Simple question really! Are any of you running a Custom ROM? Furthermore, are any of you running a De-Googled ROM?
Why do you run your custom ROM, and what are the drawbacks?
When I was a teenager, I’d probably change my ROM 3 times a day. Spent more time in the recovery mode than using my phones.
As a working adult… I wouldn’t even know the names of any modern custom ROMs.
This is me. That rush when a new ROM booted for the first time, or the panic when you’re not sure if you’ve just softbricked your phone.
Bugs? You tell me!
As a working adult… I wouldn’t even know the names of any modern custom ROMS.
And there are psychos like me that changed their custom ROM in the work… Ahh, that thrill to mess it up and lose your device for several hours until getting home.
This is obviously a sign you need to be medicated
The medicine is an iPhone for me I guess but it is hard to go back to Apple.
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As much as I like blokada (and in a similar vein DuckDuckGo’s app tracking protection), I run an always on VPN so these are a non-starter for me, unless I get up off my ass and set up a layered VPN setup on my home server. AdAway is too simple once you get past rooting.
I just stick with lineage os. Its clean and efficient
Yes, I bought a Pixel 6 specifically to run GrapheneOS. I can proudly say that every single app on my phone is open source, no GSM and no Google. I don’t really mind paying a company like Google for the phone, I just don’t want to hand them my data.
Yup same here. Two profiles, one is my daily driver and open source, they other is for the few apps I need with Google services. This is the perfect compromise between what I want, and what I need.
Sounds neat. But what all the services that require proprietary app? Like banking, Uber, reviews on Google Maps etc.?
you can use web apps for banking, uber
although uber and most banking apps work on grapheneos, check this community verified list https://privsec.dev/posts/android/banking-applications-compatibility-with-grapheneos/for reviews, you can use gmaps webview https://f-droid.org/packages/us.spotco.maps/
for navigation maps, you can use openstreetmap like magic earth and organic maps
if you think osm doesn’t have enough data of your area, then you can use herewego maps, its another proprietary map, but is a bit better than google on privacy
The only thing I personally use out of all these is online banking and I do that from my PC at home. For reviews on Google maps I could theoretically just use it in my browser.
Yes, I’d rather fuck around with custom ROMs than endure the user-hostile crapware that most vendors bundle. I’d also rather try to make an app work despite safety net or whatever not passing out of the box than not have any defenses against the dumb bullshit software vendors put in their apps. I’d rather go back to a feature phone than live with a walled garden full of spyware and ads.
Been running CalyxOS for 3 years. Compile it myself from source with some extra tweaks and such. I’ve even got a nice build server going that automatically compiles builds monthly and pushes updates to my phone via OTAs. It was a little work to get set up, but now it doesn’t feel any different from the stock Android experience.
It started because I was tired of all the unchecked spying Google does, and I wanted to get away from that. But now I can never go back to “regular” Android, because the vendor bloat in “stock” ROMs is incessant, and I am maintaining patches for quite a few features Google has either removed, or never supported in the first place (2-button navigation, AM/PM clock, automatic call recording).
Honestly, there hasn’t been any drawbacks. The phone works perfectly, calls are fine, it runs great, and I haven’t needed Google Play Services for basically anything. My banking app still works. I don’t use Google Pay so I don’t really care that it doesn’t work. Android wearOS doesn’t work, but at this point Google has dropped the ball so severely, I don’t have the motivation to bother with a smartwatch.
Most of my paid apps continue to work without patches, and I get them from Aurora Store. For the ones that don’t work, I just patch them myself to remove the license checks. I paid for them, so I should be able to use them regardless of what ROM I use.
Damn dude, self compiling with your own OTAs is rad as hell. Kudos to you for getting and keeping that running.
Thanks! But I can’t take all the credit. Calyx maintains the OTA updater and it’s very configurable. Just change the domain name, make sure your webserver has all the right files, and you’re off!
Same here (CalyxOS on Pixel Phone). Except for me not compiling it myself. Its super easy to install and runs super smooth. In my case for two years without a single issue.
I want to do that to but with grapheneos so I have more freedom and control over my mobile.
CyanogenMod user since the 6.x days, currently running LineageOS 20.
I like my phones to work and be usable. I stayed on the stock ROM for my OnePlus 8T for 2 years and went right back to LineageOS.
Manufacturers just can’t make ROMs that work correctly without bullshit.
Have you noticed a big change from the OnePlus original rom?
Apart from not relying on manufacturers…
What are the advantage of these OSs?
I mean, features etc
I run GrapheneOS without any Google Play Services. I don’t want to be locked into any software and I selfhost all my backups except having encrypted backups in one cloud provider for very important things to keep them off-site.
Most of the things people generally would consider drawbacks like lack of google assistant, chrome, play store, youtube etc. I consider to be a positive thing. I am in mostly full control of permissions and I have a siloed work user when I do need to access Slack and other apps for company use.
Yes, running crDroid on my Redmi Note 10 Pro
Works for me without any issues and I even got the banking apps to work using magisk delta
Magisk Delta? Been away from the custom ROM scene for too long now, is Magisk Cloak no longer a thing?
