It's absolutely insane that phones have online accounts deeply integrated into the OS. You need to give Apple your phone number to download any apps on iOS.
For example:
Say anyone that downloaded IceBlock commited crime, Apple could give the govt everyone who downloaded its phone number, the govt could get the realtime location of everyone based on their phone number from the carrier.
And that's not even mentioning the other problem that nobody can download IceBlock anymore[1].
It's so refreshing for my phone not to ask for any identifying information when I set it up. GrapheneOS is a better software experience than iOS anyway[2].
Phones have great potential to be the most private and secure computers, cell services not withdrawing. And iPhones are one of the most private and secure devices. But, Apple uses that to restrict its users freedom and it makes Apple's users can easily be controlled by any government.
[2] once you install good apps. This is coming from a lifelong iOS user. Not prejudiced against Apple, I use a Mac (without an account) and their Advanced Data Protection is great (when I had an account).
I agree with that.. additionaly, I'm finding it to be insane that organizations are trying to force you to have a "audited" phone to interact with them. (I.e. events, businesses, etc)
Remote attestation is not just insane, it's the technology that will end free computing as we know it today.
What good is free software if using it marks our devices as untrusted and gets us banned from every service out there? Gets us ostracized from digital society? Because we "tampered" with the device?
We should be able to run whatever software we want and they should be none the wiser. Instead, we are part of the threat model now. Our devices are now cryptographically attesting that they are corporate owned and that we are under corporate control. It's so disgusting. The future we're heading towards is terrifying. Everything the word hacker ever stood for will be destroyed if this keeps up.
It's all about who owns the keys and who trusts those keys. If you don't have the keys to "your" computer, then you don't own that computer, you're just renting it from the corporation.
And even if our own keys could be used, who's going to trust those attestations? Nobody. They will trust Google's keys, Microsoft's keys, Apple's keys. Not ours.
Yeah same as TPM and Secureboot. They can improve your own personal security (and thereby privacy) drastically, but it has to be controlled by the user.
You'll probably just need to keep two phones. One hostile spying device that you use for authenticating and dealing with government stuff, and that becomes e-waste every 2 years. Then you have one that you can repair and extend for your own stuff that respects you and your privacy.
I am doing this now. I have had a carrier locked iPhone SE 2020 which I only use on Wi-Fi for over five years now. I also have an android phone and I don't install any banking apps on my android phone.
>What good is free software if using it marks our devices as untrusted
That is not what remote attestation is for. The operating system maintains isolation between apps, so a free software app being installed doesn't mean an app that needs high security is compromised.
I think you've misunderstood. It's not an app problem. The problem is that it makes Free Software OSes unviable. The copy of Android you compile and install yourself - or your copy of desktop Linux where you upgraded the kernel yourself - will never pass remote attestation, and it gives both the attestation provider and software that checks attestation the ability to unilaterally shut out any OS they like with no workaround, even those that do pass attestation.
In a world of deeply untrustworthy Big Tech, and trend of governments, banks and other basic services needed to exist in society relying on apps and in the future, websites that use remote attestation, that is very troubling.
There are better ways of dealing with the bad actors problem, but Big Tech has chosen violence.
It’s not incompatible with open source. It’s incompatible with free software. If Apple or Google or Microsoft or the government needs to “bless” your build, then you have no freedom to actually use your build.
Your "development build" is another person's daily driver.
Case in point: GrapheneOS (or any other custom Android distro) is unlikely to be able to ever pass remote attestation, even a signed, secure boot build with the bootloader relocked, because it's not the original OS for the hardware.
We're running into situations where the usage of smart phones and apps are becoming mandatory for using services.
For example: The UK has a digital ID requirement which is required for you to be employed in the UK. Additionally the EU digital identity services have a hardware/software attestitation that is required to run their apps. (Many of those which 3rd party software can't run).
Another example of this is the Australian eTA - (Everyone has to have a visa to visit Australia.. but the real only way to get a visa* is you have to get an electronic travel authorization which only works via an App)
myGov (Australian government app)
gov.br (Brazilian government app)
Ticketcorner
Authy
Chyrpe Dating
TextNow
mada Pay (Saudi NFC payment app)
McDonald's (International app used for many but not all countries not including the US)
Dott
My SEAT (Connectivity for SEAT cars)
SwissID
Volkswagen
BKK Faber-Castell & Partner
TK-Doc
TK-Ident
TK-App (Blocks access to TK-Safe, TK-GesundheitsMessenger, fingerprint login)
IO (Italian government app which uses it to gate access to the digital wallet feature)
PosteID (Italian postal service’s app used to access the national digital identity system "SPID")
Singpass
> The UK has a digital ID requirement which is required for you to be employed in the UK.
That's untrue.
There was a strong push towards the digital ID from the current administration, but it was abandoned 6 months ago.
What you likely mixed up with digital ID is the old digital visa scheme, mandatory for all non-UK citizens to prove right to work.
Re: your app list: looks a little bit eclectic, so it's worth mentioning most of the apps don't ban GoS specifically, but enforce Google play strong or device integrity pass, which GoS doesn't pass.
Some trip on some exploit protections, like secure app spawning, but these can be turned off per app in the latest releases based on Android 17.
GrapheneOS and others should have lobbyists or rather lawyers and lawmakers to fight for using secure systems to mandatory be allowed for these. Sure, there must be some type of OS guarantee, but that should not be exclusive to Google and Apple. And indeed browsers with otp/authn devices (not one per service but yubi/thetis type of thing as those can be made sovereign for a large part); when an OS is not allowed, the browser and app should be mandatory allowed with such a device as that is, actually, more secure than the original device as it is an external encryption and encryption key source the hacker cannot reach.
Us users might be effective as well. Hopefully anti-trust law catches up and bans play integrity. They are probably going to spend their money improving features and experience to get more users. There's threads on the forum dedicated to sending emails to Volkswagen to get them to support Grapheneos and it may be working.
Likely referring to Android's Play Integrity/hardware attestation API (good explainer from GrapheneOS [1]) that is practically used to restrict what devices/brands/Android builds an app will allow itself to be run on.
