No. They are two different projects.
Lineage is about providing a Google free version of android AOSP and supporting as many phones as possible.
Graphene is about making a privacy centric version of android that can run Google apps sandboxed. Graphene only supports pixel phones.
Lineage is not about providing a google free version of Android. It does not contain google apps, for licensing reasons, probably also to let the user choose. But it does not go further, all the other stuff like captive portal check, agps, dns etc still uses google servers. It’s not “degoogled” in any way. Love lineage btw but we need to be aware of what it is and isn’t.
I wonder where this misconception is coming from, it’s the second time in the last few days I’ve seen it. I can’t remember custom roms ever coming with the Google apps preinstalled, you’d always need to flash them separately before the first boot (thanks XDA). That’s why we have MindTheGApps.
It used to be that Cyanogenmod (the precursor project to LineageOS) shipped with Google apps pre installed until they got a cease and desist from Google.
I can’t remember custom roms ever coming with the Google apps preinstalled, you’d always need to flash them separately before the first boot
Many of them do these days. Which is a bit annoying when you want a no-gapps variant and can’t find it.
That’s interesting! They aren’t supposed to do that though, right? It goes against Google’s policy.
Probably because the lack of google apps is the most noticeable difference to stock android?
Sure, but installing them is a step in the LineageOS installation guide.
Is there still a good guide on how to fully degoogle lineage?
LineageOS4MicroG is a reasonable starting point. It includes MicroG out of the box, while disabling further app spoofing in the OS (whereas normally if you install MicroG yourself it’s much more difficult to disable app spoofing after you’ve got it set up).
But as /u/[email protected] said, this is more likely adding Google (or a mock version of it) to your phone, and LineageOS still doesn’t have a few things that other custom ROMs might - eg captive portal check, A-GPS and DNS settings that /u/[email protected] mentioned. To get rid of those you’ll have to try a proper custom ROM and just read the feature specs. I use DivestOS, and that seems to cover most things.
In my experience, not all that many apps require Google anymore. I get a few apps complain that they won’t work without Google services, but find that it’s just the map and payment functions that don’t work (meanwhile dedicated map apps like Waze work just fine). Going without Google services altogether is really just about sacrificing a relatively small bit of convenience.
My thing is, I like having root. Lineage tells me, “that’s okay.” Divest, Graphene, etc. tell me (correctly) that that’s insecure and I shouln’t do it. But I still want root, and don’t like the idea of opposing my ROM in what I’m doing.
Ditto, at least Divest doesn’t moan too much once you’re set up.
Degoogle is the wrong word for lineage because it hasn’t been “engoogled” in the first place, it doesn’t ship with Google services at all. If you simply install the base ROM you don’t have Google.
The question is if you want to replace Google with mock Google services so certain apps relying on GMS still work, or if you want to replace it completely with FOSS alternatives.
Does graphene allow banking apps ? Does it trip safety net ?
I think GrapheneOS isn’t made for that purpose. It’s made to be safe and do privacy well. I think signature spoofing, rooting to circumvent things etc are opposing requirements. I don’t think everything works. There are websites and other comments with more info. My Banking TAN App works, though. Google Pay doesn’t.
So google pay doesn’t work. That’s a bastard
Not to start an argument but why would one want to be using Google Pay after going through the process of de-googling their phone? Seems counterproductive.
Fair point. Is there an alternative to Google pay. I don’t use a card and pretty much refuse to use anywhere that requires care or cash
There are a few different ones. I highly recommend doing your own research to find one you’re comfortable with; reading multiple different reviews of each and whatnot. But here’s a site specialising in finding alternatives to services
Every alternative except Apple and Samsung pay, which are device specific and proprietary, seem to just be crypto. No NFC FOSS purchases.
So many cards have an nfc chip in them now. Just tap the physical card.
I don’t want to tap the card. Point of preference. I don’t have a wallet. I have a phone.
