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Comment by devjab

4 months ago

As an EU citizen the biggest issue for me is that even if I bought a fairphone with grapheneOS, it might as well be a "dumb" phone. This is because all the apps to make our daily lives non-annoying require the Google Play or the Apple App store. So to me it's the lack of digital sovereignty from the EU and our individual countries that is the main issue. Sure it would be nice if big tech didn't close their platforms, but that ship appears to have sailed. If they ever get around to making these apps available through a different store, then I don't see why I wouldn't want a different OS.

We still need open hardware and more companies like fairphone to utilize it, but we primarily need the EU to get it's act together and break the reliance on big tech app stores. I know there are a few companies trying to build app stores with the necessary security compliance and if the EU wants to be serious about digital sovereignty it'll need to support these.

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devjab

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bogwog  4 months ago

> As an EU citizen the biggest issue for me is that even if I bought a fairphone with grapheneOS, it might as well be a "dumb" phone. This is because all the apps to make our daily lives non-annoying require the Google Play or the Apple App store.

This is a common misconception I see around here, probably because people think Graphene is yet another custom rom like LineageOS, and haven't actually tried it for themselves.

GrapheneOS supports Google Play (it ships with an app that lets you install it in one click), it does NOT give you root access, and it goes through the extra effort of implementing the obscure security features that banking apps require. I won't say 100%, but maybe 99% of apps on Google Play will work on Graphene, including banking apps. This compatibility, along with the added security and privacy features are why it's such a big deal. It's not just hype around the latest shiny custom ROM.

  • NoGravitas  4 months ago

    Banking apps will work on Graphene if you have sandboxed Google Play Services installed, and if the banking app requires only a basic level of Play Integrity attestation. I got the same level of support with my previous LineageOS for MicroG phone as I have with my current GrapheneOS phone, it just required a lot more tinkering (and was a lot less secure).

    I do appreciate the work the GrapheneOS team puts in toward compatibility, and especially the fact that they just got RCS messaging working. But any time Google or even an app vendor wants to tighten the noose, they can, just by requiring the higher, hardware-backed attestation level.