I recently acquired a pixel phone and set up gos. Prior to trying gos I was using an iPhone hardened as much as possible based off of recommendations and guides from respected OSINT experts.
It’s only been a week but I’ve found gos extremely frustrating and mostly useless except for web browsing.
I can’t seem to get my Yubikey to work so my 2FA is borked. Works fine on my iPhone.
I’ve previously managed to degoogle my life but now certain apps require me to use sandboxed google apps just to run.
I’m facing the nearly insurmountable task of convincing my friends, family, and colleagues to download and use signal when they are all using encrypted iMessage.
Most of my banking apps just simply do not work. Mobile banking is unfortunately something important that I need in my occupation. A part of the appeal of gos was being able to have an isolated dedicated profile for banking.
There’s also a few features that I’m assuming are iPhone exclusive that it really sucks to have without. Double tapping the bottom of the screen to shift everything down so you can reach the top of the screen with your finger when using one hand. Holding down on the space bar to move the text cursor between characters. Maybe these exist on gos though?
I understand most of the issues lay on the shoulders of the app developers. I’m grateful for the devs for creating and working on this project. I’m not bashing anyone here. I’m simply asking for some guidance on how I can break through the hurdles and make this work for me, from the mouth of those who were once in my position.
If you want actual help with these issues, try the GrapheneOS forum.
Some parts of this are probably unavoidable. High-security systems tend to be inconvenient, and using a non-mainstream operating system often means limited third-party support.
For reasons I can’t figure out, it seems Americans hate the idea of installing any third-party messaging apps. Most Europeans I know have at least two.
There’s some information on the GrahpeneOS forum, but if the bank insists on using Google’s device attestation, you may not be able to do much other than raise hell with customer service (please do this).
This is one of the reasons I run LineageOS rooted with Magisk; there’s a bypass for Google attestation. That, of course does not have the same security-first goals as GrapheneOS.
This feature exists on some Android keyboards including AOSP keyboard and Heliboard, which are open source.
Not the topic at hand but,
For me, I can talk to literally everyone I want to via the stock messaging app (iMessage in this case). I get no value from installing a second messaging app for a specific human or two.
You do. You get privacy.
If iMessages are e2ee and you aren’t using iCloud, is there any evidence your messages aren’t private? As far as I’m aware iMessage is considered a very secure messaging channel. It seems like most people distrust it due to the Apple affiliation. Not that I blame them, I feel the same about Google.
You’re right to feel the same about Google. Don’t use their messaging services. The only way to get true privacy is through transparency à la FOSS software.
By default Apple holds your iCloud encryption keys. So if you message somebody who uses iCloud without advanced data protection turned on then that encryption isn’t worth a whole lot, they can unlock it and have given up that data many times
Good point. I’m aware of the icloud method of imessage cracking, but I often forget that I’m not always the weakest link; it’s up to the people around you as well.
Has anyone you talk to regularly asked you to install a specific messaging app? If so, do you actually see a downside to installing it?