Comment by grapheneos
10 hours ago
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.
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