GrapheneOS recommended for domestic abuse victims

https://privacypros.com.au/privacy-hub/articles/dv-safe-phone-australia/

179 162 6 days ago

privacypros.com.au

I've used GrapheneOS, but not PrivacyPros setup. The site is interesting. It is almost like a to do list of things for my phone. Most of the things they've done feels like a topic to look into and consider implementing.

d--b• 6 days ago

This is a website made by people who sell phones that are 100% tracker-free, and that run on GrpheneOS.

I wouldn’t recommend domestic violence victims to install graphene os on their phone by themselves

bigiain2• 6 days ago

The website also says:

"Australian research shows that 99% of domestic violence cases now involve some form of technology-facilitated abuse."

Where the "Australian research" is linked to a page where the first Key Finding states:

"Over one quarter (27%) of domestic violence cases involve technology-facilitated abuse of children."

Doesn't fill me with confidence in anything they say (even if I do believe the advice is right).

defrost2• 6 days ago

The relevant quote* from the linked Australian research is:

  Technology-facilitated abuse is becoming more and more of a key feature of domestic and family violence. A 2015 survey of 546 domestic and family violence frontline workers found that 98% of respondents had clients who had experienced technology-facilitated abuse.

The research then focuses specifically on children, finding that of all the domestic violence cases, 27% involve technology-facilitated abuse of children.

Can you expand on what it is that "Doesn't fill [you] with confidence" ?

* Page 9: https://www.esafety.gov.au/sites/default/files/2020-12/Child...

Cider998619• 6 days ago

I'm curious what you are considering with recommending buying a privacy phone vs buying a regular phone and flashing in a DV situation?

harvey92• 6 days ago

I flashed a pixel using their webpage. They have made it remarkably simple to do.

mmooss4• 6 days ago

How do you know what they installed? Also, I understand that GrapheneOS installs are very simple now.

grapheneos11• 6 days ago

It's generally better for people to install GrapheneOS themselves since it's very easy and saves a lot of money. It takes 10 minutes to install GrapheneOS with the web installer. It also avoids needing to trust a company to do it, although it's possible to verify an install done by someone else is genuine with the verified boot key fingerprint and/or Auditor. An existing install by someone else should be factory reset it to avoid any sketchy configuration.

Getting a new phone is very useful to someone that's a victim of a controlling partner but it doesn't particularly need to be a GrapheneOS device. GrapheneOS has features useful for this including Auditor and standard Android profiles but we're not specifically recommending it for this ourselves. People who are victims of this probably just need a new phone of any kind and to prioritize other things.

Cider998619• 6 days ago

It's absolutely insane that phones have online accounts deeply integrated into the OS. You need to give Apple your phone number to download any apps on iOS.

For example:

Say anyone that downloaded IceBlock commited crime, Apple could give the govt everyone who downloaded its phone number, the govt could get the realtime location of everyone based on their phone number from the carrier.

And that's not even mentioning the other problem that nobody can download IceBlock anymore[1].

It's so refreshing for my phone not to ask for any identifying information when I set it up. GrapheneOS is a better software experience than iOS anyway[2].

Phones have great potential to be the most private and secure computers, cell services not withdrawing. And iPhones are one of the most private and secure devices. But, Apple uses that to restrict its users freedom and it makes Apple's users can easily be controlled by any government.

GrapheneOS delivers that dream.

[1] https://www.iceblock.app/

[2] once you install good apps. This is coming from a lifelong iOS user. Not prejudiced against Apple, I use a Mac (without an account) and their Advanced Data Protection is great (when I had an account).

monksy4• 6 days ago

I agree with that.. additionaly, I'm finding it to be insane that organizations are trying to force you to have a "audited" phone to interact with them. (I.e. events, businesses, etc)

andai4• 6 days ago

What is that? I don't seem to be finding anything relevant on Google.

LoganDark• 6 days ago

I miss the days when iOS jailbreaks allowed you to completely circumvent basically all DRM because the trust in Apple was so high that you could just assume a device is secure. Contrast that with Android, which has always had invasive attestation mechanisms because of widespread mistrust in OEMs. On iOS, sometimes you had individual apps trying to check for jailbreak but that was it

matheusmoreira6• 6 days ago

Remote attestation is not just insane, it's the technology that will end free computing as we know it today.

