Thread

I know this is rhetorical... but its convenience and comfort imo. People generally only panic and look for alternatives when its too late. And it will never be too late, they will keep the carrot of convenience dangling just close enough for most people to never give a shit.

I'm part of the issue, I have a pixel but have the default os, I did try Graphene on a Pixel once but hated it.

Also the graphene devs have been under constant harassment

I run graphene. Its awesome. But I can't convince any family or friends to use it. They don't see the point for the hassle, and think that the reasons are conspiracy theories. Unfortunately most people just dont see or care about the risks

Franphone with GrapheneOS

Because Graphene will never be widespread as u can’t just pick that up at TMobile

What laptop and OS for the laptop would you recommend?

"How come so few people are buying Pixels and installing it?" i can only speak for myself, but it's pricey and risky at the same time. you buy a new phone you can either unlock the bootloader or not, you either fuck up your brand new phone or not, but you definitely lose the warranty.

I heard two people at work laughing at a guy for not carrying a smart phone and using cash because he doesn't want to be tracked. That's probably why. And they even admitted that he was right. They still made fun of him. Most people probably just don't care.

I think the time will come but it’s early

There are plenty of normies out there, me included, who are interested in what is possible and concerned about the power of corporates and government. But we aren't techies. We don't have the technical skills and confidence to start doing things like wiping the OS off my brand new Pixel phone. Many consider just moving off the Apple ecosystem to be a big step. Many of us would take the steps to take personal security and privacy if we had the support necessary. Obviously we can't go and ask Google how to jailbreak their phone, and no one really knows who to trust on the internet. That's why NOSTR is actually such as cool thing, because we can start to find people that are trusted by our network. So don't be too high time preference. They normies will come, and the knowledgeable will continue to make being sovereign, private, and secure easier. I look forward to when trusted contacts can recommended dedicated AI Chat bots which can personally walk people through things like setting up a BTC node, a LN wallet, an independent phone OS, etc. People want to be doing these things. They just need a guide.

Many hurdles to using alternative OSs, not limited to just GrapheneOS. One of the major ones are push notifications. Most apps are developed expecting Google APIs to be available on device. If they aren't, those apps do not work properly (sometimes even crashing). That in turn severely impacts the UX of an alternative OS. That problem alone is a big one, and not easily solvable. The startup costs to reimplement such infrastructure and then maintain those APIs as an alternative OS is tremendous. Some workarounds do exist (such as microG, or GrapheneOS's sandboxed Play Store app), but it still takes a lot of development bandwidth. Until there is a solid alternative to Google push notifications, app developers must roll their own custom in-app solutions (See Signal, or Tutanota). Not only does that NOT scale well, but most developers won't take that task on for a small subset of users of their product/service; and who would blame them? And when I say "solid alternative to Google push notifications", I mean a super simple UX for users; extremely low bar, as in "Hey user of my app XZY, if you would like to receive push notifications for our app, install this other app here that handles it on-device which we can hook into." Requiring users to run some backend server at home kills any adoption of an alternative because 99.5% of people cannot, or will not, do that.

Good to hear you say this! I know nothing of smartphones and i am planning to buy my first one. I still rather not use it, but i see a need/market in teaching people who would like to know how to buy, send and receive btc. However I can never really show them because i have a dumbphone and would need to get them behind a PC. Showing a shopkeeper how to receive some sats seems out of the question without a smartphone, unless they trust me to send it when I am at home. But i also don't know how wallet apps work on phones, so want to learn this first. So that intro brings me to the question: #asknostr What smartphone to buy? I never herd of Google pixels. I know of appel, Samsung, motorola and Oneplus and I'm trying to figure out witch one to buy at the moment. I don't need no fancy camera or quick surfing the web, watching movies or playing games on a phone. Low budget that can handel new updates etc. I found Oneplus, samsung and Motorola have phones for 100-200 euro. Staring with the best available tools would be great! Ai gave me this anwser: "GrapheneOS is a private, secure, and open-source Android alternative. It's designed for security and privacy, not profit. You don't need to be a tech nerd, but you'll need to learn some basics. Available on: Google Pixel series (3, 3a, 4, 4a, 5, 6) and some other devices. To install, you'll need to unlock your device's bootloader and flash GrapheneOS. Most Android apps work, but some may not due to GrapheneOS's security features. BTC LN wallet apps like BlueWallet and Zebedee work. Important notes: GrapheneOS has no Google services, uses a different app store (FDroid or Aurora), and has a learning curve. Be prepared to adapt."