I miss the days when iOS jailbreaks allowed you to completely circumvent basically all DRM because the trust in Apple was so high that you could just assume a device is secure. Contrast that with Android, which has always had invasive attestation mechanisms because of widespread mistrust in OEMs. On iOS, sometimes you had individual apps trying to check for jailbreak but that was it
> that organizations are trying to force you to have a "audited" phone to interact with them. (I.e. events, businesses, etc)
Even worse, GOVERNMENTS do that. EU Governments basically forcing you to give Google (via the Google Mobile Services rootkit) or Apple (and via the cloud act also the Trump Admin) access to your entire phone (including all of your saved personal data) to use the govt eID system...
Don't phones have identifiers outside of phone number anyway?
I feel like you have to trust the hardware/os vendor anyway.
So if you don't trust apple to not misbehave, maybe not getting an iphone is better than chasing the whole phone-number idea.
Your comment isn't super clear to me, let me know if I misunderstood anything.
Yes there are still identifiers when using cellular data service, but they aren't connected to your phone number that you give out. Phone number gets a determined threat actor real time location, which is what I explained. Threat actor gets location from any carrier identifier. Cellular was built in a terrible way for privacy and security.
Android doesn't let apps see hardware identifiers if that's related.
Yes you're correct about having to trust Apple, but my point is that the way Apple is collecting all this extra info allows them to be compelled to hand it over. It's not about trusting Apple, it's about them following the law, which they will do.
I’m on the edge of migrating from my iPhone to a Pixel with GrapheneOS.
But there is ONE feature I love on iOS and it’s the Live Photos. I feel like it’s an amazing way to keep family memories. Do you know if it exists on GrapheneOS?
There are 3rd party camera apps that support it, but you'd have to download them separately. GrapheneOS camera app is fine but nothing outstanding. It will give you decent pictures but don't expect any fancy upscaling or editing features.
Only in Google camera, which is usable on grapheneos: You get a live shot feature, it ain't exactly the same tho, look into that.
I run pixelos and the amount of stuff I miss from iphone is staggering, the difference between pixelos/grapheneos isn't as big as the difference between iphone/pixel.
It's mostly the app. Nothing come close to apple notes or reminder for instance.
Even safari... On Android, you get chromium that doesn't have any extension or Firefox that has incredibly frustrating UI and doesn't work well on some website.
I can understand extensions but I like Vanadium a lot more than Safari. Reminders is hard to replace unfortunately. Overall I like android apps a lot more though. Once you find the right ones.
And why not? Law enforcement does not represent supreme justice and good. There are higher moral principles out there. Respect for law enforcement in the absence of justice is a disaster for society. All it does is give cover for bad actors.
There's plenty of high moral principles, but "let's build technology that explicitly protects criminals - especially child and women traffickers - against investigation" ain't one of them for majority of people living in democracies.
Your assumption that "criminals" are doing something morally wrong is fundamentally flawed. Civil rights activists were criminals, as were suffragettes, and the people who protected Jews in Nazi Germany, and gay or trans people just existing in countries where that isn't allowed. All criminals. Law enforcement isn't even always carrying out the law, as we've seen with ICE arresting, assaulting, searching, deporting people on no other basis than their skin color.
Democracy dies when people can't protest. When they are under constant surveillance, afraid of being singled out by the government intelligence gathering mechanisms. Unable to speak out about injustice, organise and engage in healthy counter culture.
Look at Russia, look at China. Don't imagine that giving your own government and law enforcement the same tools of surveillance and oppression will have a different outcome.
How does it protect trafficers especially? Does it have some extra trafficking features? Does it unlock additional capabilities if you're a criminal?
Or maybe it just protects everyone?
In the era before the advent of mass digital surveillance, it was well understood that there are many different ways to fight crime. Now every time I see this conversation being had, it's treated as if keeping any amount of privacy beyond what you personally find acceptable is tantamount to endorsing the existence of human traffickers. Warrantless spread-shot digital surveillance is now often treated as essential.
I have a question for you. Why don't you advocate for more surveillance? The more active and widespread the surveillance, the more criminals can be caught. If you think it's not entirely practical, just embark on a thought experiment with me -- assume it would be practical. Would you do it? Would you have everyone be under perfect surveillance 24/7 in order to catch every criminal? Let's call this stance surveillance maximalism.
If you agree with surveillance maximalism, then we're just very different people and I don't think we can find common ground. I hope we can live peacefully in different countries with different laws that suit our preferences.
If you disagree with surveillance maximalism, then why is your arbitrary tradeoff so good? It's not obvious why it's better. You are assuming the moral high ground, but you're also doing the same thing you're accusing me of -- you're accepting some amount of traffickers existing by not being a surveillance maximalist.
By adopting this moral high ground, the discourse is kept at a shallow level. We talk less about which surveillance measures are actually effective or not, what has happened to crime rates over time, what is the context in which crime occurs, what are the negative consequences of undermining privacy, what are the negative consequences of mass surveillance etc. Instead we waste our time and energy on cheap moral opprobrium.
You forgot terrorists on your usual list of reasons e2e is bad. Technology will always be used for bad and good, but there are far more people using it for good than bad.
I meant the government deciding that downloading iceblock is a crime, because it shouldn't be, not that people who downloaded it used it commit crimes. Apologies for not being clear if that's how you were interpreting.
Law enforcement don't have a legal right to access all that people do, say, and think. They are there to investigate and present evidence to court incase of illegal activity, nothing more.
>I work at Google, and yes. We use a monorepo for absolutely everything you can think of. But good luck getting that code off a corp device without being caught
On this subject since it's an Australian seller and marketed as "DV safe".
Australia has a national test of it's phone alert system in 10 days at 27/07/26, 2PM AEST. (People in North America would know it as Cell Alerts/Presidential Alerts etc.)
There have been warnings that hidden phones will almost certainly sound, and their recommendation is to ether power off the phone or put it into airplane mode at least an hour before the test...
You cannot on many phones, and often phones will even lie when it says all categories are disabled, as some jurisdictions have laws against turning off some of the highest alert categories.
