[MattTheRealOne]

I use and appreciate GrapheneOS due to it being one of, if not the best, option we currently have.

That said, I do not like how much the project depends on Google.

- GrapheneOS is based on Android, which is solely developed by Google.

- GrapheneOS only supports Google Pixel devices. Thankfully, they are working on partnering with a different manufacturer, but details are still very limited.

- They recommend using the Google Play Store (requires a Google account) to get apps and recommend against using F-Droid.

- Their Vanadium web browser is based on Chromium, which is controlled by Google. It also does not have an ad blocker or support extensions. They recommend against using Firefox. Firefox, and Safari to a more limited extent, are the only web browsers keeping Google from having complete control over web standards and the way we can access the internet.

This is not a criticism of the GrapheneOS project or developers. I understand that security is the biggest priority of GrapheneOS and I understand that Google is often good at security. They are following the goals of the project. It is more directed towards the GrapheneOS community that often blindly recommends GrapheneOS as the only option and treats any alternative as inferior and not to be considered. Most users do not need security at all costs. Especially among the free and open source enthusiast community, freedom and user control are often prioritized. There should be more awareness and discussion about what the user wants and whether that actually aligns with the security-first goals of GrapheneOS.

[niam]

> It also does not have an ad blocker

It does have a network-level ad blocker. What it doesn't have is a blocker which modifies/injects Javascript into pages, which iiuc is the main reason that the blocker doesn't help with ads on YouTube much, or pages which employ similar techniques.

> They recommend against using Firefox.

To clarify: they recommend against Firefox Mobile because it didn't support site isolation until last month's v147 updates. I don't know if the goalpost has moved since, but in any case: there's nothing on Graphene that would prevent you from using Firefox.

[strcat]

Firefox 147 doesn't provide site sandboxing or even basic content sandboxing on Android. They enabled multi-process support by default but still don't provide any form of sandbox for the separate processes. They enabled the separation part of site isolation which is partially implemented for Firefox desktop and now mobile but do not have content sandboxing and partial site sandboxing as they do for the desktop browser. See https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1565196 for their still open issue with many other issues as dependencies for sandboxing.

The complete lack of content and site sandboxing on Firefox for Android is only one of the reasons we recommend against it. It has major security deficiencies beyond this and cannot benefit from many of the hardware and OS protections due to it. Vanadium is much more secure than standard Chromium while Firefox is much less secure than it, so there's quite a stark difference between them.

Recommending against using Firefox and F-Droid due to major security deficiencies doesn't in any way reduce user choice as the post above portrays it. Having a lot of accurate information provided by GrapheneOS enables our users to make more well informed decisions. We also do not specifically recommend the Play Store as the post says above but rather we provide nuanced information about the available choices. Specifically for obtaining apps from the Play Store which aren't available directly from the developers, we recommend using the sandboxed Play Store for users who using sandboxed Google Play in a profile for app compatibility already. Play Store itself has signature verification while Aurora Store only has TLS with a smaller set of trusted CAs by default similar to many Google apps. Aurora Store is sometimes needed to work around app's filtering who can install it so we do recommend it for that specific purpose. Aurora Store still logs into a Play Store account and making a throwaway account to use the Play Store app doesn't reduce privacy compared to using sandboxed Google Play without one.

[strcat]

> GrapheneOS is based on Android, which is solely developed by Google.

GrapheneOS is based on the Android Open Source Project. It's incorrect to say it's solely developed by Google and it's open source software which we're free to change as we see fit.

> GrapheneOS only supports Google Pixel devices. Thankfully, they are working on partnering with a different manufacturer, but details are still very limited.

No, we already have a partnership with a major Android OEM. It's not something we're working on obtaining and we've provided a fair bit of details including that it will be publicly announced by the OEM in March, that the devices will launch in 2027 and that they'll use a high end Snapdragon SoC which is either the flagship (most likely) or one step below it.

> They recommend using the Google Play Store

No, that's not our recommendation.

> recommend against using F-Droid

We recommend against F-Droid due to it being an unnecessary middleman between users and app developers which does not truly reduce trust the app developers. F-Droid apps are consistently out-of-date and often lag months being on important privacy and security fixes. F-Droid consistently makes problematic undocumented changes to apps including rolling back dependency updates. F-Droid is known to use highly outdated build infrastructure which is very poorly secured. They have a bunch of bad security practices throughout their approach and have made it clear it isn't a priority for them. They've repeatedly said they don't believe app sandboxing is useful and much more than that. Many open source apps including Signal and WireGuard have asked to have their apps omitted from F-Droid due to the security and trustworthiness issues with the project. That's not at all something specific to GrapheneOS.

> Their Vanadium web browser is based on Chromium, which is controlled by Google.