What good is free software if using it marks our devices as untrusted and gets us banned from every service out there? Gets us ostracized from digital society? Because we "tampered" with the device?

We should be able to run whatever software we want and they should be none the wiser. Instead, we are part of the threat model now. Our devices are now cryptographically attesting that they are corporate owned and that we are under corporate control. It's so disgusting. The future we're heading towards is terrifying. Everything the word hacker ever stood for will be destroyed if this keeps up.

preisschild2• 6 days ago

that organizations are trying to force you to have a "audited" phone to interact with them. (I.e. events, businesses, etc)

Even worse, GOVERNMENTS do that. EU Governments basically forcing you to give Google (via the Google Mobile Services rootkit) or Apple (and via the cloud act also the Trump Admin) access to your entire phone (including all of your saved personal data) to use the govt eID system...

roysting• 6 days ago

organizations are trying to force

If it were only that and we actually had “free market capitalism” and “competition” you could simply choose, but leering and steering these “organizations” is the treasonous and inherently illegitimate government, which is increasingly indistinguishable from private corporations, mostly because it’s the same pool of people, which are reflexively moving us all towards a common focal point of a form of tyranny similar to hereditary oligarchy and/or serfdom.

pjerem• 6 days ago

I’m on the edge of migrating from my iPhone to a Pixel with GrapheneOS.

But there is ONE feature I love on iOS and it’s the Live Photos. I feel like it’s an amazing way to keep family memories. Do you know if it exists on GrapheneOS?

Cider998619• 6 days ago

Yes, I have it and I use Google camera and Google photos. Not sure if default camera and gallery have it.

aucisson_masque4• 6 days ago

Only in Google camera, which is usable on grapheneos: You get a live shot feature, it ain't exactly the same tho, look into that.

I run pixelos and the amount of stuff I miss from iphone is staggering, the difference between pixelos/grapheneos isn't as big as the difference between iphone/pixel.

mschild2• 6 days ago

Natively it doesn't.

There are 3rd party camera apps that support it, but you'd have to download them separately. GrapheneOS camera app is fine but nothing outstanding. It will give you decent pictures but don't expect any fancy upscaling or editing features.

ablob• 6 days ago

Don't phones have identifiers outside of phone number anyway? I feel like you have to trust the hardware/os vendor anyway. So if you don't trust apple to not misbehave, maybe not getting an iphone is better than chasing the whole phone-number idea.

Cider998619• 6 days ago

Your comment isn't super clear to me, let me know if I misunderstood anything.

Yes there are still identifiers when using cellular data service, but they aren't connected to your phone number that you give out. Phone number gets a determined threat actor real time location, which is what I explained. Threat actor gets location from any carrier identifier. Cellular was built in a terrible way for privacy and security.

Android doesn't let apps see hardware identifiers if that's related.

Yes you're correct about having to trust Apple, but my point is that the way Apple is collecting all this extra info allows them to be compelled to hand it over. It's not about trusting Apple, it's about them following the law, which they will do.

tonyhart7• 6 days ago

well you cant blame apple for that since Government can literally force your company to doing shit like this

Cider998619• 5 days ago

I blame them for collecting the phone numbers. They can already make sure you're running an apple account on real hardware. If they didn't collect phone numbers, they couldn't give them away, that's how all good privacy respecting companies like Signal operate.

izacus6• 6 days ago

I mean... your sentiment is in the right place, but Android phones (non-GrapheneOS) can be used without Google account just fine.

Yes, you need to use F-Droid & Co. to get apps (just like on Graphene), but otherwise they're functional and many people are actually using them like that.

matltc4• 5 days ago

Curious to hear: how much effort did it take to migrate to GrapheneOS? I own a pixel, grabbed it in anticipation of unlocking, but the effort it seems it would take from reading GrapheneOS docs has stopped me from committing to it on my daily driver. Would you please provide a quick time estimate and any snags you hit?

hellojesus• 5 days ago

It took me about an hour. I sat down, read the docs, installed it via the web installer, then spent the next 45 min deciding how I wanted to segment separate profiles for play services.