This post is literally just SEO copy designed to sell degoogled phones to (justifiably) anxious DV victims?
Their phones are more than twice as expensive as equivalent models at JF HiFi too (and 5-10x the price of an older, but still perfectly useful degoogled phone from Marketplace).
Getting a new phone is very useful to someone that's a victim of a controlling partner but it doesn't particularly need to be a GrapheneOS device. GrapheneOS has features useful for this including Auditor and standard Android profiles (Private Space, secondary users) with improvements but we're not specifically recommending it for this ourselves. People who are victims of this probably just need a new phone of any kind and to prioritize other things.
> and 5-10x the price of an older, but still perfectly useful degoogled phone from Marketplace
Devices with drastically worse privacy and security than the Android Open Source Project including lack of bare minimum updates aren't in the same space as GrapheneOS.
It's generally better for people to install GrapheneOS themselves since it's very easy and saves a lot of money. It takes 10 minutes to install GrapheneOS with the web installer. It also avoids needing to trust a company to do it, although it's possible to verify an install done by someone else is genuine with the verified boot key fingerprint and/or Auditor. An existing install by someone else should be factory reset it to avoid any sketchy configuration.
Can someone explain this? I've used custom ROMs back in the day (Cyanogen!) but I'm not familiar with GrapheneOS.
I remember Cyanogen ships without Google Play etc., right? (Because if you install Google Services and a bunch of crap from their store (theirs and otherwise) that spies on you, it defeats the purpose of a privacy preserving OS.
So I'm assuming Graphene is at least as strict as that? (Well Cyanogen at least give you the option of installing all that crap but that would seem to defeat the purpose in this case.)
But more broadly I'm not sure I understand the relevance in this particular context. The article mentions that an abuser could put spyware on your phone? Is that a realistic scenario? (Ok I suppose half the stuff on the Play store is spyware so maybe it's more realistic than I'm thinking...)
> So I'm assuming Graphene is at least as strict as that?
GrapheneOS is a privacy and security hardened OS. LineageOS and CyanogenMod aren't in that space. GrapheneOS preserves the standard privacy and security features and updates of the Android Open Source Project as a baseline. It greatly improves privacy and security with major privacy and security features along with much better privacy/security updates. It keeps up with the major OS updates including having a release based on Android 17 since the day it was released (2026-06-16).
> Can someone explain this? I've used custom ROMs back in the day (Cyanogen!) but I'm not familiar with GrapheneOS.
GrapheneOS is a production quality OS with around 15 people paid to work on it. It's not a hobbyist project. We've never used the term custom ROM since it isn't accurate and propagates misconceptions. It's best to avoid it.
> The article mentions that an abuser could put spyware on your phone? Is that a realistic scenario?
Yes, stalkerware is very common and there are a bunch of apps marketed for this purpose. It's helpful to get a new phone set up from scratch without the same accounts or automatically restoring any data on it. This can be a GrapheneOS phone but it doesn't particularly need to be. It's not GrapheneOS recommending itself for this purpose. There are an assortment of privacy and security features relevant to this in standard Android 17 and in the features added by GrapheneOS but nothing essential to this. GrapheneOS makes sense as a general choice for a new phone for many people due to being a highly usable, compatible, private and secure device but we're not specifically recommending it for being who are victims of stalkerware ourselves.
A web search for the term will turn up many more results. Graphene OS's hardening against exploits, compared to the abysmal record of Android vendors, gives much better odds against any of these apps being able to run with elevated privileges, which means Android's sandboxing is effective.
I am having a hard time believing your first link, which says:
> In Anna’s case, stalkerware was disguised as a picture message, sent to her by the man she was dating (let’s call him David), just a few weeks after they met. She was then under constant surveillance for about two years
That sounds like an NSO-level attack, right? I doubt abusers routinely pull that out?!
I totally get the problem that "the abuser knows the iCloud password and can use the FindMyPhone feature to track the victim", or "the abuser convinced the victim to install an app that would track the victim without their consent". But I am genuinely wondering how much GrapheneOS protects against that.
There are many tiers of far easier remote attacks far easier than exploiting an up-to-date iPhone through iMessage of WhatsApp. It doesn't mean that's what happened but it's often not something that's extremely difficult. Many people use phones with years of missing security patches. It's getting increasingly easy to exploit those in the age of LLMs.
Regardless, it sounds more like a social engineering attack tricking someone into installing an invasive app and granting invasive permissions to it.
> I doubt abusers routinely pull that out?!
They do regularly use social engineering to trick their partners into setting up stalkerware or permitting it to be installed. Getting a new phone and accounts is a very helpful for people who are victims of it. They've often given access to their accounts and devices without knowing how to fully get rid of it. Reclaiming the existing devices and accounts is far easier if they have a clean one to start from where they can get technical help. It doesn't specifically need to be a GrapheneOS device, but it's a good choice in general and doesn't require being technically savvy to use or even install it.
Not really, these are available to any script kiddy as long as unpatched phones and software exists. It takes some initial effort to find them out, but that is it.
And I remember similar attacks floating around few years ago even outside domestic violence situation.
Zero Google services are shippsx by default, but you can install Play Store and Services in a sandbox and it has minimal privacy problems, depending on the permissions you give it.
Their docs are really good, not only for their phone but for learning about privacy and security: https://grapheneos.org
You could still install an app that spies on you on grapheneos because it has 99.99% android app compatibility, so if you gave an app designed for spying the relevant permissions, it would still be able to spy. No way it could hide location indicator or anything like that, but I doubt it could do that on other OSes (don't quote me on other OSes).
It's an advertisement. That's pretty much the difference, the company selling these phones has a very high margin for essentially resell of Google phones with reflash of GrapheneOS.
I mean, some obvious things are there in the article, IMHO -
- App isolation and hidden profiles (up to 32 separate profiles)
- Verified Boot (tamper detection on every startup)
So you can do stuff on there that's not going to tip off someone who's controlling enough to demand to see your phone, and so you'll at least be tipped off if someone compromises it.
