In my last post I talked a lot about alternatives for services of the big U.S. companies. One of the big ones there was switching from Apple to an alternative.
So I put money where my mouth is and bought a Google Pixel 10 to switch to GrapheneOS. GrapheneOS is only supported for the Google Pixel devices as security is the top priority and only Google’s devices have the necessary hardware requirements such as the Titan M2 chip for secure cryptography. Buying a Google product to get away from U.S. companies is quite ironic, but in my opinion it is currently the best option for a secure and privacy-friendly device. Currently the Graphene team is working with an OEM to release a smartphone, that is not manufactured by Google. This Graphene-native device is supposed to come out in the second half of 2026 or 2027.
I have been running GrapheneOS now for about two weeks — so let’s talk about my experiences.
Installation
I did the installation via the web-based installer on Fedora using Chromium. It was a very smooth, probably the smoothest experience to install an OS I ever had. The process is basically just connecting the device and then following the handful of instructions in the interactive documentation.
First Steps Post-Installation
After the installation, GrapheneOS greets the user with a couple of default apps such as camera, clock, and Vanadium (hardened variant of Chromium). By default there is no Google Play Store or Google Play services — so also no telemetry send to Google.
If there is no Google Play Store, how do I get apps? GrapheneOS comes with its own app store. Besides some already installed apps such as Vanadium, it offers two additional app stores: Accrescent and Google Play Store. The former is a private and secure app store with a couple dozen apps. The latter is the regular Google Play, which requires the Google Play services with all its intrusion into privacy. So, without using Google’s service there are not many apps to install, but fortunately Android supports sideloading of apps and other app stores. Common ways to get further apps are:
- F-Droid — Free and open source (FOSS) store for apps
- Aurora Store — Google Play alternatives, that uses shared Google development accounts to access the Google Play store
- Obtainium — Download and update manager of APKs for sources such as GitHub or GitLab repositories, or APK download links
Depending on the individual viewpoint there are various options and combination of options possible. For my personal threat model, I rate security over privacy and don’t assume sophisticated targeted attacks. As a result, I mainly use Obtainium. For any app that is exclusively available on the Google Play Store (besides some shady sites), such as banking apps, I run the Google Play Store in a Private Space.
What is a Private Space?
The Private Space feature was introduced in Android 15 and offers an isolated environment, which also requires an additional unlock. Any app that is opened in a Private Space is terminated by default when locking the Private Space, which is the default when locking the phone. This means that the phone can only send telemetry to Google when the Private Space is unlocked. The same advantages can be taken for any other app with privacy concerns.
Before Private Space was a thing, similar separation and temporarily running could be achieved through the use of multiple user profiles. Which may still an option if multiple environment are required, as Private Space currently only supports one.
Final Thoughts
After using iOS for over five years, I’m impressed by the Pixel 10’s hardware and Android/GrapheneOS’s usability. The experience is smooth and I have little to desire, while still minimizing data send to Google. The only feature I miss is the contactless payment via NFC (Apple Pay/Google Pay), which can be achieved via other apps such Curve Pay, but I’d prefer to avoid using it to prevent giving my data to another company. Hopefully, the European payment solution Wero releases their NFC solution, which is planned for 2026, soon.