Nowadays it seems a lot easier because there seems to be a separate profile isolater you can run in the main profile, which I would choose if I was installing today.

The only hiccup I've had is that sometimes group messages don't send correctly and send individual messages to everyone, but I think that's because I'm on a secondary profile, and it only happens when the phone is receiving a bunch of messages all at once while I try to send to the same group. But I deny network access to my installed swype keyboard, so it may have something to do with that too.

I've been running this for years, since the Pixel 7 came out, which I'm still using.

I love it. I can confidently go through customs knowing that if they yank my phone during some weird checkpoint and try to celbrite it, I'm as secure as can be.

Itoldmyselfso• 5 days ago

Time estimate depends heavily on the apps you use (data migration in them) and maybe some features that don't easily work out-of-the-box in GOS like Google's find my device, where you'd ideally migrate to use foss alternatives like FMD[1]. For the easiest setup by far just install the sandboxed Google Play Store and get your apps from there. In general the more additional security features you enable, the more issues you may face, so I'd recommend leaving everything to GOS default, like leaving Sensors permission ON by default. There are a few gotchas that may not be mentioned in GOS official documentation or elsewhere such as BT tracker devices not being supported for the most part, requiring workarounds. There are also few apps that don't currently support GOS [2][3], so be sure to check them out beforehand.

1: https://gitlab.com/fmd-foss/fmd-android

2: https://grapheneos.org/articles/attestation-compatibility-gu...

3: https://privsec.dev/posts/android/banking-applications-compa...

grapheneos11• 5 days ago

It takes around 10 minutes to install it. Most of the time people spend on it is deciding how they want to set things up. It's very easy to set it up in a similar way that you would use the stock OS. You can use a single profile with sandboxed Google Play installed.

Many people want to segment things more than that by having a dedicated profile for apps depending on sandboxed Google Play. A work profile, Private Space or secondary user can be used for it. A work profile or Private Space is a lot more convenient. Using a work profile avoids wasting the Owner user's Private Space if you want to use it for sensitive data. We want to add support for multiple Private Spaces per user in the future instead of only 1 per user to fully obsolete work profiles for local usage.

1vuio0pswjnm72• 5 days ago

"Phones have great potential to be the most private and secure computers."

How would that be achieved

We could assume that a user could make their own computer "private and secure"

But if a third party, e.g., Apple, Inc., Google, LLC, GrapheneOS Foundation, etc., has RCE, e.g., "auto-updates", then how can the computer be "private and secure" against that third party and any party that they "work with", voluntarily or not, e.g., a business partner, a government, but also others that might target these third parties, such as an attacker who isn't interested in their bug bounty programs, etc.

To achieve "private and secure", would the user need to remove the RCE capability of the third party (parties)

What about data collection and surveillance by the third party (the user would have to review the source code and compile the OS themselves to be sure about data collection and surveillance)

If there is data collection and surveillance, then how could the user be sure that the data collected and surveillance capability held by the third party is "private and secure" from that third party (e.g., Apple, Google, etc.), any third parties that work with them, and others who might target these third parties

Assuming the user even knows the identities of all these third parties, what if their operations are secretive and non-transparent

What if they have a history of dishonesty

What if they make no promises to the user that could be enforced and instead they just assume "trust"

Perhaps each user might have a different concept of "private and secure"

1vuio0pswjnm72• 5 days ago

https://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/2026/04/apple-expands...

arkhiver• 6 days ago

It's almost like they're trying to sell you one of their phones... not cool

Cider998619• 6 days ago

I disagree, it's cool to promote good projects like GrapheneOS that help people.

Have you seen how many articles recommend not secure and not private alternative phones, that's not cool.

Edit: damn some of their phones with it preloaded are like 4x the price your can get for pixels in the state's. Can't speak to Australian prices for regular pixels tho.

bigiain2• 6 days ago

The cheapest option, Pixel 10, costs $1349 from Google, they want $1990 (in Australian Dollars, that's about $940 and $1390 in USD)

So not quite a 50% markup on the bard phone, not quite as bad as 4x.

