GrapheneOS on a Pixel - Why?

GrapheneOS is a highly discussed operating system, but what does it truly mean for you? Today I briefly talk about my experience and what to expect. I also talk about if this was all done for nothing. Side note, I started this video in 2022, so it's a little dated. I still think my opinion stands.
Install it here. You NEED OEM UNLOCKING on before you can start this - grapheneos.org/install/
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Where to buy (Affiliate links)
Pixel 4 XL (should be bootloader unlockable) - amzn.to/3T4aKOv
Do you like Android ROMs? Want more normal videos? Let me know on here or on Twitter / mattofrwr .
Chapters:
0:00 Intro
0:17 What Is It?
1:14 My Phone
5:31 Your Phone
7:35 Final Thoughts
8:37 Outro

[@diotitus]

Saying that you don't care about privacy because you have nothing is like saying that you don't care about freedom of speech because you have nothing to say.

[@RealWorldReview]

Think it is a little bit different. We have freedom of speech, rights to speedy trial and freedom of expression. But we also understand that there's morally reasonable restrictions on all of that, like public indecency and invoking a riot for example. We need medium restrictions. Too heavy of a punishment and too light of a punishment both result in outrage. The issue is when companies spy on you and send that information to law agencies, even if what they see is not what they think it is

[@arkoutarkout3654]

Sounds like you don't really know what freedom of speech is

[@diotitus]

@@arkoutarkout3654 It's a part of the first amendment, so yes I do know what Freedom of Speech is.

[@yeboscrebo4451]

@@RealWorldReviewthe old “fire in a crowded theatre” bs.

[@bobbyjohnson116]

Wait until you see what the financial sector hands over on you! #monero #dero

[@clknight2008]

There is zero reason this guy’s video should be #1 on the results when looking up grapheneos. Clearly a hit piece promoted by google actors or worse.

[@RealWorldReview]

My videos are for the average person. I explained briefly the idea behind GrapheneOS. I explained some flaws in how people use it (as I've seen people run GrapheneOS in person, but they have it loaded with apps that are filled with trackers). I'm not on one side with whether GrapheneOS is worth installing or not. Generally people looking for this don't care about what other videos say, they'll just install it and live with the issues, if they even consider them issues

[@saswatachakraborty]

Just because you have nothing to hide doesn't mean you will go on share your data with everyone out there. We all know what happens behind the closed door but we still keep our sexual life a secret from others.

[@user-fi6uk7zs9s]

Whaaat...why?! That goes against a likely fictional global plan to dominate society slowly by eroding their freedoms and quality of life until they become perpetually reliant on the gubmint. Same shit happens on YT. Creators sell their freedom of speech for fractional AdSense revenue and double down by masquerading as some type of truth warrior who has to comply by saying stupid shit like SA to comply with KZbin even though that's not necessarily true and it's only true because of people's incessant greed. Meanwhile you can watch the news and they can say words like murder and sexual assault with an extensive amount of ads. Because they don't care about them, they care about individuals thinking for themselves in their slightest

[@jcantonelli1]

"It's not that I have anything to hide, I just have nothing to share."

[@RealWorldReview]

You're sharing data with advertisers so they can make money. What you're talking about is something that I can agree with, but also understand that years of shaming has led people to believe that our sex lives are shameful to the public. Even looking at the way communities treat sexual activities has drastically changed from the 60s to the 90s, and changed even more to now. The amount of information people share to the public on social media has drastically changed in the last 10+ years, even though we think that we are special and need to shield ourselves. But people are walking contradictions. In 2019 I saw reports of facial scanning being used on the public and everyone complained. Two years later, everyone wants to complain about wearing a mask that could help shield you're identity. Google looking at my searches to push items to me will not force me to buy a product, especially when they're showing stuff I don't wan't or can't afford.

[@demounit]

>paying for KZbin >thinking any amount of premium goes to them >doesn't care about being the product this is pretty horrifying stuff

[@RealWorldReview]

I make more money off people watching my videos with Premium than I do from Shorts. You’re only the product if they convince you to spend money you normally won’t. If you ignore the ads or don’t get influenced, then you’re just the product of their marketing failures.

[@LexGear]

@@RealWorldReview That's not entirely accurate. "You are the product" because of your interests, contact details, location information etc... Google take your data and make money from it by serving ads to you from paying-advertisers. It does not have anything to do with whether or not you 'pay for premium'.

[@Joehtosis]

4:00 Great example that you’re uninformed on what you’re talking about. The reason those privacy options for Google Pay are disabled on grapheneOS is because grapheneOS is incompatible with Google Pay so the feature is entirely removed with no way to enable it. You frame it as the exact opposite, referencing that you are the product when the reality is with grapheneOS there is no product, it’s an open source community.

[@RealWorldReview]

I am showing them on a Pixel 4 XL that lacks those options on GrapheneOS, while the phone on the right is a OnePlus 9 Pro on stock firmware. I literally say that they're missing. Next time watch and listen to the video.