Have you got a link to anything about hiding parallel accounts? I use GrapheneOS, and don't see anything in the UI about it. Am I looking for the wrong thing? From what I can see, it's the same as stock Android's user switching, which has obvious UI elements about switching session.
As much as I don't like to, I do use Google things on phone, and I've really only ever used secondary profiles to use shady apps with far too broad permissions, such as the kind required to update firmware or get data from wireless/Bluetooth devices.
If you do want a smart phone, but don't want rubbish on it, Graphene is very bare-bones by default. F-Droid and other FOSS-friendly app stores can fill in a lot of gaps, and respect your privacy.
Some apps will simply not run without Play Services, but if you had to use such an app, I believe you could do it in a second profile and have Play Services disabled in your main. Regular apps installed for secondary profiles show as "Not installed for this user" in my main, but Play Services is a bit special.
> I may very well be assuming things about G-OS that it doesn't yet have (or may never have).
No offence but... next time maybe make it clear that you are just assuming and don't have any experience with the thing you are describing?
> My mental picture would have been it having partitioned storage (to reduce chance of accidental over writes) filled with "random seeming 'noise'" that held hidden account specific data only accessible with a user provided key.
That would be a normal account on an encrypted phone. Nothing special about that.
I've used GrapheneOS, but not PrivacyPros setup. The site is interesting. It is almost like a to do list of things for my phone. Most of the things they've done feels like a topic to look into and consider implementing.
Here we're discussing a domestic abuse situation, where people are forcing victims to hand over their phone, and have apps installed to keep track of them. Against their will.
And the solution is to... what? Mysteriously have control of your own phone, and install an OS which prevents this? Seriously? I can just imagine it, when the unfamiliar OS is discovered, or the app not working. This is a domestic abuse situation, it's not about hidden sneakiness.
It's about in-your-face control. It's about forced compliance, or else. It's about the abuser becoming exceptionally upset about their tracking not working, or about a new, mysterious OS.
Installing GrapheneOS would not be tolerated. It would be an act which comes with reprisals. I can just imagine the reaction when the abuser can't get the phone to do as they wish, for the person to disclose what the OS is, or just to hand over their unlocked phone, and discover it's GrapheneOS, and Google it and see what it's for.
It's actually horrible advice to advocate the someone in this situation installs GrapheneOS. How could it possibly help?
GrapheneOS is great to protect from secret, unknown spying. Not some domestic abuse situation where spying isn't via secretness.
Any data collected can be abused. This is like saying why care about what flock knows about you, when it's been used by far too many police to stalk their romantic interests.
Police can obtain data from Google. Police can be abusers or friends with abusers.
> It's not like Google is going to sell your tracking data to abuser.
No, that's exactly the fear. With enough disclaimers and third parties involved, a motivated, highly intelligent and rich attacker with the right connections could get that information.
The tl;dr is that you can either share this data by accident through some sort of "locate my family" app, or because your abuser gets access to your Google/Apple account (for instance because you're signed in on another device they have access to).
The threat model here can be: domestic abuse victim flees a situation at home in a hurry, stays signed in on a computer. Abuser uses the sign-in on that computer to track their phone, figures out they're staying at their aunt's place.
Yes, you can avoid this on a regular Google phone as well, but that requires correctly configuring it (and a lot, such as location and search history, can be re-enabled remotely!). If you're running Graphene you are protected by default, rather than compromised by default.
Even on grapheneos you got to install the play store and play services to get most app to work, which mean connecting to a Google account.
Technically you can use fdroid, Aurora store, or only use stock applications but if we are serious, not all domestic abuse victims are also geeks that know how to do all these things.
They will need their apps, for instance for social security. Also, many people use their phone to pay nowadays, can't do on grapheneos.
Domestic abuse is a serious threat and people are motivated to stay away from their abusers, but if you give them something so barebone that they can't do 90% of their stuff, a significant percentage of them will revert to their old behavior and risk compromising themselves. For instance, buying a second phone and connecting it to the old Google account just to browse tiktok.
They don't need completely bare-bones setup. Sweet spot for non-geeks is installing play services, which can be used without signing into an account and by default have invasive permissions revoked. Then installing playstore apps from aurora store.
It's not as easy as it can be (the text is aimed at people familiar with Android flashing) but in practice you need to toggle one setting, reboot holding the volume button, and then click four buttons in your browser in order, with the exact names for settings spelled out in the guide itself.
I don't think wiping an abuser's malware is such a great solution unless you've already managed to get out of the DV situation. Perhaps GrapheneOS is a good idea on a secret second phone?
I don't think it was the point of the parent. Sure it's easy to install, but the point is that if an abuser can somehow control your phone and install that kind of app, then they probably won't let you remove it.
I am a (very happy) GrapheneOS user, I am certain that I can install a tracking app on it. I can even easily side-load an abusive app that would be banned on the Play Store...
Like I would totally recommend GrapheneOS because it's great, but I don't think it solves the problem of "a domestic abuser can access your phone by making you give access to your phone".
Stock photo - yeah that triple camera is equivalent to an Apple logo. Perhaps royalty-free image chosen without enough care or b/c it’s just a stock photo. (Or they already licensed that one.)
Yes, I find it much easier to set up and use than any other Android phone. There’s less bloatware, and battery life is noticeably better.
Two tips for beginners:
Google Play Store and Google Play Services can be installed from the App Store. They aren’t included by default because GrapheneOS works fine without them.
If a trusted app has trouble running, try enabling Exploit protection compatibility mode on the app’s Info screen (long-press the app icon → Info → Exploit protection).
Yes it's usable by everyone. It's secure by default but anyone can make something insecure. For example granting malicious apps accessiblity permissions would not be great for security.
It has 99.99% android app compatibility. Over 90% of banking and government apps work. These apps take extra measures to ban grapheneos, apps must put in work to make their app incompatible, not the other way around.
I wouldn't say anyone can use it, if you can't sign in to a Google account by yourself then you would have trouble setting it up. But that would be similar on iOS. For the average person, definitely. There's no code or anything like that. Works just like stock Pixels.
