Getting started with GrapheneOS

Some time back I bought a Fairphone 3 and I installed /e/OS on it. While it was very usable for most part, there were things lacking too. I found it difficult to get updates at some point and I also missed the lack of Android Auto / Apple Carplay functionality. It was never my daily driver as phone.

Scroll forward a couple of years and I'm still very much interested in other options then iOS. Having recently decided to have a split personal and a business line and device, this opened up the oppertunity to try something new.

GrapheneOS has been on my radar before, but to use it, you have no choice than to buy a Google Pixel. Not my first choice :-) But well, it does seem the most promising option, when it comes to functionality and security. Some of the most security aware people I know seem to be very happy with it.

So I looked for something affordable to try this OS on. This led to me ordering a Google Pixel 8a. It was delivered today and during my lunchbreak I was able to unpack and reinstall the device.

There were a couple of small surprises. One was that I had to have a Chrome based browser. So having to choose between a Chromium build from random company on the Interweb and the official Google Chrome, I opted for the latter.

The other surprise was that to get the OEM unlock activated to install a third party ROM, the device needed to be connected to the Internet first. So I still had to hand out my wifi password to Google. And after connecting to my normal wifi, it still did not work. Too much DNS blocking on my part I guess. So I connected it to another wifi network that has standard provider configured options for DNS etc. That helped.

After that, using the chrome/web based installer was really well documented and easy. Not something my mother would do, but definitly a lot easier then some of the othings things I tried in the past.

So that was an easy start. I still have to figure out why Signal fails to send an activation code, but over the weekend I will have more time to play around with it.

Nicee!!