Mastodawn

richarddebruin Jul 5, 2025

@sandradejong leuk project, maar je had eigenlijk voor #grpaheneos moeten kiezen. En dus een Pixel toestel via Marktplaats moet kopen. iOS waar je nu op zit is veiliger dan /e/OS. Waarom? Zie hier: https://eylenburg.github.io/android_comparison.htm

Comparison of Android-based Operating Systems

ThePfromtheO Jul 6, 2025

@richarddebruin @sandradejong
#GrapheneOS is safer, but it's also less #userFriendly than #eOS, AFAIK. Plus #eOS looks a little more like #iOS.

Gurleen K Jul 8, 2025

@ThePfromtheO @richarddebruin @sandradejong GrapheneOS is very user-friendly. If you need to turn on Google Play Services, it is easily done by just pressing the install button on the built-in app store provided by Graphene.

@gkcan @richarddebruin @sandradejong
OK, but why did people say it's not, then?

@ThePfromtheO @gkcan @richarddebruin @sandradejong Groups who feel threatened by GrapheneOS misinform people about it to justify why people should use an OS unable to keep up with basic privacy/security patches, not providing driver/firmware security patches and not keep basic parts of the privacy/security model intact. The vast majority of tech media sites publish poorly researched and AI generated articles. They're not trying GrapheneOS but rather describing it based on what others say.

ThePfromtheO

@GrapheneOS @gkcan @richarddebruin @sandradejong
“They're not trying GrapheneOS but rather describing it based on what others say.”

I understand this, but #GrapheneOS's homepage is also a factor that influences their opinions, as I said here:
https://social.vivaldi.net/@ThePfromtheO/114823736413376203

Also this: https://mastodon.nl/@sandradejong/114823623342107933

ThePfromtheO (@[email protected])

@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] What I don't understand is that considering the amount of popularity and sponsorship #GrapheneOS is getting, why didn't it put a little effort into making its website more welcoming? Especially for visitors, who might be potential new users and finally supporters.

Vivaldi Social

@ThePfromtheO @gkcan @richarddebruin @sandradejong We plan to include videos and more images on our website but the project is focused on substance, not marketing. It has the same aesthetics as Android 16 within the OS. We keep the default system color scheme, background, etc. very minimal. Our default background is a pure black background instead of an advertisement for GrapheneOS. Boot animation is minimal. We put our effort into privacy, security, compatibility, usability and robustness.

@ThePfromtheO @gkcan @richarddebruin @sandradejong Videos are extremely hard to keep up-to-date. They'd essentially need to be remade every 4 months or even more often. We want all the information on our site up-to-date.

GrapheneOS has also not been very focused on replacing or overhauling all of the sample AOSP apps until recently since it's easy for people to get their preferred apps and the focus for ones built into the OS is privacy/security in a way that few third party projects do.

@ThePfromtheO @gkcan @richarddebruin @sandradejong Overhauling or replacing each AOSP sample app is planned so people don't get a bad impression from how outdated some of those look/feel. It's a higher priority than adding images and videos to the website. We could add a bunch of screenshots of features like Contact Scopes and Storage Scopes but it wouldn't serve much purpose. A video tutorial on each user-facing major feature would make sense, but as we said very hard to maintain.

@ThePfromtheO @gkcan @richarddebruin @sandradejong We recommend the past few years of videos at https://www.youtube.com/@sideofburritos/videos for well informed, high quality videos about GrapheneOS. Bear in mind that the ones which aren't from the past few months are showing an old major Android version and many changes have also happened to GrapheneOS itself.

Making video content is high effort and it doesn't last. It's easy to edit text when various stuff changes on a weekly basis, not so much a video.

Before you continue to YouTube

@GrapheneOS @gkcan @richarddebruin @sandradejong
I didn't say video necessarily. #eOS has only images, (unless there are also videos somewhere where I didn't see them.
It might seem annoying that I keep comparing #GrapheneOS with #eOS, but this not only my opinion that a welcoming homepage matters. Ask @sandradejong, for example.

@ThePfromtheO @gkcan @richarddebruin @sandradejong An iPhone is a far better choice for privacy and security than /e/OS. Going from an iPhone to /e/OS is giving up having strong privacy from apps and services, strong defenses against exploitation and even getting proper privacy/security patches since /e/OS doesn't provide those. It's giving up having encryption which works without setting a very strong passphrase since Fairphone has no secure element. Marketing and tech media is often wrong.

@ThePfromtheO @gkcan @richarddebruin @sandradejong Overall, iPhones provide very solid privacy and security along with fantastic usability. /e/OS is not in the same space as us. Android Open Source Project (AOSP) is much more private and secure than /e/OS. The direction they take their AOSP is nearly the complete opposite one. https://eylenburg.github.io/android_comparison.htm only covers added features and also patch delays (quite important) near the bottom so it doesn't show how privacy and security get reduced.

Comparison of Android-based Operating Systems

@GrapheneOS @gkcan @richarddebruin @sandradejong
"eylenburg.github.io/android_comparison.htm only covers added features and also patch delays (quite important) near the bottom so it doesn't show how privacy and security get reduced."
How do you know that this was the goal?

@ThePfromtheO @gkcan @richarddebruin @sandradejong The author accepts issue reports about inaccuracies and with suggestions on what else it could cover. You can see they maintain a whole bunch of different comparisons there, not only about AOSP-based operating systems. The information is generally very/fully accurate, but they choose the focus and what they want to cover. We agree with the accuracy of the information. If we did it ourselves, what it compares would be significantly different.