[@RealWorldReview]

So let me break this down for the 98.6% of people that are not subscribed. If you are searching for another GrapheneOS video to further your bias, this may not be the video for you. After all, the first 5 and a half minutes talk about how I understand GrapheneOS and how I put it on MY phone, as well as MY setup. These are opinions using facts. I am not telling you to setup or use your phone like how I have mine. That said, the next two minutes of this video talk about what I recommend you do with your phone. I am simply talking about keeping a slim OS on your phone using the built in apps, rather than using apps that send data back to companies (besides the fact that SMS and MMS are not encrypted, so technically using the built in messaging service is less secure than the options we have.) This is all stuff you can decide whether or not to do on your phone. If you take this video and think it's propaganda, then you clearly didn't listen to the same video that I posted. This is simply a video where I had GrapheneOS on a phone and I reported my findings and thoughts. Arguing the opposite saying that it affects my "freedom of speech" is quite ironic.

[@johnnychang4233]

@RealWorldReview Can you do a video covering the Android GSI loading function in the hidden development menu to install beta version of Android 14 in devices which doesn't oficially support them?

[@exreal9864]

5:08 careful buddy you're glowing a bit too much

[@RealWorldReview]

Woah, so edgy

[@cyrildescoursiere9060]

Hi, thank you for your video. Does the face recognition works for unlocking the phone with the pixel 4 on GrapheneOS ? Thank you for your response.

[@RealWorldReview]

Yes it does. I am getting conflicting reports about the Pixel 7 and 8 Series not having face unlock, so the 4 and 4 XL might be the only ones.

[@claytonh4917]

Why pay for youtube when u can use vanced

[@RealWorldReview]

I use an iPhone for a lot of my KZbin consumption. Also don't wanna log my account in to there for possibly security breaches. Even when apps say "This info is sent only to Apple/Google", I still don't trust it

[@claytonh4917]

@@RealWorldReview in youtube vanced it's running through microG not google play

[@claytonh4917]

Should say revanced app

[@Joehtosis]

@@RealWorldReview>doesn’t trust apps to do what they say with his data >doesn’t care about the sort of privacy GrapheneOS delivers Cognitive dissonance sure is fun.

[@RealWorldReview]

​@@Joehtosis boo who I have an opinion on how my information is used

[@jevonsims900]

Google is still getting info about you just less of it with Graphene OS. That's why Google is banned in certain countries cause it's pretty much a U.S. Data Collection agency. Great video BTW!

[@jamess3493]

how

[@groundwater9120]

@@jamess3493 I have no evidence of this, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if there was some amount of phoning home going on at the hardware/bootloader level.

[@Joehtosis]

@@groundwater9120pretty sure that grapheneOS uses that very same hardware to circumvent this exact thing. That’s why it’s strictly for pixel devices because other brands don’t have the same sort of chipset to enable those security features. It’s freely available information on their website.

[@blu3t00th1]

actually not. Unless you have a second profile and installed Google play services, then yes. they collect data and send to them by Google play Services. but its limited because its running on sandboxed.

[@cvx8279]

What countries?

[@pedrovictor2659]

Obrigado do Brasil

[@user-fi6uk7zs9s]

People that don't care about this stuff because they think they don't have anything to hide so it's okay are so ignorant. Even if that is true you should be frightened at the market cap value surrounding personal data and then ask yourself why it's seemingly so invaluable if it's so insignificant 2:46 see that's exactly how they get at you to the point of acceptability. Package dictatorship behind convenience for the users cuz you know people are fucking incessantly lazy and obscenely dustin when they shouldn't be and not when they should

[@RealWorldReview]

If you want to boil down information to control a single person, be my guest, but that's not how control works. Separating people in to cities, counties, states, etc. is a more effective way to control a group of people that align with the same ideas. If you're not going for that, then you're selling someone a product, but also assuming that person is the person you're targeting. If I take your phone, use it how I would, then advertisers will be building a profile on you based on me. If we differ in every way, then that information is useless and will fail to be used for anything other than generic advertisement targeting. The solution is to not build profiles and limit possible attacks on your data. The same way people think "my phone got hacked" but in reality someone just logged into their email. Do what you want, limit what you'd like, luckily in the US we have the freedom for that. Some countries do not, and that's where something like GrapheneOS or proper VPNs will help

[@LMorelli1234]

How is this the first search result for graphene videos?

[@RealWorldReview]

Click through rate, CPM, like to dislike ratio, amount of people watching to the end and amount of non subscribers watching the video.

[@Wojteq69]

1. Your Aurora Store version is significantly outdated, latest is 4.4.2 yours seem to be 4.1.1 from 2 years ago. 2. you use youtube instead of ReVanced 3. you kill apps running in background, which actually slows down your phone, because now they need to be cold-started instead of "resumed". Also RAM usage is not a problem since Android dynamically stops them if necessary. you have 6/8 gigs of RAM for a reason.

[@RealWorldReview]

1. This video is from 2022, finished in 2024. 2. Yes. 3. Killing apps is a habit thing, also rather leave them closed instead of suspended in the background when I lock the phone.

