Home Projects Blog Contact Other

My experience with GrapheneOS

A few months ago I decided to switch my Pixel 7 pro's OS to GrapheneOS. I had heard good things about it before and wanted to give it a shot. I had wanted to switch for a while but was scared of something going wrong. I had heard of issues with notifications and banking apps, both of which I'm happy to say are (mostly) non-issues.

Daily usage

When using the phone, you wouldn't even be able to tell it's running a custom OS. When I decided to install it I was expecting some things to be a bit buggy or to have to tinker with the device to get something to work. I was pleasantly surprised finding out from the moment the installation process starts it's just as straight-forward as any other android OS.

Banking apps

My banking app was the biggest worry for me. When I first tried to install it, it would refuse to launch, as I was scared would happen. I tried tricking it into believing it was on a normal device installed from a normal place, but nothing would work. Eventually - I can't explain how - I tried installing the app's apk through the Files app. I had already tried this and it didn't work before, but for whatever reason it did start working that time and has never given me any issues to this day.

If banking apps are the only thing holding you back from switching, do give it a shot. Even if it doesn't go as planned, you can always just switch back.

Notifications

As long as I kept Google play services installed and enabled, notifications always arrived on time. However, the moment I uninstalled it, I noticed big delays in notifications coming through (specifically from WhatsApp, I didn't notice big delays on other apps).


If there's an aspect I missed but you think I should cover, let me know.


Published: , Last edit: