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1e2j6

Hello all,

You are a very knowledgeable and tech savvy bunch, so I figured this would be a good community to ask. I'm trying to be more privacy and security conscious, which is why I started using GrapheneOS. I still have a long ways to go on my journey, but one thing I've been thinking a lot about is how to write down and store sensitive and important information that my family can access after I die.

I have been looking into Obsidian for this task. My main concern is how to make it secure. I've been reading about encryption and gone down several rabbit holes, but I still can't really formulate a plan on how to achieve something that will work for me and also be secure.

My first question is about GrapheneOS. Let's say I install Obsidian on my Pixel and I start writing down sensitive stuff, like security questions/answers, personal info, bank info, tax info, health records, etc. Now, since my device is encrypted, is that a safe thing to do? Or do I need to take extra steps to secure it? I found this plugin called Meld Encrypt. Would using that be advisable? Would I need to do anything further, or would that be sufficient to protect my data if my phone were ever lost, stolen, or damaged? What about being protected from someone "hacking" into it, if that is even possible (I assume it is, though I'm not anyone special that would be a target to anyone)?

Then on to my desktop. I use Windows, and I have my whole disk encrypted with BitLocker. I assume the same question would be asked here. Is it sufficient enough to just use BitLocker, or do I need to further protect my notes somehow? I would basically want to have Obsidian running at all times when my computer is on--does that factor into the equation on how to make it secure?

How do you guys keep notes secure? I'm sure I will get some answers that involve using a computer not connected to the internet, or pen and paper, but those aren't really something I'm interested in.

Tryptamine That was actually very helpful. For some unknown reason, Proton Mail only has that Contacts icon in the sidebar, which I hid a very long time ago and forgot existed, so I thought there was no interface to add or edit contacts. Very bad UX design, in my opinion. I will explore this option further, as well as evaluate other people's suggestions, thanks!

dln949 How do you securely connect to your Nextcloud server from your phone outside of your network? Do you use a VPN? My understanding is that it is very insecure to run things without a VPN?

Alternatively, is there a better way to handle Contact syncing? I'm open to ideas. Mostly I just want to make sure that I can add and edit contacts either on my phone or my PC and have the changes synced between the two.

Hello,

I have Google Play Services installed. In the Contacts app, I can see and edit my contacts, and the information does get synced back to my Google account. I am (still) trying to De-Google, and I have no idea how to do that for Contacts.

I am using Proton Mail now instead of Gmail, but Proton Mail does not have a dedicated Contacts editing interface like Gmail does, and seems to only be concerned with contact emails, not addresses, phone numbers, or other notes I would want to keep.

Is there a way for me to sync my contacts between my phone and my PC where I use the Proton Mail app?

1e2j6 Is it possible that a cracked screen would disable the auto-rotate function? I didn't consider that as a possibility, but now I'm wondering.

I'm also wondering how you manually rotate the screen. I don't see a button for that anywhere?

I have a Google Pixel 7 Pro and as of a few weeks ago, the Google Camera app is no longer rotating properly. I would always rotate my phone counter clockwise to take landscape photos so the power and volume buttons are on top. This would allow me to press the power button to snap the photos. Now when turning the phone that way, the level guide is upside down and all photos and videos taken are upside down. I'm not sure if this is a Graphene OS problem, a Google Camera problem, or something wrong with my specific phone. Yes, I do have auto-rotate on. Yes, the Google Camera app has permission for sensors. As I said, this is a new thing--it was never like this before.

I've also noticed that Google Photos no longer auto-rotates. When I hold the phone vertically and then open a landscape photo, when I rotate the phone sideways, the picture does not move. Can someone help?

Wibble_Wobble I'm in the US, so I don't think it's a region problem.

matchboxbananasynergy I had that setting checked before I installed the game. I think if I uninstall it, I won't be able to install it again at all, since the Play Store isn't letting me update it.

I know in the past that Nintendo did not let you use this app on a rooted phone, but GrapheneOS does not root your phone permanently does it?

