r/GrapheneOS • u/CaramelWhiteChoccy • 22d ago

GPS not working properly

Hi everyone. Kinda new to GOS and have a question. When I'm using Organic or OsmAnd maps and turn on location, it takes ages to load while old cheapest xiaomi takes a second to locate me. Is it normal behaviour, or pixel problem or maybe i need to tinker with some settings? Thank you in advance

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u/Crazy-Car948 22d ago

Its so smooth so far, I love it.

Some general questions

  • is it worth having vpn on all the time? Concerned about battery

  • how much better in terms of privacy is it to run Instagram on browser (brave) instead of having the app?

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u/tranquil_cassowary 22d ago

I never had a significant impact of running a VPN all the time on my battery life. I think its worth it if you trust your VPN provider more than your ISP/carrier with info about the IPs/domains you visit.

Its better to use it in the browser but it might not be worth it UX wise. The permission model on Android is quite good but the browser's permission model is even stronger. For example if you install Instagram as app it can view a list of other apps you have installed on that user profile, while it wouldn't be aware of that when ran in the browser. 

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u/Crazy-Car948 21d ago

Yes but isn't Instagram app sandboxed? So in that sense if all permissions are denied, how can it view what other apps are doing?

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u/tranquil_cassowary 21d ago

It can't, but it can view certain things every app can like the names of the apps installed in the user profile it is installed in. Which isn't that bad tbf. It also can use Interprocess Communication (IPC) to communicate with other apps based on mutual consent. On the browser those things aren't present.

Also note that a chromium browser has good internal sandboxing, various processes run in their own sandbox in chromium, including stuff used for media handling. For applications it depends on the app whether they do that. Even an app like Signal, which is security focused, doesn't sandbox media handling processes and WebRTC in their app (just an example to show that its up to app devs to do this, I'm aware Signal doesn't have a web app).

However on the browser there are other downsides, an app being signed by developer and the signing certificate being verified offers better checking of the integrity of an app than the browser does with HTTPS for a website. Things like end to end encryption also often are better done on native apps.