If I was giving it to my grandma then I would install her apps and she would be fine clicking icons. But similar on iOS.
Yeah that RAM mention is very strange, not the best article.
It's generally better for people to install GrapheneOS themselves since it's very easy and saves a lot of money. It takes 10 minutes to install GrapheneOS with the web installer. It also avoids needing to trust a company to do it, although it's possible to verify an install done by someone else is genuine with the verified boot key fingerprint and/or Auditor. An existing install by someone else should be factory reset it to avoid any sketchy configuration.
Getting a new phone is very useful to someone that's a victim of a controlling partner but it doesn't particularly need to be a GrapheneOS device. GrapheneOS has features useful for this including Auditor and standard Android profiles but we're not specifically recommending it for this ourselves. People who are victims of this probably just need a new phone of any kind and to prioritize other things.
The relevant quote* from the linked Australian research is:
Technology-facilitated abuse is becoming more and more of a key feature of domestic and family violence. A 2015 survey of 546 domestic and family violence frontline workers found that 98% of respondents had clients who had experienced technology-facilitated abuse.
The research then focuses specifically on children, finding that of all the domestic violence cases, 27% involve technology-facilitated abuse of children.
Can you expand on what it is that "Doesn't fill [you] with confidence" ?
I disagree, it's cool to promote good projects like GrapheneOS that help people.
Have you seen how many articles recommend not secure and not private alternative phones, that's not cool.
Edit: damn some of their phones with it preloaded are like 4x the price your can get for pixels in the state's. Can't speak to Australian prices for regular pixels tho.
The cheapest option, Pixel 10, costs $1349 from Google, they want $1990 (in Australian Dollars, that's about $940 and $1390 in USD)
So not quite a 50% markup on the bard phone, not quite as bad as 4x.
And while I'd feel like a jerk if I asked for money helping someone at risk of DV setting this up, if I was doing it as a business with the mandatory warranty and support this'd need to include in Australia, I think that's expensive but probably fair?
I don't hate it nearly as much as this weird genre of accelerationism where any attempt to improve one's immediate circumstances is just a distraction from the real work that needs to be done.
There's no risk of bricking a device by using the official GrapheneOS web installer and it takes 10 minutes. Devices can also be purchased with GrapheneOS installed.
Aside from that, GrapheneOS isn't read-only memory firmware and that incorrect term should be avoided since it propagates misconceptions.
I looked at this headline and I thought to myself, that I couldn't think of a stupider solution or a dumber sales pitch than "hey DV victims! use this complex gadget!"
No. I mean, come on. This is the sort of thing where people read a poster in the ladies' room and then they carefully plan a discreet exit from their life of abuse. These are very low-tech escapes. They involve packing your necessities and slipping out while your abuser's not watching.
And yes, the social safety nets, and the institutional protections, are the operational needs here. No gadgets, please.
Domestic abuse victim still need to call their workplace, childcare, manage bank account, pay bills. They have grandparents they contact, they have acquitances and friends. Otherwise said, live.
The discret exist where you leave everything behind is the most disasterous situation to be in.
Grapheneos is the least shady OS. Why would a mass surveillance agency compromise hardware when they can simply spy at the software level though Google's deep insights into devices?
Those Android distributions you refer to are not up to date, don't fully remove Google services, don't ship patches fast, don't improve exploit protections, have worse compatibility, don't make Google's services more private by running them in a sandbox, dont add additional important permissions.
Grapheneos ships security updates faster then Google on pixels. If you want the best protection against zero days or mass surveillance, grapheneos is the best option.
Grapheneos is fully run on donations and has provided information in various posts. Most crypto donations by volume are in Monero, Eth and Bitcoin have a few large donations. They are registered as a legal entity in Canada.
For example:
Say anyone that downloaded IceBlock commited crime, Apple could give the govt everyone who downloaded its phone number, the govt could get the realtime location of everyone based on their phone number from the carrier.
And that's not even mentioning the other problem that nobody can download IceBlock anymore[1].
It's so refreshing for my phone not to ask for any identifying information when I set it up. GrapheneOS is a better software experience than iOS anyway[2].
Phones have great potential to be the most private and secure computers, cell services not withdrawing. And iPhones are one of the most private and secure devices. But, Apple uses that to restrict its users freedom and it makes Apple's users can easily be controlled by any government.
GrapheneOS delivers that dream.
[1] https://www.iceblock.app/
[2] once you install good apps. This is coming from a lifelong iOS user. Not prejudiced against Apple, I use a Mac (without an account) and their Advanced Data Protection is great (when I had an account).
What good is free software if using it marks our devices as untrusted and gets us banned from every service out there? Gets us ostracized from digital society? Because we "tampered" with the device?
We should be able to run whatever software we want and they should be none the wiser. Instead, we are part of the threat model now. Our devices are now cryptographically attesting that they are corporate owned and that we are under corporate control. It's so disgusting. The future we're heading towards is terrifying. Everything the word hacker ever stood for will be destroyed if this keeps up.
[1] attestation.app
And even if our own keys could be used, who's going to trust those attestations? Nobody. They will trust Google's keys, Microsoft's keys, Apple's keys. Not ours.
That is not what remote attestation is for. The operating system maintains isolation between apps, so a free software app being installed doesn't mean an app that needs high security is compromised.
In a world of deeply untrustworthy Big Tech, and trend of governments, banks and other basic services needed to exist in society relying on apps and in the future, websites that use remote attestation, that is very troubling.
There are better ways of dealing with the bad actors problem, but Big Tech has chosen violence.
Case in point: GrapheneOS (or any other custom Android distro) is unlikely to be able to ever pass remote attestation, even a signed, secure boot build with the bootloader relocked, because it's not the original OS for the hardware.
Same goes for any desktop Linux.
For example: The UK has a digital ID requirement which is required for you to be employed in the UK. Additionally the EU digital identity services have a hardware/software attestitation that is required to run their apps. (Many of those which 3rd party software can't run).