Google Pay gives you worse consumer rights than using your card with contactless. A contactless card purchase is processed as “cardholder not present”, the same as phone catalogue purchases always used to be done, and the same as online purchases. The seller assumes default responsibility in any dispute. When you make a purchase with your card pin, or when you make a purchase with Google Pay, both are considered secure and authorised by you, so that becomes the default position in a dispute.
If someone steals your card and uses it to make a bunch of contactless purchases, you’d have a much easier time getting them refunded than if the purchases were made with your phone.
How would they use my phone? It’s locked and requires fingerprint to unlock? Card requires nothing. Can lock down phone. Can lock card but need to contact bank.
Fingerprint is fairly easy to bypass, face unlock sometimes moreso. A PIN or password can be captured by just watching someone, and you’ll have far more opportunity to capture their phone PIN than you would their card PIN. If anything, you’re perhaps less likely to lose your card as it spends more time safe in your pocket.
The point is it can be done, and you’re in a worse position if/when it happens.
Sorry. Where are fingerprint readers easy to crack ? Maybe government agencies and high level crime syndicates. Not petty thief’s. I don’t use phone pin. I use fingerprint as discussed.
I don’t use card pin so that’s not an issue. The problem would be a contactless card. Which is the debate we are currently engaged in.
So no. I’ll stick with my phone using Google pay. I had my card skimmed with a card reader and my bank emptied. Funnily enough has never happened with my phone.
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And a few non-pixel devices, though it’s incredibly short list. Expansion was to start last fall, afaik.
I’d love to see this come to fruition. I’ve wanted Graphene since I first heard about it but refuse to pay the Google tax for admission and live with all the restrictions a Google device comes with
Google tax is a definite pain in the ass, but with graphene those restrictions no longer apply
By “Google tax” I mean having to buy one of their devices and the “restrictions” I’m referring to are the lack of headphone jack and micro SD card slot. They may mean nothing to you or others but they’re both bare minimum requirements for myself and others. For as long as they aren’t available on Pixel devices, I will never consider a Pixel.
I also hate the ass-backwards hole punch camera but that seems to be even more of a losing battle than the other common sense features I mentioned.
I’ve always found it both weird and ironic that GrapheneOS is only available for Pixel phones when the whole principle of the project is basically “we don’t trust Google”.
The pixel device is (as far as I’m aware) the only mainstream device that allows you to re-lock the boot loader.
Otherwise, once a phone is cracked, it remains cracked. I’m not entirely sure what that buys, but that’s why they do it
Most brands allow relocking bootloader. But after that you with be only able to use stock rom. Pixel lets you lock the bootloader with a different signature, so in this example you are basically able to lock it to only boot grapheneos and nothing else.
They also have an accessible secure element that graphene uses a lot. I’d recommend listening to the podcast interviews with graphene staff
Security. You’re caught with your pants down if you have any personal data on a phone with an unlocked bootloader. All data is effectively plaintext, all security is nullified with trivial difficulty. This is the actual worst-case scenario for journalists, whistleblowers, or anyone who is or may become under surveillance for any reason.
That’s wrong, data is still usually encrypted.
A locked bootloader ‘just’ prevents tampering with the OS. You’re only pwned when using the phone after it has been manipulated.
Yeah but if you have the phone with an unlocked bootloader and anyone gains access to it (physical or otherwise)…
They still wouldn’t be able to do very much. All an unlocked bootloader does is let you flash things via fastboot.
Even with a locked bootloader, you could still get into recovery and cause mischief with physical access. You wouldn’t be able to access the storage partition without decrypting it, but you could still maybe flash stuff to the system partition to infect it for the next time the phone is booted up.
Remote access to the phone won’t be able to do much of anything with an unlocked bootloader. The far bigger hazard is app signature spoofing (eg Magisk and MicroG), which if successfully exploited can cause all sorts of havok - you can have apps pretending to be other apps that have root access.
Even then, though, I think it’s a fair trade of risk. The chances of any of this happening are very, very low, albeit the consequence is extreme. I personally prefer that to the absolutely certain risk that Google is spying on my phone, even if the consequences of that spying are relatively low.
