Since GrapheneOS is the standard recommendation for a custom ROM on Pixel devices and comes up very often, I figured we should have a thread about it.

For those who are using it, what Pixel device are you running GrapheneOS on and how is the overall experience? What are the things that you like about GrapheneOS and what are things you miss from the factory Android install?

As for me, my curiosity got the better of me and I finally went and installed GrapheneOS on my Pixel 7a using the web installer on Arch Linux and a USB cable.

So far, nothing unexpected and I’ll have to do a bit of exploring of the OS’ security features. The OS works just fine and feels obviously way cleaner and less bloated, the annoying search widget finally went away without having to install a custom launcher. The only thing that scared me a bit in the beginning was the contacts not syncing and some purchased apps not transferring over as the sandboxed Google Play saw the device as a different one but that was solved by giving it permission to access contacts and also waiting for Google Play to do its thing. Google Camera and Google Photos also worked fine without network permissions.

I haven’t tried Google Wallet’s NFC payments yet and I have no hopes for that one to work on GrapheneOS, but that is certainly a feature I will miss.

  • random65837@lemmy.worldEnglish
    21·
    11 months ago

    Running it on a 7Pro now, a 6Pro prior as well as a 5a and 4a before those. I wouldn’t run a Pixel any other way.

    Since we’ve got the sandboxed play services I’ve yet to find a single downside running Graphene, which you can’t say about almost any other custom OS. Everything works, purchased apps work, and you get all the benefits of Graphene without all the downsides of Google. If I couldn’t have a Pixel running Graphene, I’d probably deal with an iPhone. No way I’d run a stock Google ROM.

      • random65837@lemmy.worldEnglish
        12·
        11 months ago

        Android Auto is in the works, theres hacky ways to do it until then, but not recommended. I wouldn’t expect Google pay to ever work, definitely not something privacy conscious people would want to have so doubtful it’d get implemented.