this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2023
2334 points (99.3% liked)
Privacy
32120 readers
938 users here now
A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.
Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.
Some Rules
- Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn't great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
- Don't promote proprietary software
- Try to keep things on topic
- If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
- Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
- Be nice :)
Related communities
much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
You mean Nova Launcher? That's an app you can use as a home screen (I'm using it right now actually.) GrapheneOS is a completely different OS that replaces the stock Android on your phone. If your phone is OEM unlocked you can install it very easily: https://grapheneos.org/install/web
You can block apps from accessing the internet completely in GrapheneOS. I have Nova Launcher blocked right now since it collects data, though without access to the Internet it can't send that data anywhere. You can also block sensor access, useful for preventing apps from getting other data. In general a very big upgrade over stock android.
Oh I see, GOS is a rom? I'm really nervous about putting a custom rom on my phone, last time I tried that it permanently broke all the NFC on my samsung galaxy
You don't have to do any rooting to install it, unlike how you would with Samsung phones in the past. You can't install GrapheneOS on a phone that doesn't already allow OEM unlocking and it only works with Pixel phones, but the process is simple and extremely low risk. You just plug the phone into your computer and use the web tool in your browser.
If you ever want to return to the normal Android, Google has a similar tool that allows you to easily reinstall the original OS.
Thanks for the explanation! It seems I've been irrationally afraid of installing new OS's after previous experience.