[GTALUG] Freedom and Graphene

[Evan Leibovitch]

Thanks for the answers. Very helpful.

I think I'm going to just do a new $19/month minimum plan to check out
Freedom's coverage. Thanks to warnings here I won't consider moving my
existing service over yet. The OpenSignal app on my phone says that while
connectivity is good where I am, speeds are almost a quarter of my current
provider (Koodo/Telus). Freedom is making some noise about 5G and I believe
they have either bought or are going after some 5G spectrum. But I don't
know what to make of it yet.


> I had never heard of GrapheneOS; interesting that it *only* runs on
>> recent-ish Google Pixel phones.  As the battery on my OP5 starts to age, I
>> suspect I'll be looking at a Pixel in the not too distant future, certainly
>> of interest to hear what's up with alternative phone "firmware" these days,
>> particularly as it's difficult for them to keep up with hardware
>> evolution.  CM and LineageOS had history of supporting lots of devices;
>> Lineage has been hurting in that regard <https://download.lineageos.org/>
>> They used to support a wide variety of Samsung, but no models later than
>> about 2017 have been supported, no LG past about 2016, and such.  If
>> there's reason to expect better from GrapheneOS, that would sure be nice.
>> (That tells you some of the kinds of questions I'd hope might get answered
>> ;-) )
>>
>
"Why just Pixel" is answered in the FAQ
<https://grapheneos.org/faq#future-devices> and in more detail on Reddit
<https://www.reddit.com/r/GrapheneOS/comments/htwm9t/why_is_grapheneos_supported_only_on_pixels/>.
The main reason that I can extract is this is not your garden variety XDA
alternate ROM, and not every phone can be locked down as they demand.
GrapheneOS replaces boot and firmware code and requires you to relock the
bootloader at the end of the installation; that's something I haven't seen
before.

Customer service said I'd made that change from my phone when I enabled
> phone over wi-fi when that was available instead of LTE over the sim and
> they couldn't change it back. I even reverted to the original distribution
> OS but no joy on incoming calls after that glitch.
>

Unlike Koodo, Freedom has some brick-and-mortar stores and I hope the one
nearby may be more helpful than a call centre. That may be wishful thinking.

> I notice in the GraphineOS downloads the pixel 2 walleye release is
> supported. Thats the Pixel core base I'm running on my Nexus now, so I'd be
> interested in hearing about your install experience, to see if I can
> further kludge/extend the life of my own Nexus.
>

Because of the issues above (they replace far more than the system and user
partitions) I'd be careful. I think they're looking for exact hardware
matches, and note that there's no support for the Pixel 1 and only "legacy"
support for the Pixel 2.

I recently bought a used Pixel 3a for $200 just to try Graphene. This is
part of a personal experiment to see how private I can get with a
privacy-focused phone, no Google apps and a new Protonmail alter-ego email
account just made.

Installation was fast and flawless from my Kubuntu box. it doesn't require
TWRP or use recovery mode; everything is done using the "fastboot" comment
and fastboot mode on the phone.

Challenges so far are in setting up notifications, and to find apps that
don't require Google Play Services to run. Still, there are some
interesting finds, such as a hardened Chromium-based browser called Vanadium
<https://github.com/GrapheneOS/Vanadium> (which is more lightweight than
Bromium because it can take advantage of a hardened OS).  Users are warned
that Firefox is way too insecure <https://grapheneos.org/usage#web-browsing>
and should be avoided. I haven't yet set up email or calendar, but Signal
and Telegram work fine. A few games that I've tried don't work. But there
are two great apps, NewPipe and Aurora Store, that anonymize access to
YouTube and the Google Play Store respectively.

So far it's a battery beast, lasting many days on a charge. While it's not
checking email or calendar updates yet, it's also not spending any effort
telling Google where I am or what I'm doing.

It's an interesting project to be sure.

- Evan
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