Nintendo released an update to Super Mario Run in November, and I can no longer play the game. It tells me I need to update the game to play, and in the Play store it gives me the error "This app isn't compatible with your device anymore."

I assume this is a Nintendo thing and not a GrapheneOS thing, right? So I'm just SOL? I just can't ever play this game again that I paid for?

Just to close this thread out, it appears as though Google Play Store does eventually update the apps, but it can sometimes take a week to do so. I still don't understand why sometimes I get notifications from GmsCompat that it needs my attention, and then tapping the notification opens the Play Store requiring a manual update for some apps (I have to press the Update button). Maybe those apps have the older targetSdk. I don't know.

mythodical It sounds like you might be using apps that have not been updated in quite a while. You might want to consider alternatives.

These are apps that have had updates released in the last week, so I'm not sure how you came to that conclusion.

I would really just like to know if this is a misconfiguration problem on my end or if this is just how GrapheneOS works. If it's the latter, maybe GrapheneOS just isn't the phone OS for me. I have enough daily tasks I have to do in my life and I don't really want manual daily app updates on my phone to be yet another one of them.

If it is just the targetSdk that needs to be higher than 29, then I am back to being confused. All these apps are higher than that, and they are not auto-updating. It has now been 72 hours and these apps are still not updated unless I open the Google Play store myself and update them manually. There must be some other setting that I am missing.

unwat Thanks. I guess that is the problem. A lot of them are version 21 or 23. That sucks.

I'm not sure why this was marked solved. I've waited another 24 hours and the same apps are still not auto-updated.

Maybe I have something misconfigured, because that doesn't seem to be the case. In Google Play Store, under Settings -> Network Preferences -> Auto-update apps, I have it set to Auto-update apps over Wi-Fi only. I have been on Wi-Fi at home for over 24 hours and the apps are not auto-updating. This morning I got a notification from GmsCompat that says "Action required in the Play Store." When I tap on the notification, it opens the Google Play Store and asks me individually for each app if I want to update it. This appears to be the only way apps can be updated.

I have some purchased apps that I installed through the Google Play Store. Is there a way to allow these to auto-update? It's a bit annoying having popups throughout the day that "Google Play Store needs attention."

There is a notification that is always visible from GmsCompat which says "Sandboxed Google Play is running". Is there a way to hide this? When I tap the notification it takes me to the Sandboxed Google Play options area but I don't see any settings regarding notifications here.

DeletedUser80 That did the trick. Thank you!

I am running the experimental version. I'm new to GrapheneOS, so this might be a PEBKAC error. I installed Google Play Games and Jetpack Joyride. I also have Google Play Store, Google Play services, and Google Services Framework all installed. I am logged into Google Play Games.

When I start Jetpack Joyride, I get the popup at the top which says I am logged into Google Play Games and I see my profile pop up, but about halfway through loading the game, the screen goes black. The only way I can make my phone usable again is to hit the power button twice and scan my fingerprint again, at which point Jetpack Joyride is no longer running (I assume it just crashes).

Help?

I've been trying to De-Google for a year now and be more privacy conscious. It's so hard. I've already deleted tons of online accounts, signed up for services like SimpleLogin, Bitwarden, ProtonMail, and ProtonVPN and migrated accounts over. I recently bought the Pixel 7 Pro specifically so I could install GrapheneOS. I have been watching the "supported devices" page like a hawk the last few days and saw there was a build available, so I installed it last night for the first time and have been tinkering around.

I'm just having such a hard time with all this. I often ask myself if this is all worth it. I'm sure everyone here will say that it is, but it takes so much more time and you lose so many conveniences. There's too many to even list. One such example is getting a date texted to you in Google Chat that gives you a link you click to add it to your Google Calendar, which lets you add a location, which will then notify you when you need to leave the house to be there on time and gives a link you can tap to open Google Maps to navigate there.

I don't even really know what the point of this post is except maybe to see if anyone else felt this way and how you overcame it, or if you didn't?