Another example of this is the Australian eTA - (Everyone has to have a visa to visit Australia.. but the real only way to get a visa* is you have to get an electronic travel authorization which only works via an App)
https://grapheneos.org/articles/attestation-compatibility-gu...
Apps that ban graphene-os being used:
That's untrue.
There was a strong push towards the digital ID from the current administration, but it was abandoned 6 months ago.
What you likely mixed up with digital ID is the old digital visa scheme, mandatory for all non-UK citizens to prove right to work.
Re: your app list: looks a little bit eclectic, so it's worth mentioning most of the apps don't ban GoS specifically, but enforce Google play strong or device integrity pass, which GoS doesn't pass.
Some trip on some exploit protections, like secure app spawning, but these can be turned off per app in the latest releases based on Android 17.
[1] https://grapheneos.org/articles/attestation-compatibility-gu...
Even worse, GOVERNMENTS do that. EU Governments basically forcing you to give Google (via the Google Mobile Services rootkit) or Apple (and via the cloud act also the Trump Admin) access to your entire phone (including all of your saved personal data) to use the govt eID system...
Yes there are still identifiers when using cellular data service, but they aren't connected to your phone number that you give out. Phone number gets a determined threat actor real time location, which is what I explained. Threat actor gets location from any carrier identifier. Cellular was built in a terrible way for privacy and security.
Android doesn't let apps see hardware identifiers if that's related.
Yes you're correct about having to trust Apple, but my point is that the way Apple is collecting all this extra info allows them to be compelled to hand it over. It's not about trusting Apple, it's about them following the law, which they will do.
But there is ONE feature I love on iOS and it’s the Live Photos. I feel like it’s an amazing way to keep family memories. Do you know if it exists on GrapheneOS?
There are 3rd party camera apps that support it, but you'd have to download them separately. GrapheneOS camera app is fine but nothing outstanding. It will give you decent pictures but don't expect any fancy upscaling or editing features.
I run pixelos and the amount of stuff I miss from iphone is staggering, the difference between pixelos/grapheneos isn't as big as the difference between iphone/pixel.
No back button on iOS is madness and also the Android rotate screen integration is way better than iOS.
Even safari... On Android, you get chromium that doesn't have any extension or Firefox that has incredibly frustrating UI and doesn't work well on some website.
Tap to scroll might be possible to get also. Haven't felt need for it when it takes a few regular scrolls anyway.
Democracy dies when people can't protest. When they are under constant surveillance, afraid of being singled out by the government intelligence gathering mechanisms. Unable to speak out about injustice, organise and engage in healthy counter culture.
Look at Russia, look at China. Don't imagine that giving your own government and law enforcement the same tools of surveillance and oppression will have a different outcome.
I have a question for you. Why don't you advocate for more surveillance? The more active and widespread the surveillance, the more criminals can be caught. If you think it's not entirely practical, just embark on a thought experiment with me -- assume it would be practical. Would you do it? Would you have everyone be under perfect surveillance 24/7 in order to catch every criminal? Let's call this stance surveillance maximalism.
If you agree with surveillance maximalism, then we're just very different people and I don't think we can find common ground. I hope we can live peacefully in different countries with different laws that suit our preferences.
If you disagree with surveillance maximalism, then why is your arbitrary tradeoff so good? It's not obvious why it's better. You are assuming the moral high ground, but you're also doing the same thing you're accusing me of -- you're accepting some amount of traffickers existing by not being a surveillance maximalist.
By adopting this moral high ground, the discourse is kept at a shallow level. We talk less about which surveillance measures are actually effective or not, what has happened to crime rates over time, what is the context in which crime occurs, what are the negative consequences of undermining privacy, what are the negative consequences of mass surveillance etc. Instead we waste our time and energy on cheap moral opprobrium.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46440276
Hmm, I hope you don't work on AOSP!
Australia has a national test of it's phone alert system in 10 days at 27/07/26, 2PM AEST. (People in North America would know it as Cell Alerts/Presidential Alerts etc.)
There have been warnings that hidden phones will almost certainly sound, and their recommendation is to ether power off the phone or put it into airplane mode at least an hour before the test...
Their phones are more than twice as expensive as equivalent models at JF HiFi too (and 5-10x the price of an older, but still perfectly useful degoogled phone from Marketplace).
Why is it on the front page of HN?
> and 5-10x the price of an older, but still perfectly useful degoogled phone from Marketplace
Devices with drastically worse privacy and security than the Android Open Source Project including lack of bare minimum updates aren't in the same space as GrapheneOS.
It's generally better for people to install GrapheneOS themselves since it's very easy and saves a lot of money. It takes 10 minutes to install GrapheneOS with the web installer. It also avoids needing to trust a company to do it, although it's possible to verify an install done by someone else is genuine with the verified boot key fingerprint and/or Auditor. An existing install by someone else should be factory reset it to avoid any sketchy configuration.
I remember Cyanogen ships without Google Play etc., right? (Because if you install Google Services and a bunch of crap from their store (theirs and otherwise) that spies on you, it defeats the purpose of a privacy preserving OS.
So I'm assuming Graphene is at least as strict as that? (Well Cyanogen at least give you the option of installing all that crap but that would seem to defeat the purpose in this case.)
But more broadly I'm not sure I understand the relevance in this particular context. The article mentions that an abuser could put spyware on your phone? Is that a realistic scenario? (Ok I suppose half the stuff on the Play store is spyware so maybe it's more realistic than I'm thinking...)
GrapheneOS is a privacy and security hardened OS. LineageOS and CyanogenMod aren't in that space. GrapheneOS preserves the standard privacy and security features and updates of the Android Open Source Project as a baseline. It greatly improves privacy and security with major privacy and security features along with much better privacy/security updates. It keeps up with the major OS updates including having a release based on Android 17 since the day it was released (2026-06-16).
> Can someone explain this? I've used custom ROMs back in the day (Cyanogen!) but I'm not familiar with GrapheneOS.
GrapheneOS is a production quality OS with around 15 people paid to work on it. It's not a hobbyist project. We've never used the term custom ROM since it isn't accurate and propagates misconceptions. It's best to avoid it.
