Yeah. I think people can become obsessive over it. I also think there is a large group of users who gamify privacy and act as if its an mmo quest where they just need to collect the best tools to win instead of being responsible and understanding threat modelling.
Trust does not fix the core privacy issue of allowing an app to have privileged access to your phone.
As I said before, if your threat model allows you to decide your fine with Micro G having that access, good for you. That isn’t a remedy for the actual issue. Its just deciding to ignore it. Trust is much easier to break and abuse then a sandbox.
It seems we differ on the value of trust in this situation. To me, no app is ever trust worthy enough for that type of access. Especially for something like play store access where there are other non privileged ways (aurora store, third party apk mirrors, etc) to access the apps from the play store if you really feel Google is malicious.
Out of curiosity, why did you decide on DoT instead of DoH (DNS over HTTPS)?
Not at all. Sandboxed google play is…sandboxed. Micro G has privelged access to your phone. That is a massive canyon in the difference of access you are giving an app.
Its the primary privacy reason why standard Google Play is such a privacy nightmare.
The only difference with Micro G is your shifting trust from Google to Micro G. Which is fine if that’s what your threat model allows but it doesn’t erase the issue.
I’ll answer what I know.
LineageOS doesn’t have anything like sandboxed Google Play. That is a flagship feature of GOS.
It is highly unlikely there is a backdoor in the Pixel. It’s just not worth the risk for Google. Not only are the phones highly scrutinized by experts but Google has a million other legal ways to get info off your phone for 99% of users who use the stock OS.
There really isn’t much comparison.
Graphene only supports Pixels because it is the best phone for hardware security. If you choose to use a different phone you have already accepted a less secure device.
Sandboxed Google Play is going to offer the most compatibility as it allows you to access the main app store in the Android eco system without giving up privileged access to your phone. Devices that use Micro G or regular play store can’t make that claim. Which is a massive privacy issue.
Since Graphene OS works with other launchers there really is not a difference in customizability.
I’d love to be able to say there is a good competitor for GOS but none of the other custom ROMs actually focus on Privacy/Security and most are dishonest about that fact. Divest OS was one of the few other ROMs that was honest about what it was so it was sad when the dev moved on.
I’d also note that threat model matters. Not everyone needs top notch security or privacy. There are good reasons to not use GOS, but better privacy/security isn’t one. The obvious one is opportunity, whether it’s regional or financial, Pixels can be a pain to get.
I wouldn’t trust it. It’s using a ton of marketing jargon such as “military grade encryption” to make you think its doing more then it is.
This is not providing anything that more proven services already provide.
Lol trying to conflate system apps vital to an OS and privelged apps like Micro G is about as bad faith an argument as it gets.
Your playing semantics. Both sandboxed google play and micro g are ways to get around Google Play services but only GOS implementation actually solves the main privacy issue.
The reason I mentioned aurora is because a lot of user install micro g so they can use the play store as it requires play services or a substitution. This was obvious in context.