And while I'd feel like a jerk if I asked for money helping someone at risk of DV setting this up, if I was doing it as a business with the mandatory warranty and support this'd need to include in Australia, I think that's expensive but probably fair?

monksy4• 6 days ago

I use GrapheneOS, I would endorse it for anyone that is technically capable.

lazycatjumping• 6 days ago

The Fingerprint with Pin 2FA is a huge game changer.

andai4• 6 days ago

Can someone explain this? I've used custom ROMs back in the day (Cyanogen!) but I'm not familiar with GrapheneOS.

I remember Cyanogen ships without Google Play etc., right? (Because if you install Google Services and a bunch of crap from their store (theirs and otherwise) that spies on you, it defeats the purpose of a privacy preserving OS.

So I'm assuming Graphene is at least as strict as that? (Well Cyanogen at least give you the option of installing all that crap but that would seem to defeat the purpose in this case.)

But more broadly I'm not sure I understand the relevance in this particular context. The article mentions that an abuser could put spyware on your phone? Is that a realistic scenario? (Ok I suppose half the stuff on the Play store is spyware so maybe it's more realistic than I'm thinking...)

Cider998619• 6 days ago

Zero Google services are shippsx by default, but you can install Play Store and Services in a sandbox and it has minimal privacy problems, depending on the permissions you give it.

Their docs are really good, not only for their phone but for learning about privacy and security: https://grapheneos.org

You could still install an app that spies on you on grapheneos because it has 99.99% android app compatibility, so if you gave an app designed for spying the relevant permissions, it would still be able to spy. No way it could hide location indicator or anything like that, but I doubt it could do that on other OSes (don't quote me on other OSes).

Nursie• 6 days ago

I mean, some obvious things are there in the article, IMHO -

- App isolation and hidden profiles (up to 32 separate profiles)

- Verified Boot (tamper detection on every startup)

So you can do stuff on there that's not going to tip off someone who's controlling enough to demand to see your phone, and so you'll at least be tipped off if someone compromises it.

palata5• 6 days ago

hidden profiles (up to 32 separate profiles)

I am a happy user of GrapheneOS, I don't know about "hidden" profiles. I am not sure what they are talking about.

App isolation

That's an Android thing, not specific to GrapheneOS.

Verified Boot (tamper detection on every startup)

That's an Android thing, not specific to GrapheneOS.

lewiscollard• 6 days ago

The article mentions that an abuser could put spyware on your phone? Is that a realistic scenario?

Yes, stalkerware is an entire genre of software and it is designed for exactly this purpose.

How “stalkerware” apps are letting abusive partners spy on their victims https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/07/10/134249/stalkerwa...

The Abuser in Your Pocket: How Stalkerware Threatens Women’s Privacy https://safeescape.org/stalkerware-threatens-womens-privacy/

'I thought I'd been microchipped': How abusers spy on partners with 'parental control' apps https://news.sky.com/story/i-thought-id-been-microchipped-ho...

A web search for the term will turn up many more results. Graphene OS's hardening against exploits, compared to the abysmal record of Android vendors, gives much better odds against any of these apps being able to run with elevated privileges, which means Android's sandboxing is effective.

(Happy Graphene OS user of many years here.)

palata5• 6 days ago

Happy GrapheneOS user here as well, but...

I am having a hard time believing your first link, which says:

In Anna’s case, stalkerware was disguised as a picture message, sent to her by the man she was dating (let’s call him David), just a few weeks after they met. She was then under constant surveillance for about two years

That sounds like an NSO-level attack, right? I doubt abusers routinely pull that out?!

I totally get the problem that "the abuser knows the iCloud password and can use the FindMyPhone feature to track the victim", or "the abuser convinced the victim to install an app that would track the victim without their consent". But I am genuinely wondering how much GrapheneOS protects against that.

izacus6• 6 days ago

It's an advertisement. That's pretty much the difference, the company selling these phones has a very high margin for essentially resell of Google phones with reflash of GrapheneOS.

grapheneos11• 6 days ago

So I'm assuming Graphene is at least as strict as that?

GrapheneOS is a privacy and security hardened OS. LineageOS and CyanogenMod aren't in that space. GrapheneOS preserves the standard privacy and security features and updates of the Android Open Source Project as a baseline. It greatly improves privacy and security with major privacy and security features along with much better privacy/security updates. It keeps up with the major OS updates including having a release based on Android 17 since the day it was released (2026-06-16).

