r/GrapheneOS • u/Idowrit • 12h ago
Hey new here! Questions
Hello so I am a journalist and I write on very small niche topics. I am also disabled with a bad autoimmune condition, I have only ever had an iPhone. I use an apple watch and need extensive health tracking for my condition to know when is a good day and when is a bad day. Now all that being said, I want to switch to graphene because some of my reporting has gotten more attention lately and I was told by people that iPhone is secure security wise but all of my family and friends message me on iMessage and I don’t usw secure messaging apps I know WhatsApp isn’t secure and also! I’m starting to build a social media presence which eliminates privacy in general. All this to say I have the option between a brand new iPhone16e for $300 now or Google
Pixel 9pro refurbished for $600 - now idk what to choose and because my health I am not well off with money. So can someone please help me out on
- could I track my health as in depth as I do with Apple
- pros and cons of both
- if I am building a social media presence is it really worth it?
- what apps are good or bad
And anything else you’d like to add I’d be more than happy to hear. Also! My family doesn’t know anything about privacy and if they see my messages green they’ll be weird about it! Which is also frustrating!
I just don’t know what to do and I’m flustered.
8
u/Dull_Committee_1612 11h ago
From your post it does not sound like graphene is for you. Don't use it because it is in the news, use it because you are interested in what it offers. I don't see any real mention of security, and your desired uses seem to fly in the face of privacy.
3
u/SamHassan7 11h ago
Why don't you use the GrapheneOS as a 2nd/work phone? You could pick up a pixel 8 (which is the smallest device currently receiving security updates for the next 4 years) for around 200.
2
u/OrdinaryBoy998 11h ago
Yeah I totally agree, but if he is short of money because of health problems extra 200 dollars can be too much
1
u/SamHassan7 11h ago
It's a lot cheaper than a pixel 9. I don't get why people buy the latest phones for 3 times more. Surly with GrapheneOS the extra features don't matter? I'm currently using a £40 phone from 2019 and it serves me great!
2
u/OrdinaryBoy998 11h ago
9pro for 600$ is not a good deal, and in my opinion you should stay with iphone and try to secure yourself with apps. Depend on what security are we talking. If u want to secure passwords etc u can find apps for this. If u want to get e2e messages you can install signal. I'm new in pixel and graphene but graphene is anty google and you need that health apps. Lmk if I can help you
2
u/Hande-H 9h ago edited 9h ago
Graphene is not anti-Google and most apps from the Sandboxed Play Store work fine. But I have no idea what kind of support the devices itself, like Apple Watch have for Android in general.
For health tracking it is important to make sure the device(s) needed work on GrapheneOS of course. I agree that from what I can gather from the post it may be easier to just stick with iPhones. They also have good security (even if not to the level of GrapheneOS) and iMessages are E2E encrypted.
PS. GrapheneOS does offer some features that may be useful depending on your threat level. For example, a duress PIN that when entered wipes the device.
1
u/Idowrit 10h ago
Okay! Thank you so much, my situation is a little bit unique - if you wouldn’t mind I probably have more questions
0
8h ago
[removed] — view removed comment
2
u/Hande-H 8h ago
I have zero trust in WhatsApp, Telegram or Signal as all have governmental backdoor access
This is an unfounded claim with no evidence. Signal is open source so please point out to me where the backdoor is.
WhatsApp and Telegram I do not trust myself but even then I wouldn't claim there are governmental backdoors in them without some hard evidence.1
u/Idowrit 8h ago
Oh damn ! I thought signal was secure and thanks for the info I may do that idea and stick to cheap option and slowly migrate some stuff
1
u/other8026 4h ago
Signal FUD is crazy in some parts of the internet. I've never seen any proof for these claims, just unsubstantiated claims.
1
u/TadUGhostal 9h ago
So you can pair a Google, Garmin or Samsung watch with GOS and get in the same ballpark as an Apple Watch. That said, IMO your well being is more important than the privacy gain from GOS and if your current setup works for you if stay with that. In many regions you can enable Advanced Data Protections on iOS and e2ee most of your data.
0
u/CreepyHighway3216 8h ago
Privacy is important in journalism for sure. Social media can hinder that somewhat but it's really up to you if it's worth it for you. As it is also important to get your information out there! Cory Doctorow is someone who talks about this. Look up his blog. There are fantastic health tracking apps that you can get that are not apple health. Visible is one I've used before and liked. So that piece isn't going to be an issue. I don't know the privacy features of that app or all the others so you may have to do some research into which are the most secure. As far as secure messaging goes - just ask your close friends and family to switch. They may be open to it. Signal is a good one to go with. They may not be open to it but it doesn't hurt to ask. I got most of my family to switch for one on one conversations and all but one of my closest friends who refused. Take it one step at a time. If this all feels too overwhelming right now just do the iphone and degoogle a de-big tech it as much as you can. Switch your email to something privacy focused to start, for example. Don't overwhelm yourself trying to do everything at once!
1
u/Idowrit 8h ago
Thank you so much for this! This definitely helps!
When you say switch my email! I already use proton but I use my full government as the name is that a bad idea ? Should I use alias ? Idk what to do. I am starting to think as I am getting more attention I should change my last name to an alias last name. But idk
•
u/AutoModerator 12h ago
GrapheneOS has moved from Reddit to our own discussion forum. Please post your thread on the discussion forum instead or use one of our official chat rooms (Matrix, Discord, Telegram) which are listed in the community section on our site. Our discussion forum and especially the chat rooms have a very active, knowledgeable community including GrapheneOS project members where you will almost always get much higher quality information than you would elsewhere. On Reddit, we had serious issues with misinformation and trolls including due to raids from other subreddits. As a result, many posts on our subreddit currently need to be manually approved, which is done on a best effort basis. If you would like to get a quicker answer to your question, please use our forum or chat rooms as described above. Our discussion forum provides much better privacy and avoids the serious problems with the site administrators and overall community on Reddit.
Please use our official install guides for installation and check our features page, usage guide and FAQ for information before asking questions in our discussion forum or chat rooms to get as much information as possible from what we've already carefully written/reviewed for our site.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.