Comment by other8026
16 hours ago
That's very false. GrapheneOS is a better choice for deGoogling than alternatives.
Sandboxed Google Play isn't installed by default, so our users don't have to use it if they don't want to.
Sandboxed Google Play doesn't have privileged permissions and has no more permissions than other user-installed apps. This means that they have the same restrictions as other user-installed apps.
> This means that they have the same restrictions as other user-installed apps.
This isn't meaningful when the other user-installed apps are calling Google Play Services in the same sandbox.
Those apps still contain the closed source Google Play SDK and libraries with microG including libraries which connect to Google directly. microG still uses most of the same Google services and even downloads closed source Google executables which it runs with all of the permissions and privileged access granted to it. That code runs with access to Location and invasive privileged access to the OS with microG as integrated in the main operating systems using it while on GrapheneOS it doesn't have any of that at all.
GrapheneOS gives drastically less access to closed source Google Play code including the SDK, libraries and droidguard than the microG approach on /e/. It's strictly less, not more in any way. GrapheneOS does not allow it to access anything not already accessible to the SDK and libraries in the apps using those.
This Google service functionality also doesn't come as part of GrapheneOS. GrapheneOS has network location, geocoding and other functionality included in the OS via standalone implementations not tied to Google service compatibility as they are with microG.
GrapheneOS does reimplement the Google Play location service, but it does so inside of apps using it as a library to avoid needing a new service with location access and other privileges. It uses the OS network location when enabled but the OS network location is entirely independent from it.
You're not seeing the big picture. Imagine every app with a Google library is basically the app & mini Google Play Services.
---
App & mini Google Play Services = access is restricted, like other regular apps.
App & mini Google Play Services + Sandboxed Google Play (unprivileged) = virtually the same access as above
App & mini Google Play Services + microG (privileged) = Google has the same access as the situations above, but with worse app compatibility, worse security (especially because of privileged access), and worse privacy (leaks).
---
You're worried about apps without special permissions to anything sharing usage data that they have access to anyway while ignoring the huge problems with microG just because "Google bad". That's hardly a sane approach to privacy.
That is the meaning. The point of sandboxed google play is to reduce google services to the same unprivileged access all other apps get on android. Normally, google play is incredibly privileged.