Chromium is an open source project which is collaboratively worked on by multiple projects using it as the basis for their browsers. That includes Microsoft who implemented the WebAssembly interpreter available in the upstream Chromium codebase which is used by Vanadium but is dead code in Chrome and regular Chromium builds since it was added for Edge.

> It also does not have an ad blocker

No, that's not true. Vanadium has a default enabled ad blocker which uses EasyList, EasyPrivacy, EasyList's Adblock Warning Removal List and also selectively activates a whole bunch of EasyList affiliated language/regional lists based on the currently active languages. This approach avoids adblocking being used for fingerprinting, avoids greatly weakening site isolation sandboxing as extensions do and is much higher performance which is important on mobile. It very clearly has ad blocking and a per-site toggle for it.

> or support extensions

Extensions greatly weaken site isolation and give third party code without verified boot extensive access to website content similar to dangerous Android accessibility service apps. Very few extensions are focused on privacy and security in a similar way to GrapheneOS and would compromise what we're trying to build. It's not the approach we want to use in Vanadium. If you want to use extensions then you can use a browser with them but it doesn't fit into what we're building with Vanadium where we want to implement features ourselves in a very private, secure and robust way which cannot be done with extensions. Extensions fundamentally reduce security including because they used a shared process across all isolated websites which inherently reduces isolation. Few extensions take this seriously, even the ones focused on privacy. They commonly add leaks between sites. There are plenty of other browsers available but ours is aiming for a standard of privacy and security which cannot be achieved with extensions.

> They recommend against using Firefox.

Firefox's Android app has atrocious privacy and security. A browser without even basic content sandboxing let alone sandboxing with full site isolation. That's combined with major other major security deficiencies and it isn't something we could recommend using. Recommending against it doesn't mean people can't use it...

You'll still be using Vanadium as the web content engine within apps using the WebView such as email clients rendering HTML email and many more. Many people have a misunderstanding of what the WebView is and confuse it with custom tabs which are provided by the user's selected default browser rather than the WebView used within other apps.

> This is not a criticism of the GrapheneOS project or developers.

How isn't it criticism of GrapheneOS? Regardless, Vanadium does have an adblocker and we don't specifically recommend the Play Store as you said. The biggest issue is that what you're saying about what we prioritize, advise or provide isn't accurate.

> I understand that security is the biggest priority of GrapheneOS

Privacy is the biggest priority of GrapheneOS and privacy depends on security. GrapheneOS is a privacy project.

> It is more directed towards the GrapheneOS community that often blindly recommends GrapheneOS as the only option and treats any alternative as inferior and not to be considered.

Our project and community regularly recommends iOS as an alternative which provides far better privacy and security than non-GrapheneOS options. Most other options have very poor privacy/security including lacking even basic privacy/security patches and protections. Similarly, our project and community regularly recommends using macOS for better privacy and security than either Windows or desktop Linux. What you're saying are blind recommendations are anything but that but rather very well informed information provided by the GrapheneOS project.

> Most users do not need security at all costs.

GrapheneOS is not about security at all costs and this misconception which regularly comes up that it's about security rather than privacy is completely wrong. Many projects failing to provide decent privacy treat it as if privacy is solely about which apps/services are bundled rather than needing to provide privacy patches, privacy protections and solid security to protect that from being bypassed. Much of what GrapheneOS provides are privacy features such as Contact Scopes, Storage Scopes and the Sensors/Network toggles along with much more. The security protections it provides exist to protect privacy. Why else would the security protections be there other than to protect privacy? It's not a separate thing from privacy but rather is a huge part of providing it. There's no other reason for us to work on security than protecting privacy. It doesn't make sense to say we work on security instead of privacy.

Most users do need basic privacy/security updates and protections. Failing to keep up with basic updates and misleading users about it is a severe issue. There isn't any major non-GrapheneOS AOSP-based OS that's doing the bare minimum of keeping up with updates.

> Especially among the free and open source enthusiast community, freedom and user control are often prioritized. There should be more awareness and discussion about what the user wants and whether that actually aligns with the security-first goals of GrapheneOS.

You aren't accurately representing what GrapheneOS provides, our approach or our priorities. People can see for themselves from the detailed article that it provides a highly usable and compatible system with a huge amount of user choice. People can choose from a wide range of approaches based on their privacy and security goals. It doesn't impose choices on people. You treat it as if people are forced to use Vanadium when it's another choice of browser which people have on GrapheneOS but not elsewhere. GrapheneOS users have more choice among browsers and the one we have DOES provide ad blocking contrary to what you said. GrapheneOS users can use F-Droid despite us recommending against it due to the major security deficiencies. Providing well informed recommendations with detailed explanations does not in any way hinder user choice but rather informs people so they can make better choices. Our recommendations not aligning with your personal beliefs or preferences doesn't mean we're somehow reducing user choice.