This isn’t true at all. Daniel Micay has stated multiple times the goal isn’t to degoogle, it’s to provide a secure and private OS that’s actually usable. They worked tirelessly to integrate GMS compatibility layer and give users the choice to install sandboxed Google play for app compatability.
GrapheneOS has said countless times that by using Linux and other open source softwares that Google contributes massive amounts of code, you ARE inherently trusting them to not be malicious https://nitter.1d4.us/GrapheneOS/status/1672998518573740033#m
Google play does what it says and they are very open about what data they collect, which is obviously a lot. GrapheneOS stops much of this collection through sandboxing, where you can deny any permissions you desire.
G provides a phone that is incredibly friendly to developers (as friendly as it can get without free hookers and blow), in all aspects, which makes sense considering they want devs to adopt android as their platform for apps and stuff. This also goes into things like security vulnerabilies/research, and also alternative android-based systems. It’s humorous but not at all ironic. Be friendly to devs, and make money hand over fist because of it.
It’s logical for both, just for very different motives.
What happened to LineageOS?
Nothing. What makes you think something happened to it?
It’s still very much alive! Still getting regular updates on my S10 and even security updates for my OnePlus 3t.
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I ran sailfish on my 1+1 back in the day for a while. It was a nice OS but the app ecosystem was just horrible and their android compatibility just never worked right for me.
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Yeah, I feel the same about Firefox OS, Ubuntu mobile, Web OS, and Meego. I wish we had a third option at least, that was a little more viable for people that have a handful of apps for widgets and stuff. At this point I think that any real contender is going to have to bake android compatibility in to hope to make a dent in the market at all. Too many normal people expect to be able to use their phone to control some gadgets they have bought, smart stuff and iot gear. Without rewriting all the various apps to control those gadgets people are going to be hesitant to try anything else going forward IMHO.
I’m using LineageOS 20 right now, waiting on 21. I’ve been getting weekly updates since I installed it, so things seem fine for them.
Also on Lineage and loving it
Aren’t they differing systems? Graphene was mostly pixel / Google devices. Whereas lineageos was a hunch of different devices. Lineageos was an evolution from cryomod
LineageOS is still in development. While there’s no official Android 14 (LineageOS 21) yet, there are development builds available, and LOS 20 is still receiving regular official weekly updates.
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No lol GrapheneOS is a different project run by developer divas. It’s super secure, but only if you use a Google phone, which totally makes it safe. The television ad told me so.
LineageOS is the main pure AOSP ROM, over all the others. It’s still chugging along quite fine, albeit its customisation options have always been fairly limited compared to other custom ROMs.
If you’re using LineageOS4MicroG and complaining about updates, well, you wouldn’t be the first. This fork follows the main tree but updates veeeeeery slowly, such that there are always people asking if it’s dead. So far, after every one of the countless times that’s happened, it’s still been going - so it probably still is.
I personally run DivestOS and feel happy. No developer drama, and I’m not locked in to Google hardware. Ultimately though, all Android phone hardware manufacturers play the same games. It sickens me that so many of them require you to ask their permission to unlock the bootloader on the device you own.
I tried running dos but the location services being removed made life rather difficult so I had to go back to a different room. How do you get taxi apps to work without location services?
I don’t use them too much, but manage to get Uber working with just addresses.
You can also set up location services with MicroG and modules, but setting that up is like stacking a house of cards.
Edit: You could also just install GApps, of varying densities. This is literally installing Google Play Services and its various features, as would normally be found. That kind of undermines the whole privacy aspect of the ROM, but it does get things working very easily, and you can at least limit the amount of crap you install with the various packages (nano, pico, full, etc).
Oh weird. I played around with micro g, but I couldn’t get location services to work I just thought it had been totally stripped out. I’ll give it another go
Location with MicroG is done by additional modules. However, some apps explicitly look for Google Maps’ back end, so there’s another module that installs an old version of that.