@GrapheneOS My main reason to do this project and try to switch from Iphone to Fairphone with /e/OS (or another OS which looks doable for non-techies) is that I don't want to "be hand in hand" with Big Tech companies. I want organisations (hardware and software) that are nice people who want to make the world a nicer place. And I'm willing to sacrifice some personal stuff there. It is not mainly about me.

(hope I'm making myself clear since English is not my native language)

@ThePfromtheO

@sandradejong @ThePfromtheO /e/OS and Murena are focused on advancing their for-profit company including through false marketing about their products and others.

/e/OS and Murena targeted both DivestOS and GrapheneOS with a massive amount of misinformation and fabricated stories about us. Their community harassed both projects. DivestOS being discontinued had a lot to do with the attacks on them from /e/OS and their community.

From our perspective, they're doing a lot of harm and grifting.

@GrapheneOS @gkcan @richarddebruin @sandradejong
“ the project is focused on substance, not marketing”
It is, but IMO it shouldn't be so in a such high degree that it won't even include a few screenshots of the interface. When I went to the homepage (and this was certainly before hearing any comment on its user-friendliness etc.!) I considered it was either too technical, or too much focused on security and privacy to be interested in its appeal to visitors.

@ThePfromtheO @gkcan @richarddebruin @sandradejong Our focus on user friendliness is currently overhauling the appearance and functionality of the legacy AOSP apps or replacing them with forks of better apps. This takes us much more time than others because of our standards for robustness, privacy and security. We care about doing things correctly.

Since the OS is just meant to look like standard Android 16 with a very minimal base install, we only want screenshots/videos to show our features.

@GrapheneOS @gkcan @richarddebruin @sandradejong
I only speak about a few screenshots featuring the operating system. #eOS doesn't have many either, just two with the home screen, a few featuring the messages, calendar, and maps apps (one photo for each), and a few with the app store and the settings app. The rest is not needed.

@ThePfromtheO @gkcan @richarddebruin @sandradejong GrapheneOS user interface is the unmodified Android 16 UI beyond configuring it similarly to the stock Pixel OS and other devices such as enabling rounded icons, rounded corners, etc. Our default homescreen is simply a black background. Our system app icons just use black on white. It's a very minimal base install. Third party apps and services are left up to users. We aren't trying to provide a fancy default homescreen, etc.

@ThePfromtheO @gkcan @richarddebruin @sandradejong We plan to add videos to show using features like Contact Scopes, Storage Scopes, etc. as part of our usage guide. We could make a form of combined video for the home page showing various GrapheneOS features, but as we said it's very hard to keep that up-to-date and make changes to it. It would need to be many small clips edited together and regularly redone as things change. Our focus is improving the OS rather than that kind of marketing.

@ThePfromtheO @gkcan @richarddebruin @sandradejong Our recent top priority was moving to Android 16 since that was required to continue providing the latest standard privacy and security features along with continuing to provide full privacy and security patches. We therefore did little else for the past month beyond porting to Android 16, and little else in the previous month beyond preparing to port to it. /e/OS is still based on Android 14, for an idea of how different our priorities are.

@GrapheneOS The definition of marketing does not need to be "sell things to people regardless if they want it or not". The definition of marketing (or communication) should be "welcoming people who are looking for you - so they can recognise you".

@ThePfromtheO

@GrapheneOS
I am very interested in GrapeneOS but when I looked at the website, I really got scared becaues of all the text and no step-by-step "Come here, don't be scared, I've got you"

Maybe GrapheneOS also is not for me and only for people who are very tech. But if I am a person who could be very happy with your OS and community, then it would help a LOT if it would feel more welcoming.

@ThePfromtheO

@sandradejong @ThePfromtheO

> Maybe GrapheneOS also is not for me and only for people who are very tech. But if I am a person who could be very happy with your OS and community, then it would help a LOT if it would feel more welcoming.

GrapheneOS is not harder to use or less accessible. It has an easy web installer, broader app compatibility, better stability and the feature set of Android 16 rather than 14. We've become more focused on polishing the out-of-the-box experience recently.

@sandradejong @ThePfromtheO Our website is the way it is because our focus is improving the operating system for our existing users. We do plan to improve it, but we care about the information on the site being accurate and the content having substance. There will be screenshots and videos showing off the features, which we'll commit to keeping properly updated.

People often find out about GrapheneOS through content where there are images, videos, etc. of someone's specific setup.

@sandradejong @ThePfromtheO GrapheneOS is a non-profit organization and not one tied to a company. It's entirely funded via donations, which mainly come from our userbase. This provides us with a substantial amount of sustainable funding without strings attached.

Murena is a for-profit company, heavily focused on selling devices which are actually much less private and especially far less secure than an iPhone. Their funding is via product sales and also large government grants for /e/OS.

@sandradejong @ThePfromtheO Our funding mainly comes from making our existing userbase happy by providing more of what they want. What they want is for us to focus on continuing to improve privacy, security, compatibility and usability in the OS. We currently see improving the out-of-the-box experience as more important than the website, including by replacing or overhauling the remaining AOSP apps without bundling third party apps and services not aligned with our goals/approach.

Gurleen K Jul 10, 2025

@GrapheneOS You mention that your donations "mainly" come from the user base. Which kinds of (I assume) organizations are providing the rest of the funding? Are there any stats available on GrapheneOS funding?