Comment by onli
7 days ago
GrapheneOS claims to be a lot more secure, having additional hardening. See https://eylenburg.github.io/android_comparison.htm - keep in mind that it is not an independent comparison, the Graphene guys directly feed what this table is supposed to say in the issue tracker, https://github.com/eylenburg/eylenburg.github.io/issues/. But it gives a good representation of the state of the ROMs according to Graphene.
In regular use, main difference will be that /e/OS comes with access to the alternative cloud service that project provides. It uses the default FOSS solution microG for google api compatibility, unlike GrapheneOS with their sandbox approach. /e/OS sets on AppLounge to install and upgrade both play store or F-Droid apps. Graphene has a small curated app repo instead.
I'd never use GrapheneOS since I don't trust the project. /e/OS is also not my favorite since it feels like it is developing slowly, having had issues with outdated software versions - though it does work well in practice. Have a look at iode for an alternative.
> I'd never use GrapheneOS since I don't trust the project
Fair enough, you choose what you trust.
But personally, I have never seen a technical claim from GrapheneOS that was wrong or misleading. But I have seen many claims from /e/OS that were technically wrong or misleading. So I trust GrapheneOS more.
Then there is the drama, and all sides annoy me when they behave like this. But I have seen drama coming from all sides.
I have never seen drama from /e/ or any other project GrapheneOS attacks, like Calyx. Please link me to it - I asked this several times, people never can follow up. So far?
> Please link me to it - I asked this several times, people never can follow up. So far?
Sorry, I won't spend 30 minutes digging to find that :-). I follow /e/OS, GrapheneOS and (followed) Calyx. I have seen messages from all of those either on forums, Mastodon, etc.
Also, whenever GrapheneOS makes a technical point (which is often a blunt "GrapheneOS is superior because [...] does it wrong"), many users of those projects answer aggressively (and of course many GrapheneOS participate as well).
And on top of that, a lot of messages criticising some GOS people or the entire project and calling them "toxic" whenever GrapheneOS is mentioned.
I have no skin in this game, so it doesn't touch me. But I could understand that the GOS people feel "harassed" by this. If everywhere I went people said "have you seen this guy? I hear he's toxic", I would consider it harassment, I think?
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The founder of /e/OS regularly comments on posts about GrapheneOS on social media, almost always unsubstantive and of a low level.
> GrapheneOS claims to be a lot more secure
That's not just a claim, this is an objective fact. GrapheneOS has a excellent track record when it comes to security, they have made several patches that got upstreamed to Android, etc.
/claims/
> GrapheneOS claims to be a lot more secure, having additional hardening.
GrapheneOS has been heavily analyzed by privacy and security experts who say it provides far better privacy and security. There's a large amount of real world evidence showing GrapheneOS very successfully defends against commercial exploits tools. /e/ has been heavily criticized for having poor privacy and atrocious security by many experts. /e/ doesn't keep up with basic privacy/security patches and misses many important standard protections.
> keep in mind that it is not an independent comparison
That's not true. It's an independent comparison and the site compares a lot of other software. Contributors to many of the projects compared by it submit issues to it which doesn't many it not an independent comparison.
> In regular use, main difference will be that /e/OS comes with access to the alternative cloud service that project provides.
GrapheneOS users have many cloud services available including suites from Proton and others. Murena services have poor privacy and security overall due to neglecting server security, updates and more. Their speech-to-text service being a thin wrapper around OpenAI sending this sensitive user data to them rather than doing it locally as our SpeechServices app does similarly to Apple (even Google has that as an option):
https://community.e.foundation/t/voice-to-text-feature-using...
> It uses the default FOSS solution microG for google api compatibility
Their approach with microG gives highly privileged access to Google apps/services by default. GrapheneOS doesn't include sandboxed Google Play by default and they're installed as regular apps. microG doesn't change the fact that the apps are using closed source Google libraries, which are still present with microG and have strictly more access to user data on /e/ than GrapheneOS with sandboxed Google Play. Sandboxed Google Play is an entirely opt-in feature people need to install. /e/ has microG set up where it downloads closed source Google Play components it runs with privileged access as the default.
> /e/OS sets on AppLounge to install and upgrade both play store or F-Droid apps
This is a strange merger of Aurora Store, F-Droid and more. It's very misleading and confusing for users.
> /e/OS is also not my favorite since it feels like it is developing slowly, having had issues with outdated software versions - though it does work well in practice. Have a look at iode for an alternative.
Neither /e/ or iodéOS keeps up with updates to Android, Chromium, firmware, drivers or the Linux kernel. Both mislead users with an inaccurate Android security patch level. iodéOS lags far less behind /e/ and doesn't have nearly as many privacy violating services and added privacy/security flaws but neither is a privacy or security hardened OS. Neither keeps the privacy or security of standard AOSP intact.
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