> The article mentions that an abuser could put spyware on your phone? Is that a realistic scenario?
Yes, stalkerware is very common and there are a bunch of apps marketed for this purpose. It's helpful to get a new phone set up from scratch without the same accounts or automatically restoring any data on it. This can be a GrapheneOS phone but it doesn't particularly need to be. It's not GrapheneOS recommending itself for this purpose. There are an assortment of privacy and security features relevant to this in standard Android 17 and in the features added by GrapheneOS but nothing essential to this. GrapheneOS makes sense as a general choice for a new phone for many people due to being a highly usable, compatible, private and secure device but we're not specifically recommending it for being who are victims of stalkerware ourselves.
Yes, stalkerware is an entire genre of software and it is designed for exactly this purpose.
How “stalkerware” apps are letting abusive partners spy on their victims https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/07/10/134249/stalkerwa...
The Abuser in Your Pocket: How Stalkerware Threatens Women’s Privacy https://safeescape.org/stalkerware-threatens-womens-privacy/
'I thought I'd been microchipped': How abusers spy on partners with 'parental control' apps https://news.sky.com/story/i-thought-id-been-microchipped-ho...
A web search for the term will turn up many more results. Graphene OS's hardening against exploits, compared to the abysmal record of Android vendors, gives much better odds against any of these apps being able to run with elevated privileges, which means Android's sandboxing is effective.
(Happy Graphene OS user of many years here.)
I am having a hard time believing your first link, which says:
> In Anna’s case, stalkerware was disguised as a picture message, sent to her by the man she was dating (let’s call him David), just a few weeks after they met. She was then under constant surveillance for about two years
That sounds like an NSO-level attack, right? I doubt abusers routinely pull that out?!
I totally get the problem that "the abuser knows the iCloud password and can use the FindMyPhone feature to track the victim", or "the abuser convinced the victim to install an app that would track the victim without their consent". But I am genuinely wondering how much GrapheneOS protects against that.
There are many tiers of far easier remote attacks far easier than exploiting an up-to-date iPhone through iMessage of WhatsApp. It doesn't mean that's what happened but it's often not something that's extremely difficult. Many people use phones with years of missing security patches. It's getting increasingly easy to exploit those in the age of LLMs.
Regardless, it sounds more like a social engineering attack tricking someone into installing an invasive app and granting invasive permissions to it.
> I doubt abusers routinely pull that out?!
They do regularly use social engineering to trick their partners into setting up stalkerware or permitting it to be installed. Getting a new phone and accounts is a very helpful for people who are victims of it. They've often given access to their accounts and devices without knowing how to fully get rid of it. Reclaiming the existing devices and accounts is far easier if they have a clean one to start from where they can get technical help. It doesn't specifically need to be a GrapheneOS device, but it's a good choice in general and doesn't require being technically savvy to use or even install it.
Not really, these are available to any script kiddy as long as unpatched phones and software exists. It takes some initial effort to find them out, but that is it.
And I remember similar attacks floating around few years ago even outside domestic violence situation.
Their docs are really good, not only for their phone but for learning about privacy and security: https://grapheneos.org
You could still install an app that spies on you on grapheneos because it has 99.99% android app compatibility, so if you gave an app designed for spying the relevant permissions, it would still be able to spy. No way it could hide location indicator or anything like that, but I doubt it could do that on other OSes (don't quote me on other OSes).
- App isolation and hidden profiles (up to 32 separate profiles)
- Verified Boot (tamper detection on every startup)
So you can do stuff on there that's not going to tip off someone who's controlling enough to demand to see your phone, and so you'll at least be tipped off if someone compromises it.
I am a happy user of GrapheneOS, I don't know about "hidden" profiles. I am not sure what they are talking about.
> App isolation
That's an Android thing, not specific to GrapheneOS.
> Verified Boot (tamper detection on every startup)
That's an Android thing, not specific to GrapheneOS.
I see hidden profiles is an open issue, here: https://github.com/GrapheneOS/os-issue-tracker/issues/5003
If you do want a smart phone, but don't want rubbish on it, Graphene is very bare-bones by default. F-Droid and other FOSS-friendly app stores can fill in a lot of gaps, and respect your privacy.
Some apps will simply not run without Play Services, but if you had to use such an app, I believe you could do it in a second profile and have Play Services disabled in your main. Regular apps installed for secondary profiles show as "Not installed for this user" in my main, but Play Services is a bit special.
No offence but... next time maybe make it clear that you are just assuming and don't have any experience with the thing you are describing?
> My mental picture would have been it having partitioned storage (to reduce chance of accidental over writes) filled with "random seeming 'noise'" that held hidden account specific data only accessible with a user provided key.
That would be a normal account on an encrypted phone. Nothing special about that.
How did we get there?
Why?
Here we're discussing a domestic abuse situation, where people are forcing victims to hand over their phone, and have apps installed to keep track of them. Against their will.
And the solution is to... what? Mysteriously have control of your own phone, and install an OS which prevents this? Seriously? I can just imagine it, when the unfamiliar OS is discovered, or the app not working. This is a domestic abuse situation, it's not about hidden sneakiness.
It's about in-your-face control. It's about forced compliance, or else. It's about the abuser becoming exceptionally upset about their tracking not working, or about a new, mysterious OS.
Installing GrapheneOS would not be tolerated. It would be an act which comes with reprisals. I can just imagine the reaction when the abuser can't get the phone to do as they wish, for the person to disclose what the OS is, or just to hand over their unlocked phone, and discover it's GrapheneOS, and Google it and see what it's for.
It's actually horrible advice to advocate the someone in this situation installs GrapheneOS. How could it possibly help?
GrapheneOS is great to protect from secret, unknown spying. Not some domestic abuse situation where spying isn't via secretness.
It's not like Google is going to sell your tracking data to abuser.
There are many reasons to get rid of Google altogether, I just don't understand this one.
Police can obtain data from Google. Police can be abusers or friends with abusers.
No, that's exactly the fear. With enough disclaimers and third parties involved, a motivated, highly intelligent and rich attacker with the right connections could get that information.
