Not grossly, but a little. When you have separate user profiles, upon switching to one of those, that profile thinks its the entire phone - doesn't know the others exist, can't see them. So whatever you do **in that profile** might all be spying on eachother within that silo. But when you switch to a different profile the spying ends/stays in the other one.
So a lot of Graphene users will keep all the freaky shit in one profile (I have one called "Goolag") and all their safer, private stuff in another. That's what the other commenter meant about having a purely FOSS profile and attempting to use it as much as possible.
I would do maybe the opposite of what most people recommend: install all the compatability stuff (google play services, etc. everything in the "Graphene app store" app) but **don't log into any Google accounts there**. Let the phone do normal stuff like notifications and whatever so you're not in hell on day one.
Then make a pure FOSS profile and try out the alternatives there, like ntfy for notifications and whatever else. See if you can handle that and _maybe_ switch to it full time.
Honestly the worst part is maps, which is no surprise. Organic Maps and Magic Earth and OsmAnd~ are pretty solid, but still a far cry from Google and Apple maps. I don't surrender on this front - I use the FOSS maps as apps, but I'll sometimes use Google maps (logged out) in a web browser with VPN on - or Apple maps via duckduckgo.
The profile switching is pretty fast, but it's still a drag and I don't find myself using it as much as I thought I would.
vinney
npub19m…8axkl
2025-06-17 22:20:11
in reply to nevent1q…gn2q
Author Public Key
npub19ma2w9dmk3kat0nt0k5dwuqzvmg3va9ezwup0zkakhpwv0vcwvcsg8axklPublished at
2025-06-17 22:20:11Event JSON
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"content": "Not grossly, but a little. When you have separate user profiles, upon switching to one of those, that profile thinks its the entire phone - doesn't know the others exist, can't see them. So whatever you do **in that profile** might all be spying on eachother within that silo. But when you switch to a different profile the spying ends/stays in the other one.\n\nSo a lot of Graphene users will keep all the freaky shit in one profile (I have one called \"Goolag\") and all their safer, private stuff in another. That's what the other commenter meant about having a purely FOSS profile and attempting to use it as much as possible.\n\nI would do maybe the opposite of what most people recommend: install all the compatability stuff (google play services, etc. everything in the \"Graphene app store\" app) but **don't log into any Google accounts there**. Let the phone do normal stuff like notifications and whatever so you're not in hell on day one. \nThen make a pure FOSS profile and try out the alternatives there, like ntfy for notifications and whatever else. See if you can handle that and _maybe_ switch to it full time. \nHonestly the worst part is maps, which is no surprise. Organic Maps and Magic Earth and OsmAnd~ are pretty solid, but still a far cry from Google and Apple maps. I don't surrender on this front - I use the FOSS maps as apps, but I'll sometimes use Google maps (logged out) in a web browser with VPN on - or Apple maps via duckduckgo.\n\nThe profile switching is pretty fast, but it's still a drag and I don't find myself using it as much as I thought I would.",
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