Comment by pyrophane

I'm under no illusion that google doesn't know I own my multiple accounts. They most certainly do. I usually use the same user agent (with containers) on the same IP, after all.

But my goal is to avoid a stranger gaining access to my google services if they manage to unlock a lost device or steal my TV/streaming box that has no lock at all.

I wish Google supported a permission system per device. For example on most of my android devices all I really want is to be logged into Youtube and the play store. I most certainly do not want those devices to have access to my contacts, emails, calendar, keep, drive, payment, etc. (I don't personally use all of those things, but you might and that's what a random thief would gain access to.)

Piggybacking on this... I create my fair share of "burner accounts" and almost always they (not just Google) connect it to my true identity. Granted I'm not using VPNs or really trying to hide the connection but it seems trivial for them to associate.

AFAIK Graphene is mainly focused on security and not privacy. It just seems to have become a sort of go-to for people who want to deGoogle I guess.

Google's business model is providing you services that are excellent, while also providing advertisers access to your willing eyeballs when you use those services.

Yes, the advertising targeting is incredibly invasive, but let's not pretend they aren't providing world class Search, Email, Docs, Maps, Video (YT), etc in exchange.

Yes, F-Droid and its apps are great <3 They add so much security by simply not having a lot of tracking code that can be exploited and tries to hook all over your system. And they have reproducible builds which is something the commercial stores don't even bother with. This is really important for security. I don't understand that GrapheneOS advises against them.

And yeah the iris scans sound like a scare but only 2 years ago there was a constant line of zombies here in the shopping mall giving their eye scans to altman.

The masses really don't care about privacy if you give them a worthless trinket.

I've honestly never understood why F-Droid even still exists. Every time I've tried to use it (as recently as half a year ago) it's still a shitshow and never displays or updates apps correctly. Half the time an app showed up on the website that didn't show up on the phone app. The other half of the time even when I did get something installed, it would just never understand that an update existed and needed to download and update a given app. It's one of the worst pieces of software I've used in a while, and I can tolerate a good bit of jank from FOSS apps.

> > a Google Account that isn't tied to anything else.

> Isn't that pretty much impossible? You need a phone number for verification, which effectively ties it to that phone number.

I just want to follow-up on this because some people claim this is not correct because they have managed to create accounts without phone numbers.

Indeed, I think to this day, under special circumstances (like e.g. on reasonably recent Android devices) you might be able to setup a Google account without phone number.

The trick is, that in the general case, you can not keep this account online indefinitely.

I once worked out a trick to get it going and I was feeling safe because I had setup 2FA and backup codes (see https://masysma.net/37/google_how_to_create_an_account_witho...).

First thing to note: This way of account creation does not seem to work anymore.

Second thing to note: After once logging in from a different country, trying to login again REQUIRES me to provide a phone number after successfully giving username/password/2FA code. No way to use the recovery code instead...

Also, given that this account was never before connected to a phone of any kind, by definition, the addition of a phone number cannot provide additional security confirmation (it's data that simply wasn't present before and any "personal" phone number could potentially do -- of course I haven't tried, because that's the point of not linking a phone number).

I think this way it is finally proven that they only do this to harvest the data/phone numbers and any claim of enhanced security is void.

I write this after having lost the second account to the phone number required screen despite being in possession of all the credentials which were ever assigned to that account...

You can create an account with no phone number during Android device setup.

You can also just get a burner phone number for a few bucks.

Accounts created on stock Pixels don’t require phone numbers.

Same. Twint (basically the Swiss Venmo) insists that my phone is not compatible with it.

But using Aurora I can install it just fine and it works flawlessly.

This is exactly why I switched to Aurora. I couldn't even install Balatro from the Play Store.

I have similar problems installing region locked apps as someone who's fairly frequently in different regions.

Do you trust the banking app installed from Aurora enough to do your online banking? I don't, and I really wish there would be a decent way to verify that the installed/provided apps are legit. For me this is the biggest downside of using GrapheneOS, which I'm otherwise extremely happy with.

(for me, the whole point of using GrapheneOS is privacy and not sending data to Google, so using the PlayStore is not an option)

The government didnt ask google, they changed the name on the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS), which is the official legal mapping source which other companies like Google etc use. Hence the change filtered down through software from the top official channel.

Name changes happen all the time and I would expect Google to match what the government sources use locally. The fact that the government is capricious is no reason for me to desire Google to become an alternative naming center.

GrapheneOS is focused on privacy but that must come from a secure baseline.

GrapheneOS is much more privacy focussd than any other mobile operating system. Accrescent is the end goal for a secure and private app store but it's still in alpha. GrapheneOS is also the best for degoogling (eliminating all google services) because it comes with zero Google services unlike all the other ones listed here: https://eylenburg.github.io/android_comparison.htm

How can you call other OSes more privacy focused when they haven't closed as many VPN leaks as GrapheneOS? That's like bare minimum for privacy.

Better security, for once. You get (security) updates a lot faster with GrapheneOS.

Also on GrapheneOS, Play Services and Play Store come unprivileged, sandboxed like any other app. So Google is not an admin on your phone, which I would argue is one step towards "severing the umbilical cord".

Moreover, GrapheneOS doesn't have any issue with apps sideloading.

And more. There are many reasons to use GrapheneOS.

If you create it on a stock Pixel device the phone requirement gets dropped.

It's the SomethingAwful model: go to the store and find the cheapest Android phone from some prepaid company for :tenbux: then use it to set up your Google account during out-of-box-setup while on the store's free public WiFi (since Google OOBE allows free account creation without a number or existing email), then toss the phone in a drawer afterwards.

"Hope ya got ten bucks!"

(I got a random 5G Moto phone for ~$10 on clearance and it was an absolute shitter of a phone full of garbage packed in malware, but after cleaning and debloating as much as I can, it's at least a nifty toy to poke at Termux or something.)

I recently had to set up a new Android device for work. Since I keep all my personal accounts separate from my work accounts, I needed to create a new Google account on that phone. I ended up paying $8 for a month of the cheapest service I could find just to get a phone number so I could create that account.