pictures thing has been a hassle for me as well. I found a good solution for images with emailing but for videos idk what to do.

zkz

rarelyrare have used it in the past but moved to an entirely separate profile.

Might be a good call to use the work profile for maps actually. Thanks for reminding me that exists.

eric

I am still trying to get everything configured to work exactly the way I want, but right now I have these;

Owner: I use this for calls and text messages (SMS) and some simple browsing not through VPN. Here I currently also have non-work related ssh keys.

Work: I use this for all work-related applications like email, ssh (with keys and scripts to do the basic stuff), wireguard for accessing internal work services like redmine, gitlab and so on. Also work chat applications like Telegram, KeyBase and WeChat. This helps me to log out of work while still allowing me to log back on with ease (I run a small IT company).

Entertainment: Here I have my private chat applications like Keybase and Telegram (different accounts than under Work), video/music/audiobook players, ... I have my normal email configured in this profile. Traffic goes through VPN for some added privacy.

Gulag: Here I have the digital gulag applications as required to live a life in northern Europe today; bankid (digital ID), swish (money transfer), bank apps, parking apps, taxi apps, google maps, and so on. I have not decided how to handle this in relation to VPN traffic. Some of the digital gulag applications already require and check location when doing money transfers for example. I am of the belief that this will get a lot worse in the future...

WorldGulag: Here I have the digital gulag applications as required when traveling or living abroad: hotels, flights, taxis for world wide use. Also apps to reach my non-native banks and things like that.

Finance: Specific profile for my crypto currencies, stock profiles and such on.

GF: In this profile my girlfriend has her applications, similar to what I do in Gulag. Protected by her code and finger print and so on - this way if she loses her phone while we are traveling or whatever, it's not as big of a problem anymore.

I share files between profiles using a NextCloud instance that I control the hardware to.
I use different email accounts for different things to in each profile only get the emails related to the tasks I perform in that specific profile.

B0B42

eric hej there fellow northerner, the bankId did it, where can we chat in our strange native language?

Subliminal

eric That's awesome. that's giving me a lot of ideas. Thank you!

eric

B0B42 I don't know, I'm a totally new member at this forum. Happy to hear more people around here are at least somewhat interested in privacy - it's highly lacking among the people I know unfortunately :/