Still trying to figure out GrapheneOS on my late brother Willi’s old Pixel 3a phone. Turns out that with the sandboxed Google services activated, you can have the best of both worlds – one profile with free and open source apps, one with all the usual Google Android Apps in case you want these. With the same background picture of our late cat Tuna from 2020, that looks like this:
As you can see, you can even have the famous Google camera. What I have not found yet is the original Pixel launcher, guess you’d have to use a lookalike like Lawnchair2 or so to get the same look and functionality like on a Pixel with only the Google Android on it.
But this here is way more secure, as all of these apps are sandboxed and don’t have system-wide privileges, unlike with Google’s version of Android. I’m tempted to use it on my main cellphone as well…
Oh, and although installing GrapheneOS is easy especially with the web based installer, there are still some nice video howtos from people like Side Of Burritos, Cozy Living Machine, or Naomi Brockwell. Just in case you want more than just *my* opinions…
As always, thanks for reading.