Note: This is a continuation of my initial thoughts article that I wrote a month ago. You may be interested in reading that as well.
So I’ve been using GrapheneOS as my daily driver for a month now. I’m still digging the experience, though I’m still getting used to having to check a specific app I use to communicate with coworkers. On that note, it does sound like GrapheneOS is working on a solution to the apps that depend on G Services running on your device. That’ll be a huge boost to the usability of GrapheneOS for the average user. Lets talk about some of the solutions to a few things I’ve run into (keep in mind, many are apps you could install without having GrapheneOS as well).
One being used is shelter in order to greater sandbox those apps you don’t want having access to your stuff but still need for some reason. It’s a app that creates a “work profile” for you that segregates apps into their own area of your phone.
Since you’re managing the apps in that profile instead of an employer, you’ll have to keep them updated (cloning aurora store or another package manager to the work profile is an easy solution).
With those trouble apps being in their own profile on your device, they wont follow any VPN or blocker app you may be using though. So you may want to install a blocker app in your work profile such as blokada or tracker control. This way, even though they shouldn’t have access to your files, you can also block some of the trackers and/or ads they try to use.
Although I have been a fan of the default launcher in GrapheneOS, I decided to install Shade Launcher because it adds support for icon packs and a couple other additional features. The drive behind that, was because I found a great icon pack called arcticons. It goes quite well with a black background, as you might have to save battery, and looks great. The developer has a wide selection of icons already, one of the most complete for the apps I use anyway. Plus the developer is responsive and accepts icon requests in case there are any you’re missing.
I still haven’t needed to use the navigation much yet, so I’m still running both Organic Maps and OsmAnd currently, though I think I prefer OsmAnd as of now. I also installed StreetComplete as a way to give a little back to the OSM project and make the navigation/mapping a bit better. It is a quest style app to help you contribute to the OSM database with missing information without needing to know formatting or anything technical. They’re simple questions like what is the house number here or does this street have lighting.
Before we leave the topic of apps, I would like to recommend one in particular that doesn’t quite fit with the theme, but is great. Puzzles has an assortment of different puzzle & logic based games that are easy to lose track of time while playing. It is a great collection of games in case you need something to do while waiting in line to get your drivers license renewed or whatever situation calls for a boredom killer.
I’ve come to like not getting pushing notifications every time I get an email now, and have learning to just check email a few times per day as nothing requires immediate action on my part. So if GrapheneOS does push an update to handle G Services dependent push notification in a future release, I’ll probably disable the notification on my email app of choice.
Looking forward to seeing what else GrapheneOS brings to the table of android and continue to use a phone that doesn’t “phone” home all the time (sorry about the pun). Hope everyone is having a great summer.
Bryan's Blog 