Hello, making this post to get some honest, and technical opinions about GrapheneOS. Please do not be bother by this question. No drama here pls 🙏. I’ve heard that there is some of the google code into the “sandbox” feature. Say your opinion below! 👇👇
I’ve seen that you basically have two choice (more but not very relevant) GrapheneOS for security and /e/OS for privacy. Thoughts on it?
E often falls behind on patch levels, see the page here https://divestos.org/pages/patch_history
/e/OS is not for privacy but more for anonymization. It has a built in VPN and a ton of spoofing stuff afaik. It’s closer to Qubes if you ask me. And I heard it had proprietary software so ehh it’s made to make you look like the most average internet user so you can search anonymously. I don’t have enough information about this ROM but I wouldn’t use it on my main device.
Why you wouldn’t use it on main device?
Convenience, proprietary software and because it’s not completely degoogled. I use LineageOS on my device and I’m happy with it. I can use Qubes or a VPN if I want an anonymous search.
LineageOS is more degoogled than others like eOS?
LineageOS actually seems to be getting less degoogled recently. They’re adding stuff for better Google apps support (that can be installed manually). But I believe it’s as degoogled as reasonable custom ROMs get. Not much advanced privacy/anonymization features though and no stuff like Play Integrity support obviously. It’s a ROM for these who don’t need gapps at all. And if you do, just buy a second hand device with the stock ROM and put your banking apps there. Play Integrity doesn’t work well on any custom ROMs now anyways.
EDIT: also EOS is EndeavourOS that is a Linux distro.
Like the other reply said, Lineage doesn’t do a whole lot in terms of degoogling. I quite enjoy DivestOS, it’s a project that takes Lineage as a base and strips out as much Google and proprietary code as possible.
In fact, it’s so Google-free that neither sandboxed Play Services nor MicroG are officially supported, though the latter can still be installed and used just fine, though with a few drawbacks.
Same as Lineage, it runs on more devices, but certain features like bootloader relocking depend on the phone.
Microg has drawbacks.
Some stuff won’t work such as android auto
DivestOS is the most thoroughly degoogled of the android ROMs (it removes the most proprietary binary blobs). DivestOS is also decently security hardened, better security hardening than any other Android ROM other than GrapheneOS. But since it removes more of these proprietary blobs, it further reduces the attack surface of the ROM. Both GOS and DivestOS are good options. As commented by another user, /e/OS falls behind on security updates often, which is quite bad for a security or privacy focused OS.