Can someone explain this? I've used custom ROMs back in the day (Cyanogen!) but I'm not familiar with GrapheneOS.

GrapheneOS is a production quality OS with around 15 people paid to work on it. It's not a hobbyist project. We've never used the term custom ROM since it isn't accurate and propagates misconceptions. It's best to avoid it.

The article mentions that an abuser could put spyware on your phone? Is that a realistic scenario?

Yes, stalkerware is very common and there are a bunch of apps marketed for this purpose. It's helpful to get a new phone set up from scratch without the same accounts or automatically restoring any data on it. This can be a GrapheneOS phone but it doesn't particularly need to be. It's not GrapheneOS recommending itself for this purpose. There are an assortment of privacy and security features relevant to this in standard Android 17 and in the features added by GrapheneOS but nothing essential to this. GrapheneOS makes sense as a general choice for a new phone for many people due to being a highly usable, compatible, private and secure device but we're not specifically recommending it for being who are victims of stalkerware ourselves.

yjftsjthsd-h• 5 days ago

We've never used the term custom ROM since it isn't accurate and propagates misconceptions. It's best to avoid it.

It's a ROM (in the phone sense), and it's not stock (so installing it is a customization). In what way is it not a custom ROM?

trial_version• 6 days ago

Haven't anybody noticed an iPhone in the illustration, or is it just my mind working that way?

Barbing• 6 days ago

Stock photo - yeah that triple camera is equivalent to an Apple logo. Perhaps royalty-free image chosen without enough care or b/c it’s just a stock photo. (Or they already licensed that one.)

mmooss4• 6 days ago

Is GrapheneOS usable by everyone, including the most non-technical phone users, in a secure way?

They also recommend at least 12 GB RAM. What about domestic abuse survivors requires that?

Cider998619• 6 days ago

Yes it's usable by everyone. It's secure by default but anyone can make something insecure. For example granting malicious apps accessiblity permissions would not be great for security.

It has 99.99% android app compatibility. Over 90% of banking and government apps work. These apps take extra measures to ban grapheneos, apps must put in work to make their app incompatible, not the other way around.

I wouldn't say anyone can use it, if you can't sign in to a Google account by yourself then you would have trouble setting it up. But that would be similar on iOS. For the average person, definitely. There's no code or anything like that. Works just like stock Pixels.

If I was giving it to my grandma then I would install her apps and she would be fine clicking icons. But similar on iOS.

Yeah that RAM mention is very strange, not the best article.

mmooss4• 5 days ago

See my response to the sister comment, if you don't mind.

anyone can make something insecure

Many consumer products, including iPhones to a significant degree, are designed to prevent this, much to the frustration of hackers. 'What do you mean I can't sideload random apps?' Or other products: It takes a lot of effort to make your car insecure, or to make your stove leak gas. They are carefully designed for safety.

rcMgD2BwE72F• 6 days ago

Yes, I find it much easier to set up and use than any other Android phone. There’s less bloatware, and battery life is noticeably better.

Two tips for beginners:

Google Play Store and Google Play Services can be installed from the App Store. They aren’t included by default because GrapheneOS works fine without them.

If a trusted app has trouble running, try enabling Exploit protection compatibility mode on the app’s Info screen (long-press the app icon → Info → Exploit protection).

Check whether your bank is supported: https://privsec.dev/posts/android/banking-applications-compa.... If it isn’t, it likely depends on the Play Integrity API, which means it requires customers to stay under constant surveillance by the world’s largest advertising company, with no real security justification (see https://grapheneos.org/articles/attestation-compatibility-gu...). In that case, you should switch to a more trustworthy bank.

mmooss4• 5 days ago

People in IT vastly overestimate what others understand:

Google Play Store and Google Play Services can be installed from the App Store.

Few will manage this on their own. What is Play Store? And what are Play Services? What does 'services' mean? Do I need both? Can I just use one or the other? When would I use them?

They aren’t included by default because GrapheneOS works fine without them.

It doesn't, from what I understand. For normal users, 'works fine' means they can download and install any app.

