GrapheneOS on a Pixel - Why?

you may not know what graphion OS is but you've probably heard of it I took my pixel 4XL FL graphion OS onto this phone and now I feel like a free person and you can too well that's what I thought was going to happen socials are above but now let me tell you what this even is and why it might not even matter defined by the company graphine OS is a private and secure mobile operating system with Android app compatibility developed as a nonprofit open source project pretty much what they're saying is that their main goal is to take Android and get rid of any of the vulnerabilities that it comes with beefing up the security and making the user experience more private this only happens because everything is open source and does not feature Google apps or services at all now of course to me this is what graphing OS is but you can still add not only Google apps Google Play services and pretty much every app that runs on Android because at the end of the day that's what this is this one in particular is running on Android 13 a nice touch though it's not entirely needed there are software apps that are pre-installed which can be removed or disabled that not only help strengthen your device's security but also show what you're actually giving up when you use specific apps and with that it gets a little bit confusing so for me I thought about downloading a bunch of apps starting with fid to get some open-source apps I guess the idea is to have more transparent apps that can tell you what they want from you if anything now there's many apps that you can download in here this video isn't really going to go over that as well as the fact that there are other apps that do the same thing possibly being better more reliable and even safer I don't know those facts here so I'm just telling you what I heard based on videos that I've watched regarding graphing OS but I thought about all the things that I've been told about apps like Facebook Instagram Amazon Etc and wondered why I install these apps on my phone after all if they're going to track my account usage it doesn't really matter what device I use so I left my phone free of those apps but I will show you what stuff actually looks like like if you do decide to download those apps using the Aurora app store if I pronounce it properly you can actually see what trackers certain apps use for that app my question after that was well what do they do and that's kind of what I don't know you can kind of search it but it does get a little bit confusing for example Google Maps will use the GPS to see where you are where you're traveling and use that data for navigation and possibly present relevant ads depending on where you're located however this feature is very much welcome because if hundreds of people are on the freeway and they have the location on now that data will be used appropriately to display how much traffic is on the road or where your Uber driver is or how busy an intersection is or if there's a Slowdown on the road you get the idea while that information can be used for bad things turning it off also means that you can't use it for good things Catch 22 I guess I don't know I never read that book but either way let's take Amazon and see what we get with this phone pretty much everything is the same as a normal phone except for the advanced area and some permissions so the advanced part adds an exploit protection compatibility mode and some things in the configure hardening which from what I understand lets you decide if you want to use graphine os's protection or if you want to turn those features off if the app isn't functioning properly but in permissions we get the same permissions that you do on the other phone just with network and sensors the former literally talking about internet usage and connectivity while the sensors the app is asking for is monitoring device orientation movements vibration and environmental data this highlights what the app is asking for and allows you to decide if you want to give that information to app developers or not when we click all the permissions we see a lot more and these you can't turn off but there are some that are missing for example advertising ID permission play install refer API and Google Play billing service are all gone for me this tells me that I am indeed the product and will probably be used in some way to make money off me by that company and honestly I don't care to keep that short kind of this is my phone and my take on that there are roughly 8 billion people in the world of that about 333 million people that live in my country and of that almost 40 million people that live in my state so what makes me so special and even then I don't care about what other companies know about me at least when it comes to making money off me I make money on YouTube literally off people being served at ads and watching my videos but at the same time I 100% support the use of ad blockers and also pay for YouTube premium for myself I personally despise ads but I also don't really look at them when I do see them I pay for premium not only to block ads on YouTube but also because part of that goes to the channels that I watch instead of blocking their revenue that they get from my one view even though it's technically a single View and that's not even a penny but paraphrasing LS Rossman I believe he said something along the lines of you wouldn't want want to leave your windows open so then your neighbors can see you even if you're not doing something wrong so why not prevent that from happening altogether I quoted that terribly but my response is that people will stop looking into your window after they realize that there's not really anything worth looking into and going further into that it adds a different kind of protection if your neighbors saw you choking then they could help do I like Google or Apple knowing where I am technically no but I do love when it accurately tells me when I'm going to arrive at my destination still having some extra projection doesn't really sound that bad now if you haven't clicked off this video already let me tell you how this will benefit you like I somewhat stated before this gives you a sense of security and makes a phone feel more you I highly recommend not using those tracking apps that people like to use like Facebook WhatsApp and Tik Tok to name a few but if you have to then there are other devices that you can put those on personally I like doing all my stuff on a computer rather than on my phone think having a stationary device limits your tracking whether it's ad or location but also lets your phone be just your phone even without anything on your phone the amount of bloat that just naturally fills your phone reminds you that you have to watch something or try something and it's just frustrating you want Chrome vadium brings the same features just with no Google or no ad tracking ads will still be on the site but not influenced by how you use the app then there are navigation apps but honestly mapping out your location first might be a better option before you go driving there's not really any turn BYT navigation unless you want to use some open- Source apps messaging is not Google so no RCS but standard SMS and MMS so really no difference if you talk to iPhone users as well as most Android users let's be honest you actually get a gallery app which is kind of surprising and the camera is goodish definitely not the stock Google camera app but it still works phone app works fine but of course no call screening or any other Google magic that you normally get yes you're technically missing some of those things but the gains are still in your favor this pixel 4 XL is pretty fast there's less programs to boot as well and actually gave me a little bit better battery life I have heard the opposite but maybe that's with a bunch of apps installed cuz I'm not really seeing that much of a difference on mine and of course the battery life will vary depending on your phone's age this is Android 13 after all so you get Beyond extremely small differences from going from Android 12 to 13 but 13 did actually add some Security based features ironic given what graphine OS is trying to do sure this phone is kind of boring but that's the point graphine OS is kind of represented in a weird way where there are some people that need little to no persuading because they just don't want to be tracked but then there are other people like me that ultimately don't care for example there are some things that I don't like about the state that I'm living in but the pros heavily outweigh the cons so I deal with them the same thing applies here is it annoying that I get to see car ads because I get bored every once in a while and look up used cars yes do I like that companies like Google have profiles of my preferences and who I am not really but the information that I get from these free apps makes me not want to stop not to mention if you can actually monetize that and make money yourself it's technically a decent trade-off but it's nice to know that systems like graphing OS exist to at least start the separation of companies that know and track US for me graphing OS is a very light operating system but for others it may be the freedom that you been looking for of course this only applies if you have these ironic Google pixel devices and a bootloader that can be unlocked but what do you think about my somewhat review I spent a week or so with this operating system so I'm hoping that I will eventually make a follow-up video when I do get some more time with it but until then hope you enjoyed this video and as always thanks for [Music] watching

Channel: Real World Review

Views: 20,923

Keywords: real world review, rwr, google pixel 4 xl, pixel 4, graphene os, grapheneos, kali linux, degoogle phone, best rom for pixel, custom rom for pixel, android 13, android 14, android 15, worth removing google from your phone, best security, best privacy phone, stop spying on my phone, google pixel 2, pixel 2 xl, pixel 3, pixel 3 xl, pixel 4a, pixel 4a 5g, pixel 5, pixel 5a, pixel 6, pixel 6 pro, pixel 6a, pixel 7, pixel 7a, pixel 7 pro, pixel 8a, pixel 8, pixel 8 pro

Id: eWN0146TEKw

Length: 8min 54sec (534 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 03 2024