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Installed #GrapheneOS several days ago on my Pixel 8. It works great without any Google services! (kbin.melroy.org)
submitted 2 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Installed #GrapheneOS several days ago on my Pixel 8. It works great without any Google services! https://grapheneos.org/

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Any ROM works great without Google Play Services. If anything, having MicroG installed makes things work less - I have a banking app that works fine on my old phone, without Google, but won't work on my new phone because of a CPS Profile mismatch.

MicroG is a house of cards that is very difficult to get stacked correctly. Most apps work fine without it. For those that don't, use something else, or just a web browser. Hell, you probably shouldn't be using so many apps anyway, given that you really can't be certain what they do when they're closed source.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 days ago

Exactly this. My previous bank required me to use their app and it was closed source and so I ended up ditching that bank for a different bank that I could use their mobile website instead.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Welcome to the club!

There are many apps that rely on Google Play services for notifications. Did you enable that from the Graphene Apps or does Aurora provide a push service?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I wanna know that too! I actually found a lot of app notifications working, but some not and also some constantly told me "This app doesn't work without GPS" while running perfectly fine, apart from that message.

I did not install anything to replace GPS, so something must work out of the box there. Installed most of the app via Aurora Store from FDroid

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago

For apps that won't notify without GS I just use ntfy. Works great. But I still keep most notifications off, does wonders for my mental health.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 days ago (3 children)

How is the headphone jack?

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 days ago

I am still very salty about it. But I considered that using a dongle is a fair enough sacrifice for actually trusting your phone.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

You know, this comment just made me realize my phone didn't have one. I guess when wireless ear buds are the same price as wired these days, you don't even really notice

What is even better than that, is that if you really need or want a headphone jack, you can get a phone that has one. You don't even have to try to bring other people down to do it

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

There are exceedingly few phones that have them anymore - particularly more powerful ones. I prefer a headphone jack because I don't have to juggle keeping everything charged long enough for when I want to use it.

A prime example is when I go to sleep. I live on a somewhat busy street in an apartment facing said street. I have noisy neighbors. My spouse is used to sleeping with the TV on (there are reasons for this which I understand) - thankfully, the screen doesn't have to be on. As such, I use wired earbuds that block out most external sound, along with an audio track I've been using for many years on a loop to put (and keep) me to sleep. Show me any wireless earbuds that'll last the night, block out sound, and not be too big to lay upon comfortably since I'm a side-sleeper (let alone not have controls accidentally activated by laying on them).

ETA: Never mind that my Bluetooth earbuds always seem to develop a problem keeping contact with their charge contacts in the case before long, so it's not infrequent that I go to use them and they're dead when they shouldn't be.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 days ago

Unreliable recharging is why I gave up on Bluetooth headphones, too! Had it happen with four separate pairs of AirPods in my house: OG AirPods, my warranty replacement, and my partner's AirPods Pro (and their warranty replacement). I find nothing more frustrating than heading out on a run in the morning and discovering that one or both of my buds has near-zero charge, after carefully placing them in a case the previous day.

I've been using a pair of Tin T2 Pro IEMs ever since. Almost 5 years with the same IEMs, I think I've gone through 4 cable replacements. But the replacement cables were like $5 and the latest $10 one seems likely to last much longer since it's a nice braided cable.

Of course, I'm stuck on my Pixel 4a to keep the headphone jack. But it works well enough that I honestly have no desire to upgrade. I just wish I could still get OS security updates.

[–] [email protected] -4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Sounds worse than a usbc dongle

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Do not assume contemporary low-end quality would the flagship quality. Flagships like LG when they had jacks had high quality DACs—even current Sony phones are good. Adding a jack to the device means less things to dangle & put stress on the already kinda weak charging port; this takes up little room & does not affect waterproofing. Almost all other gear for consuming media has a jack, it is pretty much a conspiracy to push folks into perpetually buying Bluetooth earbuds when the batteries die.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

They asked about the Pixel, which doesn't have a jack, so it sounds worse than getting a dongle.

The Pixels with jacks thankfully were tested, to be "okay", the Apple dongle outperformed them.

The OC was half a joke half the truth.

I do miss the V10 but the same DAC can be bought and used with anything.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 days ago

Welcome to the club

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 days ago

good for you

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago

Absolutely agreed. Been there since the Pixel 6, no regrets.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I use a pixel 7 (with GraphineOS), I love it :3

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Do location services work nicely without Play Services? I use them daily so I'm a bit hesitant to try...

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Yes, I've never had any trouble with apps being able to get GPS location without Google Play Services. Obviously, you won't get that Google location timeline because you don't have Google Play Services or Google anything on your device. But any GPS app will work just fine.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Thanks for the answer!

The google location timeline convinced me to get my ass off of Google more than anything so not having it is a big plus

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago

I will warn you that apps like Uber and Lyft might not work. But that's not because of the location. It's because those apps absolutely seem to require Google Play services to even boot. Pretty much as soon as you open those apps, they will crash.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago (3 children)

Don't wanna crash the party, but I tried the 3a and recently the 6a with Graphene, and while everything else worked really well, Location actually didn't work at all. Everytime when I wanted to get my location, I needed to wait about 5-15 minutes for it to find it. This was actually one of the reasons to not use it as a daily driver.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago

That's a unique problem it sounds like. I have two GOS devices without issues. I can even spoof locations just fine.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

That's weird. Everything that needs GPS location works great for me. I agree that it does take a bit longer to lock, but it's only about 1 or 2 seconds longer.

My OsmAnd~ works amazing.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

1-2 seconds would be absolutely fine with me, even like 10 seconds would be tolerable.. Idk, that sounds really interesting, a lot of people have been saying that it appears to be a problem on my side. Maybe I'll give it a try again in some future, but now, unfurtuntately, I'm kind of locked into the Apple ecosystem again.. But thanks for that insight!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago

I wish I could be more help, but its always worked for me since I started using GrapheneOS about 4 years ago.

The one thing I can think of is a misconfiguration on SUPL and PSDS.

If you still have access to a GrapheneOS device maybe you could take a look there.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago

Either graphene has gotten a lot worse or something because I used to have a Pixel 3A with graphene and things worked very well. Although I have been using lineage OS on other devices a lot recently.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 days ago

I've also just gotten GrapheneOS. Got a Pixel 7 Pro just for that reason. I am absolutely loving it

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Can you give more details? What apps do you use? Anything worth noting? Thinking about doing this myself as well.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

What about play-integrity?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago

What about it?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago

Maybe the switch for me would require staging on a burner pixel that supported. I have a lot of shopping apps, that I may not need, but need some time on the testing phone to make sure everything works before taking the deep dive.

This is also how I made the switch off windows. Stagged it on a space older laptop to see what's what.

I'll get there...