Since GrapheneOS is the standard recommendation for a custom ROM on Pixel devices and comes up very often, I figured we should have a thread about it.
For those who are using it, what Pixel device are you running GrapheneOS on and how is the overall experience? What are the things that you like about GrapheneOS and what are things you miss from the factory Android install?
As for me, my curiosity got the better of me and I finally went and installed GrapheneOS on my Pixel 7a using the web installer on Arch Linux and a USB cable.
So far, nothing unexpected and I’ll have to do a bit of exploring of the OS’ security features. The OS works just fine and feels obviously way cleaner and less bloated, the annoying search widget finally went away without having to install a custom launcher. The only thing that scared me a bit in the beginning was the contacts not syncing and some purchased apps not transferring over as the sandboxed Google Play saw the device as a different one but that was solved by giving it permission to access contacts and also waiting for Google Play to do its thing. Google Camera and Google Photos also worked fine without network permissions.
I haven’t tried Google Wallet’s NFC payments yet and I have no hopes for that one to work on GrapheneOS, but that is certainly a feature I will miss.
Damn, what is it holding it back ?
Android Auto can’t work with sandboxing, it basically needs to run as root and get full access to absolutely everything on the device.
I’d not expect it to work ever, unless someone spends significant time reverse engineering it.
The devs are currently working on Android Auto support! They are testing it and it should be released in a few releases I can’t find the right the link. But they also did announce it on twitter: https://twitter.com/GrapheneOS/status/1721263825192726737?s=19
I shared the literal quote from the grapheneos devs with a buddy, but didn’t save the url: “Android Auto support for sandboxed Google Play has been implemented in a feature branch and is being tested”
You can find multiple Quotes by the devs in their discord / matrix channels, just search for Android auto Last reply was an hour ago saying support is coming “very soon”
Neat! That’s a massive undertaking considering how much stuff needs to be shimmed to protect privacy, surprised anyone bothered! But I guess someone on the team must have bought a new car recently and want it working.
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