The tl;dr is that you can either share this data by accident through some sort of "locate my family" app, or because your abuser gets access to your Google/Apple account (for instance because you're signed in on another device they have access to).
The threat model here can be: domestic abuse victim flees a situation at home in a hurry, stays signed in on a computer. Abuser uses the sign-in on that computer to track their phone, figures out they're staying at their aunt's place.
Yes, you can avoid this on a regular Google phone as well, but that requires correctly configuring it (and a lot, such as location and search history, can be re-enabled remotely!). If you're running Graphene you are protected by default, rather than compromised by default.
Technically you can use fdroid, Aurora store, or only use stock applications but if we are serious, not all domestic abuse victims are also geeks that know how to do all these things.
They will need their apps, for instance for social security. Also, many people use their phone to pay nowadays, can't do on grapheneos.
Domestic abuse is a serious threat and people are motivated to stay away from their abusers, but if you give them something so barebone that they can't do 90% of their stuff, a significant percentage of them will revert to their old behavior and risk compromising themselves. For instance, buying a second phone and connecting it to the old Google account just to browse tiktok.
Grapheneos has 99.99% app compatibility and over 90% of banking apps are compatible.
It's not as easy as it can be (the text is aimed at people familiar with Android flashing) but in practice you need to toggle one setting, reboot holding the volume button, and then click four buttons in your browser in order, with the exact names for settings spelled out in the guide itself.
I don't think wiping an abuser's malware is such a great solution unless you've already managed to get out of the DV situation. Perhaps GrapheneOS is a good idea on a secret second phone?
I am a (very happy) GrapheneOS user, I am certain that I can install a tracking app on it. I can even easily side-load an abusive app that would be banned on the Play Store...
Like I would totally recommend GrapheneOS because it's great, but I don't think it solves the problem of "a domestic abuser can access your phone by making you give access to your phone".
They also recommend at least 12 GB RAM. What about domestic abuse survivors requires that?
Two tips for beginners:
Google Play Store and Google Play Services can be installed from the App Store. They aren’t included by default because GrapheneOS works fine without them.
If a trusted app has trouble running, try enabling Exploit protection compatibility mode on the app’s Info screen (long-press the app icon → Info → Exploit protection).
Check whether your bank is supported: https://privsec.dev/posts/android/banking-applications-compa.... If it isn’t, it likely depends on the Play Integrity API, which means it requires customers to stay under constant surveillance by the world’s largest advertising company, with no real security justification (see https://grapheneos.org/articles/attestation-compatibility-gu...). In that case, you should switch to a more trustworthy bank.
It has 99.99% android app compatibility. Over 90% of banking and government apps work. These apps take extra measures to ban grapheneos, apps must put in work to make their app incompatible, not the other way around.
I wouldn't say anyone can use it, if you can't sign in to a Google account by yourself then you would have trouble setting it up. But that would be similar on iOS. For the average person, definitely. There's no code or anything like that. Works just like stock Pixels.
If I was giving it to my grandma then I would install her apps and she would be fine clicking icons. But similar on iOS.
Yeah that RAM mention is very strange, not the best article.
Let's not normalize this kind of profiteering out of OSS.
I wouldn’t recommend domestic violence victims to install graphene os on their phone by themselves
Getting a new phone is very useful to someone that's a victim of a controlling partner but it doesn't particularly need to be a GrapheneOS device. GrapheneOS has features useful for this including Auditor and standard Android profiles but we're not specifically recommending it for this ourselves. People who are victims of this probably just need a new phone of any kind and to prioritize other things.
[1] attestation.app
"Australian research shows that 99% of domestic violence cases now involve some form of technology-facilitated abuse."
Where the "Australian research" is linked to a page where the first Key Finding states:
"Over one quarter (27%) of domestic violence cases involve technology-facilitated abuse of children."
Doesn't fill me with confidence in anything they say (even if I do believe the advice is right).
Can you expand on what it is that "Doesn't fill [you] with confidence" ?
* Page 9: https://www.esafety.gov.au/sites/default/files/2020-12/Child...
Have you seen how many articles recommend not secure and not private alternative phones, that's not cool.
Edit: damn some of their phones with it preloaded are like 4x the price your can get for pixels in the state's. Can't speak to Australian prices for regular pixels tho.
So not quite a 50% markup on the bard phone, not quite as bad as 4x.
And while I'd feel like a jerk if I asked for money helping someone at risk of DV setting this up, if I was doing it as a business with the mandatory warranty and support this'd need to include in Australia, I think that's expensive but probably fair?
Interesting they don't sell the 10a, seems like a great budget phone from what I've seen.
Edit: I didn't consider taxes and initially I assumed exchange rates were more similar then they are.
Law in my profile heh (not on purpose)
I don't hate it nearly as much as this weird genre of accelerationism where any attempt to improve one's immediate circumstances is just a distraction from the real work that needs to be done.
Aside from that, GrapheneOS isn't read-only memory firmware and that incorrect term should be avoided since it propagates misconceptions.
I looked at this headline and I thought to myself, that I couldn't think of a stupider solution or a dumber sales pitch than "hey DV victims! use this complex gadget!"
No. I mean, come on. This is the sort of thing where people read a poster in the ladies' room and then they carefully plan a discreet exit from their life of abuse. These are very low-tech escapes. They involve packing your necessities and slipping out while your abuser's not watching.
And yes, the social safety nets, and the institutional protections, are the operational needs here. No gadgets, please.
The discret exist where you leave everything behind is the most disasterous situation to be in.
Those Android distributions you refer to are not up to date, don't fully remove Google services, don't ship patches fast, don't improve exploit protections, have worse compatibility, don't make Google's services more private by running them in a sandbox, dont add additional important permissions.
Grapheneos ships security updates faster then Google on pixels. If you want the best protection against zero days or mass surveillance, grapheneos is the best option.
Grapheneos is fully run on donations and has provided information in various posts. Most crypto donations by volume are in Monero, Eth and Bitcoin have a few large donations. They are registered as a legal entity in Canada.