If a trusted app has trouble running, try enabling Exploit protection compatibility mode on the app’s Info screen (long-press the app icon → Info → Exploit protection).

lol - 'exploit'? 'mode'? 'app’s Info screen'? Even 'long-press' is not usuable by many, especially older people and others with less manual dexterity than 20-something software designers.

you should switch to a more trustworthy bank

That isn't a serious solution. I love GrapheneOS, but it isn't ready for typical end-users.

aucisson_masque4• 6 days ago

Why care about what Google know about you, in case of domestic abuse ?

It's not like Google is going to sell your tracking data to abuser.

There are many reasons to get rid of Google altogether, I just don't understand this one.

chmod775• 6 days ago

Here's an article explaining why one should care: https://privacypros.com.au/privacy-hub/articles/dv-safe-phon...

The tl;dr is that you can either share this data by accident through some sort of "locate my family" app, or because your abuser gets access to your Google/Apple account (for instance because you're signed in on another device they have access to).

The threat model here can be: domestic abuse victim flees a situation at home in a hurry, stays signed in on a computer. Abuser uses the sign-in on that computer to track their phone, figures out they're staying at their aunt's place.

Yes, you can avoid this on a regular Google phone as well, but that requires correctly configuring it (and a lot, such as location and search history, can be re-enabled remotely!). If you're running Graphene you are protected by default, rather than compromised by default.

aucisson_masque4• 6 days ago

Even on grapheneos you got to install the play store and play services to get most app to work, which mean connecting to a Google account.

Technically you can use fdroid, Aurora store, or only use stock applications but if we are serious, not all domestic abuse victims are also geeks that know how to do all these things.

They will need their apps, for instance for social security. Also, many people use their phone to pay nowadays, can't do on grapheneos.

Domestic abuse is a serious threat and people are motivated to stay away from their abusers, but if you give them something so barebone that they can't do 90% of their stuff, a significant percentage of them will revert to their old behavior and risk compromising themselves. For instance, buying a second phone and connecting it to the old Google account just to browse tiktok.

poly2it• 6 days ago

So that your abuser cannot obtain real-time information about you via integrated accounts.

fragmede2• 6 days ago

It's not like Google is going to sell your tracking data to abuser.

No, that's exactly the fear. With enough disclaimers and third parties involved, a motivated, highly intelligent and rich attacker with the right connections could get that information.

izacus6• 6 days ago

Explain how (in comparison to GrapheneOS) please.

nyargh• 6 days ago

You should google 40% of police..

Cider998619• 6 days ago

Any data collected can be abused. This is like saying why care about what flock knows about you, when it's been used by far too many police to stalk their romantic interests.

Police can obtain data from Google. Police can be abusers or friends with abusers.

Namidairo• 6 days ago

On this subject since it's an Australian seller and marketed as "DV safe".

Australia has a national test of it's phone alert system in 10 days at 27/07/26, 2PM AEST. (People in North America would know it as Cell Alerts/Presidential Alerts etc.)

There have been warnings that hidden phones will almost certainly sound, and their recommendation is to ether power off the phone or put it into airplane mode at least an hour before the test...

saltamimi• 6 days ago

You should be able to disable these alerts via the Wireless Emergency Alerts.

b1123• 6 days ago

You cannot on many phones, and often phones will even lie when it says all categories are disabled, as some jurisdictions have laws against turning off some of the highest alert categories.

subscribed3• 6 days ago

Since it seems to be missed, in GOS you can disable these alerts completely.

grapheneos11• 6 days ago

GrapheneOS supports fully disabling wireless alerts via the Settings app. It's possible to disable it on other Android devices via ADB.

karlkloss• 6 days ago

The site has CAPTCHAs, and I'm too dumb to solve them, because the pictures are so bad that I can't make out anything.

How did we get there?

Cider998619• 6 days ago

Try megaladon.jp/https://example.com uses cloudflare instead

redleader55• 6 days ago

It's funny the page recommends de-Googled phones, but requires a Google service(reCaptcha) to view the page.

OsrsNeedsf2P• 6 days ago

Just open your favorite browser MCP and ask it to beat the captcha

____mr____2• 6 days ago

Very weird post, I dont see how a victim with not enough agency to control what apps are on their phone will somehow be able to install a custom os

tripleee• 6 days ago

You'd be surprised how easy GrapheneOS is to install. You literally do it through a browser with your phone connected via USB.

palata5• 6 days ago

I don't think it was the point of the parent. Sure it's easy to install, but the point is that if an abuser can somehow control your phone and install that kind of app, then they probably won't let you remove it.

