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Heaps of questions from a brand new grapheneos user (thelemmy.club)
submitted 4 months ago by to c/graphene_os@lemmy.sdf.org
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Hi everyone

Writing this on my new (second hand) pixel with grapheneos. Have been watching this project for a few years and stoked to finally be here. I'm getting closer and closer to the online life I want all the time.

I have a few questions:

  1. Sourcing apps - is it safer to use f-droid (in my case I like the neo-store) or obtainium?

  2. For non open-source apps, Aurora or sandboxed google play?

  3. Is it OK to use WiFi at my work? Or at the mall? What are the risks? I've got a VPN but using it prevents me from accessing my server via tailscale

  4. WhatsApp - I've tried to set up whatsapp but I get stuck at retrieving the backup from google drive. I'm seeing conflicting views on weather or not this is possible. It'd be great but its a price I'm willing to pay if it means not using WhatsApp

  5. Can any app be sandboxed?

  6. What else should I know about operating the phone? I'm effectively an absolute beginner to grapheneos

  7. My phone now won't connect to the internet without the VPN, is this normal?

Any advice appreciated, thank you

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[–] 1 point 4 months ago

I don't know the answers to most of these because I've only been using graphene for a few days but here's my supposition:

  1. I prefer droidify to obtainium or f-droid. Neither is more safe than another.
  2. I didn't know about aurora. Thankyou. My supposition is that for apps that don't use any google apis at all, using aurora means google won't know you have that app. For apps that use google's api in any way, it would be the same as installing with the play store.
  3. I don't really understand this question. What constitutes a "risk" is very specific to you and your concerns, your own threat model. I will say though, you can absolutely configure something like wireguard to use different connections for different destinations. For example, on my android phone I've used a wireguard connection for my private server and everything else is not tunneled.
  4. I've had trouble with whatsapp. I think I lost my chat history, but I don't really care.
  5. IDK.
  6. IDK.
  7. No, not normal.
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