Good to hear you say this! I know nothing of smartphones and i am planning to buy my first one. I still rather not use it, but i see a need/market in teaching people who would like to know how to buy, send and receive btc. However I can never really show them because i have a dumbphone and would need to get them behind a PC. Showing a shopkeeper how to receive some sats seems out of the question without a smartphone, unless they trust me to send it when I am at home. But i also don't know how wallet apps work on phones, so want to learn this first. So that intro brings me to the question: #asknostr What smartphone to buy? I never herd of Google pixels. I know of appel, Samsung, motorola and Oneplus and I'm trying to figure out witch one to buy at the moment. I don't need no fancy camera or quick surfing the web, watching movies or playing games on a phone. Low budget that can handel new updates etc. I found Oneplus, samsung and Motorola have phones for 100-200 euro. Staring with the best available tools would be great! Ai gave me this anwser: "GrapheneOS is a private, secure, and open-source Android alternative. It's designed for security and privacy, not profit. You don't need to be a tech nerd, but you'll need to learn some basics. Available on: Google Pixel series (3, 3a, 4, 4a, 5, 6) and some other devices. To install, you'll need to unlock your device's bootloader and flash GrapheneOS. Most Android apps work, but some may not due to GrapheneOS's security features. BTC LN wallet apps like BlueWallet and Zebedee work. Important notes: GrapheneOS has no Google services, uses a different app store (FDroid or Aurora), and has a learning curve. Be prepared to adapt." View quoted note →

I currently use e/OS on a Murena phone and it works fine, mostly. Have had some issues with certain apps, most notably revolut which just doesn't work on custom ROMs at all anymore it seems. Overall the experience of shifting from vanilla android has been smooth and easy, and certainly not something you need to be tech savy to do. You just have to care about privacy, which most people simply don't.

@franzap We're working with a major OEM towards some of their future devices meeting our requirements and providing official GrapheneOS support. Our requirements are listed at

Frequently Asked Questions | GrapheneOS

. We don't know when it will be available, but we're optimistic that it's going to work out. This should end up providing a couple more device models as options each year. We'd still continue adding support for new Pixels if possible.

It was Apple Photos that had me give up and come back tbh. (Former graphite here) Risk gradient tradeoffs and I am currently comfortable. I’ll gladly look a fool here to ask this: has a compelling photo self storage with no hassle solution come out yet? I see immich is a thing but I’m still burned from the last self-hosted picture thing I tried in 2021, curious if others have thoughts or advocacy. I take a lot of pictures of my family

Something just doesn't make sense about de-Googling your life by buying a google phone. Even with GrapheneOS. Thankfully there are also lineage and e/os

No gets rich without stealing data these days…

Not everyone can afford it. 🤷

It’s better to keep away billionaires from funding such things

GrapheneOS is great but what we really need is some kind of standardisation of mobile hardware in order to make portable OS development feasable.

Let’s say more devices for graphene are released. My mind races to supply chain attacks like Israel pulled with Palestinian pagers. If privacy conscious consumers rush to a select group of devices with such smaller anon set, attacks against this group are easier and more effective, no?

I can't use it on Nothing Phone. 👀

Bring back Palm OS

Palm OS - Wikipedia

View quoted note →

I carry two phones: One with GrapheneOS for privacy. One with a regular OS for convenience. I also use two forms of money: Bitcoin for sovereignty. Fiat for compliance. It’s not hypocrisy — it’s strategy. You navigate the world as it is, while building the world as it should be.

There's also Ubuntu Touch.

Ubuntu Touch • Linux Phone

Ubuntu Touch is the open source phone that has freedom and privacy in mind. Supported by dozens of devices, with installer for FOSS fans

- Fear of the unknown and FUD - Convenience & laziness vs putting in the work (there's a bit of a learning curve - "I have GrapheneOS, now what?") - People still believe Apple cares about privacy (lol) - People still believe stock Android is better than iOS (lol) Solution: The people who know how to set up Pixels this way, teach others (I do) or help do it for them in a v4v exchange

- Fear of the unknown and FUD - Convenience vs putting in the work (there's a bit of a learning curve - "I have GrapheneOS, now what?") - People still believe Apple cares about privacy (lol) - People still believe stock Android is better than iOS (lol) Solution: The people who know how to set up Pixels this way, teach others (I do) or help do it for them in a v4v exchange View quoted note →