[@dudi2200]

7:00 face reveal

[@RealWorldReview]

Not Subscribed Activities

[@dudi2200]

I am sub

[@AEleven]

Great video

[@NietzscheanMan]

Guess ppl refuse to learn anything from history.

[@Raessentia]

If you don't understand the topic at hand you shouldn't be making such videos. Just delete it and save yourself the shame.

[@rythmater]

This video is highly misleading in multiple ways. Of course he showcases GrapheneOS on an EOL device and how F-Droid and Aurora are the flagship app sources, when the developers and broader community doesn't recommend it at all. Both of which have been a major source of issues in the chatrooms and forums. This video will just encourage even more potential new users to use those sources.

[@RealWorldReview]

​@@rythmater "So for me, I thought about downloading apps, starting with F Droid, to get some open source apps…I guess. The idea is to have more transparent apps that tell you what they want from you, if anything. Now there are many apps in here that you can download, this video isn’t really going to go over that, as well as the fact that there are other apps that do the same, possibly being better, more reliable, and safer. I don’t know the facts there, so this is just me telling you about what I heard watching some videos about it." No where did I recommend the use of F Droid or Aurora, and even throughout the video I talked about the apps in a negative way. I used the Pixel 4 XL in late 2022, which is when this video was started. At the time, I had just got the Pixel 7 Pro and didn't want to put it on that phone. And so what about an EOL device? Security patches? If numerous articles based on Google Play metrics is to be trusted, less than 50% of the world is on Android 14 or 13, and even then that doesn't guarantee that this devices are running the latest security patches as most manufacturers are 1-2 months behind, if not longer. Android 13 was the newest for this device in 2022, so I can't really change that. Android 14 would be nice, but at that point there would be other custom roms that you can put on this phone, but that's not what GrapheneOS is trying to do. If you found this misleading, you're probably gonna find lots of other videos misleading.

[@rythmater]

@@RealWorldReview Using an EOL device to showcase GrapheneOS is misleading, no matter how you put it. More so with showing an outdated version of the operating system, only maintained on a legacy branch and missing many GrapheneOS and AOSP improvements from October 2023 onwards. The Graphene community shares the same sentiment that this video is just another attempt at harassment and spreading misinformation and many members have gone to the liberty of reporting your channel for this (read the bridged chatroom), among others who made a "lot of videos misleading". There is no place for these attacks and you aren't an exception. If you wanted to make a video on GrapheneOS, you should have consulted the developers and community for accurate information. But seeing this, you clearly are in the same league as Techlore and Louis Rossmann.

[@TikNervio]

👎

[@maskagaz]

why is it only available for pixels devices lmao looks like Google is targeted

[@Jst4vdeos]

Graphene has very strict requirements: Non-exhaustive list of requirements for future devices, which are standards met or exceeded by current Pixel devices: Support for using alternate operating systems including full hardware security functionality Complete monthly Android Security Bulletin patches without any regular delays longer than a week At least 5 years of updates from launch for phones (Pixels now have 7) and 7 years for tablets Vendor code updated to new monthly, quarterly and yearly releases of AOSP within several months to provide new security improvements (Pixels receive these in the month they're released) Linux 5.15 or Linux 6.1 Generic Kernel Image (GKI) support Hardware accelerated virtualization usable by GrapheneOS (ideally pKVM to match Pixels but another usable implementation may be acceptable) Hardware memory tagging (ARM MTE or equivalent) BTI/PAC, CET or equivalent PXN, SMEP or equivalent PAN, SMAP or equivalent Isolated radios (cellular, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, NFC, etc.), GPU, SSD, media encode / decode, image processor and other components Support for A/B updates of both the firmware and OS images with automatic rollback if the initial boot fails one or more times Verified boot with rollback protection for firmware Verified boot with rollback protection for the OS (Android Verified Boot) Verified boot key fingerprint for yellow boot state displayed with a secure hash (non-truncated SHA-256 or better) StrongBox keystore provided by secure element Hardware key attestation support for the StrongBox keystore Attest key support for hardware key attestation to provide pinning support Weaver disk encryption key derivation throttling provided by secure element Insider attack resistance for updates to the secure element (Owner user authentication required before updates are accepted) Inline disk encryption acceleration with wrapped key support 64-bit-only device support code Wi-Fi anonymity support including MAC address randomization, probe sequence number randomization and no other leaked identifiers Support for disabling USB data and also USB as a whole at a hardware level in the USB controller

[@jeremiahputnam3893]

Because, ironicly, Pixels are the best phones to mod because they don't have all the third party crap and are designed for developers. Look at just how many ROMs are available for Pixels vs the other brands.

[@saswatachakraborty]

Because Google lets you use your own verified boot key to lock the bootloader and the security chip (Titan M) doesn't stop working when you load a different OS.

[@afterburner3999]

TXTING a MSG NOPE The Only Thing i want a Fone For CALLS and TXTING. Useless Review