Brother! 🤝 I made it myself with Canvas and a Cricut!

I had the receipt, a separate piece of paper that they printed with my “name and info”, the email, and the text. Luckily I’d also forseen this happening and spoke to the manager when buying the phone, so I had him ready to name drop and he’d put in the notes that I’d “lost my ID” and wouldn’t have it for pickup so the guy couldn’t really argue with me for long. I did get some pushback initially though, I was a little stressed that they were trying to scam me out of my money but I played it cool.

That’s why I like it actually. It forces me to interact with the community, it’s more organic that way, and I need to eventually move in with my life instead of doom scroll. I get to the end and go “well that’s the end of the internet for a day or two”

Graphene has been the easiest part of the journey so far tbh. The hard part was finding alternative apps and deleting accounts :) Heck, buying the phone in cash was harder than Graphene, dear lord do stores feel like they’re entitled to ask invasive questions. I had to order it too because they didn’t have the larger storage model in stock so I had to give a fake name with a fake email, a hotel address, voip number, wait over a week, and then argue with them about showing ID until they gave up when I came back to pick it up.

🤜🤛

It’s surprisingly smooth, basically “just Android” but less bloat, spam, and creepiness. Way easier than my transition to Linux has been (which still wasn’t bad), and I feel like I can relax now.

I AM mildly annoyed that I was unable to fully degoogle though. I need Android Auto which needs Play Services. And I need a navigation app, and the one I chose (Here We Go) works in Android Auto ONLY if downloaded from the Play Store specifically, not even Aurora. Literally the only app that did that once I enabled side loading in Android Auto settings, and literally the only app I needed to work on Android Auto. But it was either that or Google Maps from Aurora basically and uh…nah. I found Open Street Map based apps to be unusable.

Still, it’s sort of nice to have the Play Store and Play Services. Play Store is most secure for downloads. Notifications are more reliable. I only give network permissions to each and turned off Play Protect so they can’t phone home. Most things auto update between Graphene App Store, Droid-ify, and Play Store (Aurora and Obtanium can auto update on my old phone, but not on GrapheneOS). The stuff I have left in Obtanium are just a few game emulators which aren’t security critical. I made a new burner account from the phone settings with a VPN on and it didn’t ask for a phone number that way. I can make a new burner next time I get a phone. Or not, and I can buy Play Store gift cards with cash if I really need paid apps. I was starting to like Koala Sampler for example, though it does have a few trackers which I’m not comfortable with.

I’m also mildly annoyed that I had to overpay for the hardware just to lose my SD card slot. Gaming is unimpressive, it’s barely an upgrade from a Snapdragon 865+. It definitely still has a premium flagship feel though, and the CPU and camera is a big improvement from my old phone.

It’s their tough armor case in green. The sticker I created myself with Canva and a Cricut. I may have to remake it and use a bit of glue on the edges though.

Last I heard there is still no site isolation on Android

PineTime is probably the best choice privacy wise. It hits all your requirements but it is definitely not fancy. Pretty much everything will require an app, but the GadgetBridge app is FOSS with no trackers or uploading your data.

I’m going to go against the grain slightly and say that it’s not as bad as you might think. Schools and businesses have deals with Google when they pay for the software. Google is not allowed to scan everything to train Gemini the same way that they do for a personal free Google account.

That being said, it’s always best practices to disconnect work/school and personal activities, for a wide variety of reasons. The more present threat is the work/school being able to see everything you do on the device. Like, EVERYTHING, sometimes even keystrokes. Furthermore, using your personal third party accounts will increase the attack surface by Google and your school/employer being able to associate the service and/or account with you. So at the end of the day, don’t do anything personal on school/work devices, and you can’t get burned by either party.

I don’t code so correct me if I’m wrong, but wouldn’t the code have to be generally accepted, reviewed, and verified by other members of the project? Ai can fuck right off as far as I’m concerned, but this isn’t a situation where a CEO just unilaterally decides vibe coding is the move. Unless I’m mistaken.

Let’s gooooooo