mario_bros_tech

  • Aug 9, 2022
  • Joined Jun 10, 2022
  • jumpdeer Sorry for the late reply, I didn't seem to have been notified of it. In terms of privacy benefits, work profiles are oftentimes recommended as a means to separate data between apps installed on your device. For example, if you want to use a social networking app which requires access to your photo library, by installing it in a work profile, it will only be able to see the media that's present within the work profile. This can be an effective way of separating personal and work use cases, hence this feature being called Work Profile.

    However, there are some limitations with Work Profiles that you should be aware of. Since they need to be activated with an app (most people recommend Shelter as a FOSS option), you need to trust the app that enables this, which increases attack surface as a result. Also, Work Profiles don't have separation from things like notifications and other low-level system functions, and it's still possible to transfer data outside of the work profile in some cases. This is why apps like Island can enable you to transfer files directly to a work profile from outside of it. From a security standpoint, this is obviously far from ideal.

    GrapheneOS has been doing a lot of work to improve multi-user profiles, especially as of late. If security and privacy are your primary concerns, you should be using multiple user profiles instead. All profiles are completely separated from one another, unless you optionally enable things like phone access from the settings. Each profile has its entirely own set of apps and settings, and you can completely log out of a profile to stop all processes within it from executing. Additionally, GrapheneOS now allows you to show notifications throughout all of the system profiles in a way that's still secure and doesn't leak your data to other profiles. Using multiple profiles is almost akin to having a completely separate device to use apps on, and they can be created or destroyed at will. It's up to your threat model to determine whether the convenience tradeoff of having to switch profiles is worth the additional privacy and security to you.

    Lastly, I'll describe one popular use case for multiple profiles. If you want to use Sandboxed Google Play but don't want for it or your apps to be running in the background when you're done with them, you can dedicate a profile to Sandboxed Google Play and all of your proprietary apps. This way, when you're done using these apps, you can log out of the profile, and nothing installed that profile will run in the background. This can be a great way to enhance your security and privacy when using less trustworthy services.

  • Arnauld See the GrapheneOS Usage Guide topic on how to enable this feature. I don't personally use Sandboxed Play Services, so I can't help you beyond this, unfortunately. However, if you have Sandboxed Play Services enabled, this looks relatively straightforward to set up.

    • reissue App updates work seamlessly with Aurora Store, but they aren't automatic. Because of this, I have my copy of Aurora Store set to always launch on the updates screen so I can see if an update is available just by opening the app. I know this isn't ideal, but it's your best bet for getting official, unmodified apps from the Play Store without using a Google account to do so. When an update is available, it will show on the updates screen, and you can update each app individually, similar to how F-Droid's update system works. I make it a habit to check every few days or so. Updates are made available as soon as they are available on Google Play, with the exception of beta and testing versions.

    • DeletedUser115 Awesome, thanks for confirming! I'm not sure how an email address with a custom domain would work. Could you perhaps start with an @gmail.com domain and then edit it to the custom domain during the OAuth prompt? I can't test that myself, unfortunately, but I don't see why that wouldn't work.

    • ayaen I haven't tried it yet, but it looks like K-9 Mail recently received an update to support OAuth with Gmail accounts, and it seems like that build has made it to F-Droid, so I'd be curious if that works without Sandboxed Google Play.

    • Also, it's worth noting that you don't necessarily have to sign into a Google account to download apps from Google Play or even use many of Google's own apps. You can instead choose to download apps from Aurora Store, which sources its app selection directly from Google Play.

      So, if you wanted, you could install Aurora Store, install Google Maps through it, install Sandboxed Play Services from the GrapheneOS app repository, and use it all without signing into a Google account. Google can still track you by IP address and by any permissions you grant to any of their apps, including Sandboxed Google Play, but you have much more control with this approach. You can also tell Sandboxed Play Services to route location requests through the OS's APIs as opposed to Play Services, which helps even more with preserving your privacy.

      Keep the questions coming because we want you to have the smoothest transition possible if you choose to go with GrapheneOS!

      • Mattias Unfortunately, Android doesn't have a way to natively do this yet, but when Android 13 rolls out and apps get updated for that API level, they will have the option of showing a selective photo picker, similar to that in iOS. Read here for info about how this feature will work. It seems like this is exactly what you want, so while it isn't exactly a solution for right now, apps should begin getting updated for this within a few months after Android 13's rollout. Hope that helps!