DeGoogle Yourself

I'm a photographer and don't find the stock GOS camera to be good enough. I use BigKaka's GCAM mod which is Google's camera with even more features. It doesn't require internet access and everything works in version 9.2 on my Pixel 8. It doesn't require google photos like the stock GCam.

As with most others I use a different launcher but I switched user accounts to try it out for you and you can theme those icons and then pick a single colour, a trio of colours or choose wallpaper to colour the icons in other colours other than black and white.

I use open camera which has always been fine for my needs and doesnt include any meta data with the saved images.

Battery life has been absolutely fine for me but I never used the stock ROM for comparison.

Sandboxed stuff I've used has always worked as is expected but I dont use a lot of apps tbh

I use organic maps but again I very rarely use maps and it can be a bit odd in the way it works but still it has got me where I've been going each time.

I think it is great and wouldn't want to switch back here is a page that lists all bank app compatability as that is a common concern for people.

Hope some of this helps :)

Ironic since you have to buy a Google phone to use that OS.

I use magic earth for maps. It lacks in a lot of ways but is a usable map and navigation system. I like the nav and some of the features bit has (safety alerts, reported police) but the map detail kind of sucks. You zoom in and not every street name is shown. But try it and see if it works for you.

Battery life will be better, and by how much depends on your setup and usage. For instance, I have play services installed, which does eat some battery. But I also turn off location, Bluetooth, mic, camera and sometimes WiFi. I only turn services on when I want to use them. That saves battery. So expect good battery life, but don't expect any miracles.

Hi friend!

• One of the best things abiut GrapheneOS is being able to easily restrict network access for apps. So for a camera app, you can use anything you want, even Google Camera, and just turn off network access so there is no way for Google to spy. The suggestion of OpenCamera is also good. It has a lot of power and options.

• Battery life should be just as good, more or less.

• Sandboxed play services basically means that GrapheneOS gives it fewer permissions on your phone. Normally it has a very privileged position in the OS and is fairly imvasive.

• Its user profiles are very powerful and I highky recommend using them. I recommend not installing samdboxed google play services on yiur main (owner) profile. If you do end up needing google play services for an app, it is better to put it in a separate profile.

If it is helpful, I think of Degoogling as being mostly about replacing services. Graphene is a good atep, but definitely do a checklist of Google services that you use and slowly replace them and take control over your digital spaces. I would recommend dealing with your email as a top priority. Buying a domain (use a common/safe tld) so that you own your address (e.g. me@firstnamelastname.com) will mean no company can ever prevent you from sending or receiving emails on a whim. Using something like fastmail to receive and send emails via your domain will be the easiest first step.

So many people say to isolate google play services in another profile, but I have not seen anything quantifying the amount of attack surface reduction or what benefit this gives in terms of anonymity or security. Google play services includes Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM) which is what enables most apps to give timely notifications. There are alternatives like ntfy, but they require some understanding of how to set them up, and tinkering.

Finally, multiple profiles is useful for the most security conscious but for the typical user I do not believe its very useful. One thing I noticed is notifications are not consisently reliable, so setting up a "Facebook" profile does isolate you from the app but then you may miss notifications. You also have to type your password for every profile switch.

• You can change the default icons color (black and gray-ish in the image) or is based on the wallpaper

Sort of. There's a selectable "highlight color" that sets the vibe for the phone. I enable the feature that makes it pick a prominent color from my current phone background image, and I find it really nice.

• The camera app is good. Not going to make professional pics or videos but I still want to use it to take pics and a good quality is important. Tried their camera on a phone and the bottom menu to switch mode (picture/video/night mode/etc) was buggy

The camera app is the least buggy, and fastest to load, that I've had on Android in a long time. The picture quality is fine. The features are pretty standard - nothing fancy.

• Battery life is better/worse than stock Android (if anyone tried that)

My battery life on GrapheneOS is waaaay better. I assume this is thanks to GrapheneOS having great defaults for restricting apps from running in the background without explicitly getting my permission.

• How the sandboxed play services work

I have more idea than a lot of folks, but I'm not in the headspace to articulate that today, sorry. Fundamentally, it just dumps the "phone home to Google" calls into nowhere, while telling (lying to) the app that the call was a success. Annecdotaly, this works perfectly for 80% of apps I care about, including my bank app.

• Anything else that I should know about. Some people say it's good, some it's bad so I'm curious to know.

Profiles were still clumsy last time I used them, and overkill for most users. In my informed non-expert opinion, many folks underestimate how much the default permissions scheme in GrapheneOS protects them without enabling profiles. That said, if I absolutely had to use a work nanny app with extensive permissions, I would enable profiles for that, if I was somehow absolutely unable to buy a dedicated separate phone to install it on. Otherwise, I think profiles cause a lot of folks to give up on running GrapheneOS, in cases where they would have been fine without profiles.

You may also want to check out Murena. I have a fai-phone 5 with thier E/OS on it, I'm very happy with it, and 100% google-free.

I don't know if you can change the icon color, I didn't try. I have a launcher I like so I immediately switched to that and it let's me use any icons I want.

I have not had any camera issues on mine, 6a

I never used the stock os or sandboxed play services so I can't help there.

I use Organic Maps and am fine with it, but mostly I use paper maps. My need for live mapping is very limited. You might want to try GMaps WV https://f-droid.org/packages/us.spotco.maps/

What it is GMaps WV is a WebView wrapper for using Google Maps without exposing your device. more info, including limitations Here

Overall I am happy with GrapheneOS, no issues.

I've tried all the other map apps, and while they work great for navigation, there's no replacement for reviews on Google Maps. So it's the one Google service I still use.

If you need Google Play services I recommend installing them on a separate profile using Shelter. It's really easy to do. I use that profile for Google Maps and a few other items the require Play services.

You can change the icons with a different launcher. Try Lawnchair.

I think it's pretty good, although I did install the isolated GCam but I wouldn't with another chance.

I hear battery is better but I can't confirm.

I haven't used the sandboxed services other than the isolated GCam but that worked great.

I've used Graphene for years now and I've loved it!

1. Can't change the default icons on the default launcher. I think custom launchers may be able to.
2. I use Open Camera whose quality I would say is fine for my purposes (no kind of professional photography, just taking pics for record-keeping, to show people things, etc)
3. Battery life is way better than stock Android IME. It makes sense cause stock GrapheneOS is so debloated and isn't running all these spyware services in the background.
4. You go to the app called "App Store" (preinstalled), download Google Play, then you use it like a normal Google Play app. Very user-friendly.

Been exclusively using GrapheneOS for ages, never had any problems. It's very easy to install (especially now they have a WebUSB installer) and even easier to use.

I want to de-google but i don't own a pixel. I gotta wait till i can grab a used one from 2nd hand market.

Batter was better. Like by a lot. It became normal when I installed the google play sandbox.

Looking to degoogle myself too. For the maps, Here we go is a german brand. I know it's not foss but being german, they have to follow GDPR which, I guess, is better than google anyways.

I used GOS for about a year and a half, it’s pretty great. Tbh I didn’t feel I was really losing anything from the standard Android experience, but of course gaining more privacy and security.

Sandboxed Play Services works great. The only downside is you still need a Google account to use it, even if you only use the account for that purpose. And Google has really clamped down on not letting you create an account without providing a phone number.

But overall I definitely recommend GOS.