I am a (very happy) GrapheneOS user, I am certain that I can install a tracking app on it. I can even easily side-load an abusive app that would be banned on the Play Store...

Like I would totally recommend GrapheneOS because it's great, but I don't think it solves the problem of "a domestic abuser can access your phone by making you give access to your phone".

____mr____2• 5 days ago

I know how easy it is to install graphene. But if your abuser is controlling the apps you install they can (should) see you installing a new OS or changing your phone?

jeroenhd• 6 days ago

Installing Graphene can be done through the browser: https://grapheneos.org/install/web

It's not as easy as it can be (the text is aimed at people familiar with Android flashing) but in practice you need to toggle one setting, reboot holding the volume button, and then click four buttons in your browser in order, with the exact names for settings spelled out in the guide itself.

I don't think wiping an abuser's malware is such a great solution unless you've already managed to get out of the DV situation. Perhaps GrapheneOS is a good idea on a secret second phone?

charcircuit4• 6 days ago

This is just the company use DV as a manipulation tactic to get you to buy their phones.

izacus6• 6 days ago

This is a submarine Advertisement for a company that will resell you a Google Pixel phone with likt 50% markup and preinstalled GrapheneOS.

Let's not normalize this kind of profiteering out of OSS.

pbgcp2026• 6 days ago

Good luck with "age verification" ...

AussieWog93• 6 days ago

This post is literally just SEO copy designed to sell degoogled phones to (justifiably) anxious DV victims?

Their phones are more than twice as expensive as equivalent models at JF HiFi too (and 5-10x the price of an older, but still perfectly useful degoogled phone from Marketplace).

Why is it on the front page of HN?

grapheneos11• 6 days ago

Getting a new phone is very useful to someone that's a victim of a controlling partner but it doesn't particularly need to be a GrapheneOS device. GrapheneOS has features useful for this including Auditor and standard Android profiles (Private Space, secondary users) with improvements but we're not specifically recommending it for this ourselves. People who are victims of this probably just need a new phone of any kind and to prioritize other things.

and 5-10x the price of an older, but still perfectly useful degoogled phone from Marketplace

Devices with drastically worse privacy and security than the Android Open Source Project including lack of bare minimum updates aren't in the same space as GrapheneOS.

izacus6• 6 days ago

Ok, but this is outright a scam for those victims, you realize that? A company profiteering massively from vulnerable people.

raffael_de• 6 days ago

also recommended for government abuse victims.

b1123• 6 days ago

This is just dumb. I'm sorry, it's dumb.

Why?

Here we're discussing a domestic abuse situation, where people are forcing victims to hand over their phone, and have apps installed to keep track of them. Against their will.

And the solution is to... what? Mysteriously have control of your own phone, and install an OS which prevents this? Seriously? I can just imagine it, when the unfamiliar OS is discovered, or the app not working. This is a domestic abuse situation, it's not about hidden sneakiness.

It's about in-your-face control. It's about forced compliance, or else. It's about the abuser becoming exceptionally upset about their tracking not working, or about a new, mysterious OS.

Installing GrapheneOS would not be tolerated. It would be an act which comes with reprisals. I can just imagine the reaction when the abuser can't get the phone to do as they wish, for the person to disclose what the OS is, or just to hand over their unlocked phone, and discover it's GrapheneOS, and Google it and see what it's for.

It's actually horrible advice to advocate the someone in this situation installs GrapheneOS. How could it possibly help?

GrapheneOS is great to protect from secret, unknown spying. Not some domestic abuse situation where spying isn't via secretness.

mnw21cam• 6 days ago

Agreed. It'd be great for after the person has left the DV situation but not really beforehand.

inigyou6• 6 days ago

This the same country that exiled the creator of Session because privacy is illegal?

tranq_cassowary• 6 days ago

GrapheneOS user and community member here. TLDR: The blog post that this thread links is full of misrepresentations and falsehoods about what GrapheneOS offers and also is heavy mismarketing of the phones and services PrivacyPros offer. I recommend to avoid PrivacyPros.