It is an unofficial 3rd party Magisk fork.
What is magisk delta?
I have a lineage phone I keep on dial and I was using graphene OS for a minute but
The thing is that I live by my phone. Passwords, banking, pretty much the entirety of my actual life daily. I think graphene OS is great! But I also don’t have time or a the ability to have an AI review the codebase to validate that what I’m putting on my phone is safe. The truth is that these are unpaid strangers making a great product who’s work Im not a subject matter expert in. Android is a large codebase. I’m friends with a guy who works on it full time and even he feels lost sometimes. So I reversed my phone back to stock Android for my daily driver.
If I’m doing better financially in a few months I’ll likely buy another pixel phone or try fair phone with graphene. I just can’t justify the purchase right now and my phone works fine.
Just a reminder if you like these projects, donate to them!. I dropped about $1000 on open source stuff over the last year to include joplin, EFF, vueJS, graphene, lineage, and quasarJS. Every one of them does great work.
Sadly not anymore because I need my banking apps to work reliably. Making them work isn’t the biggest problem, but I’ll never know when an update blindsides me and breaks something.
On a sidenote, I’d really like to know why banks think that an ancient phone that hasn’t seen a security update in years is somehow more secure than an up-to-date Lineage or GrapheneOS.
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I would love to run Graphene OS, but their stance on root (“REEEEeEEeeEeEeEeEEEE iTs nOt sEcUrE aNyMoRe wHy WoULd yOu dO tHaT” Jesus fucking christ I’m aware of the risks now stop being a little bitch about it) drives me up the fucking wall.
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Aside from the initial install is GrapheneOS a simple forget about it type of experience, and no fiddling around with safety net or whatever so someone with no technical experience can be given it and use it and stay updated?
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I wonder if one possible alternative is getting an old iPhone and Apple Watch and using the iPhone just for setting up and updating the Apple watch. Then use Apple Watch for Apple pay. You don’t seem to need any data to use it for paying https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8204935
I think if that works going full GrapheneOS for a degoogled smartphone device and a smart watch for paying might be something I could do.
Eh, banks don’t want to piss off their customers over something they have less control over.
However I do know that my bank does keep Android version updates in mind. The app won’t work on anything less than Android 10, which is about 4 years old. So no working on any kind of ancient phone.
not anymore…
i used to screw around with custom ROMs all the time. mostly AOKP and cyanogenmod… but then phones started getting picky about rooting… things like camera stopped working or not working to full capabilities…
also i was installIing “[NEWEST SHINY] KERNEL 4.1.1 (L33T SCHEDULER, FASTEST PERFORMANCE!!!111)” like every week, but that got really tiring.
edit: i just noticed AOKP is dead… so sad. anyone know what happened?
I used to muck around with custom roms in the early 2010s, but at some point the Galaxy UI stopped bring horrible and I needed my phone to be available at all times, that’s when I stopped.
Oneplus 7 Pro + Crdroid 9.5 + Magisk + LSPosed and my safetynet is green Google pay / bank app work and L1 DRM certificate work for netflix/prime…
Would you say the customer rom is faster than on the original rom? OnePlus are pretty good with their roms.
Oneplus are good with Rom but not highly maintained and I always have custom rom and root on all of my phone. I hate ads and I use all the method that exist to not have any ads in any of my app.
I see. Thank you!
OnePlus are pretty good with their roms.
used to be pretty good with their roms.
I’m running lineage OS on my moto one 5g ace. Main reason was to upgrade it to the most recent version of android, since it wasn’t getting any updates beyond 11. No drawbacks here, haven’t run into any bugs or anything. But I’m also not a power user or anything, just trying to extend the life of my phone
The charge port on my one 5g ace just gave up the ghost recently forcing me to buy a new device. I liked it, but it is rather heavy.
That’s unfortunate :/ yeah mine is showing it’s age, and the headphone jack doesn’t work properly anymore. But it was a great phone while it lasted. Thinking about moving to the oneplus n30 or the moto 5g stylus
Yeah, i moved to the OnePlus Nord N200 model DE2117 so i could run Lineage. I make sure any device i buy is at least Lineage compatible otherwise its a no go.
10 or so years ago yeah. Used to run CyanogenMod nightlies hah.
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Cyanogenmod closed up shop a few years ago, LineageOS is their successor.
I was rom hopping like crazy on my Xiaomi phone trying to get the perfect privacy setup. Eventually I got tired of microG’s lack of compatibility and the serious security issues rooting and leaving the bootloader unlocked caused so I sold the Xiaomi and got a Pixel to run GrapheneOS on. Best decision ever. GrapheneOS is freaking awesome. Secure and private, and all my apps just works. It’s so stable, muuuuch better than stock. I think I’ve found my endgame and I’m never using any other custom ROM again.
I’m using Evolution X because MIUI just sucks and my phone won’t be updated to android 13 anyway. The drawbacks are banking apps of course and the fact that i could lose my internal storage data if i forget to flash disable forced encryption.
