Comment by thomastjeffery
10 days ago
As great as GrapheneOS has been, I'm still tempted to switch to LineageOS. Sure, it would be objectively less secure, but at least then I might be able to disable the obnoxious "automatically disabled 3 unused background apps" notifications.
The biggest problem with security culture is its obsessive hyperfocus on security. Any change that could possibly be less secure (even in extremely exclusive circumstances) must be wrong. Even if it improves accessibility, it must be rejected out of hand.
GrapheneOS promises to liberate us from the enshittification of Google's anticompetitive moat; but it focuses that effort exclusively on security. Everything else that was enshittified gets carefully preserved as-is in the name of "security".
All I want is a mobile computer that does what I tell it to. Why is that constantly treated as an unreasonable fantasy?
> Even if it improves accessibility, it must be rejected out of hand
GrapheneOS has many exploit mitigations and those that would break compatability with too much apps are opt-in instead of opt-out. They also have per app toggles so you can decide to use them per app. So they certainly don't sacrifice accessibility for the highest level of security.
> GrapheneOS promises to liberate us from the enshittification of Google's anticompetitive moat
This isn't something GrapheneOS promises anywhere on their website. They aim to offer a secure and private OS with good compatability with Android apps.
> but it focuses that effort exclusively on security.
They focus on privacy and usability as well. Security is actually only focused on because the privacy features aren't enforceable without security.
> Why is that constantly treated as an unreasonable fantasy?
Because tinkering, hackability and unrestricted freedom aren't the purposes for which GrapheneOS was made.
It's good enough for you, and therefore it can't get any better. Interrupting the user with pointless notifications is not security. Removing the ability to disable those notifications is only a security feature if the user wants then in the first place!
The problem here is more than the lack of interest in making a system that is both secure and usable. It's the outright rejection of usability as a goal.