The basic premise, that a secured and private phone, is useful for domestic abuse victims is of course okay. It is true that protecting your privacy from abusive family members can be useful and GrapheneOS' features, which are accurately described on their own website (contrary to the linked blog post), certainly help remove threats in that regard. See : https://grapheneos.org/features . This is dependent on the specific situation, of course, (e.g. huge difference between ex-partner stalking you and a current partner you live with abusing you), because if you are forced to give your phone password at the threat of being hurt, a secure phone won't really help you a lot.

While the licenses that GrapheneOS uses permit companies to establishes businesses using GrapheneOS software, it's not recommended by the project to buy pre-installed phones, certainly not pre-configured phones, like PrivacyPros offers. The install process of GrapheneOS is simple if you are using the WebInstaller, and there is a lot of free support available in the community chat rooms and fora if you bump into issues. This saves you a lot of money because you can buy a new, used or refurbished Pixel with the stock OS installed at a much lower price. If you install GrapheneOS itself the guide also mentions you have to verify the integrity of your installation. That also holds true for preinstalled phones, you should check the verified boot hash and set up Auditor app. Preconfigured phones should actually be completely factory reset, not only from the OS but preferably also from recovery mode and then set up again, with a check of the boot hash and a set up of Auditor app before you install any apps or start changing settings. You don't know what PrivacyPros has changed to the settings, what they loaded on the device and Auditor should be set up by yourself and straight from the beginning, before you start using the device, because pinning-based security is an important part of its security model and you would want to be pinned to a clean state from the post install.

The blog post and also the PrivacyPros website where they promote and sell their phones is riddled with unnecessary misguided advice and also falsehoods about what GrapheneOS offers and what the dangers of the stock Pixel OS and Android in general are. Pixel OS and Android in general are portrayed way too negatively. I'll just give a few examples because it will cost me way too much time too debunk and correct all of it. These ones are verified easily by yourself and I hope it just makes clear you can discard everything PrivacyPros has written and makes clear you should just consult the official GrapheneOS website. So, they pretend as if Android and Pixels themselves don't have a permission model, multiple users and verified boot. This is untrue. GrapheneOS hardens the app sandbox and permissions model more and offers stuff like storage scopes to work around to broad permissions, but the sandbox and permissions model itself exists for Android in general. Verified boot is also a standard Android feature, and also exists on iPhones and even on MacOS and ChromeOS. Multiple users are part of Android, GrapheneOS just increases the available number of users and increases their usability. Also note that users don't improve sandboxing. Sandboxing and access control exist within profiles as well, profiles are mainly meant for increased isolation via separate user data, user settings and VPN slots. They also offer separate encryption keys allowing you to selectively put data at rest etc. The whole idea of a "ghost" profile and user profiles being at the centre to security and privacy is misguided. They also call about kill switches, Pixels don't have hardware kill switches and the software kill switches are just part of Android.

mrkeen2• 5 days ago

Reasonably happy with GrapheneOS, but the number of bugs (maybe more ecosystem bugs) would make me hesitant to suggest other people rely on it as a communication device.

I have notifications turned ON for WhatsApp, Signal and Telegram. I never receive notifications from Telegram. I have to open that app to see if anyone said anything. WhatsApp and Signal notifications seem to vary between late or never? This is despite a constant notification reminder that Signal has Background connection enabled.

Also I can only send messages to some whatsapp contacts. My messages appear as pending for a while and eventually turn into 'could not send'.

HybridStatAnim83• 5 days ago

This is not an issue with GrapheneOS, this is an issue with your configuration, which is trivial to solve.

All of those apps support using google services FCM for push notification delivery. I dont think Telegram has a fallback, and Signal and Whatsapp have power-intensive fallbacks. You may also need to reinstall these apps for them to detect google services (apps generally dont check for google services more than once on initial launch).

classified• 5 days ago

That's not how I understand the meaning of "trivial".

yolo1897• 4 days ago

No, whatsapp fallback to websockets is very power efficient unlike official signal app one, all you need is to set battery optimization to unrestricted for it.

GrapheneOS recommended for domestic abuse victims

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