The drama and accusations the GrapheneOS developers are spewing and engaging in are giving me a bad taste in the mouth and make me doubt the OS’s reliability am I the only one?
They’re being threatened by the entire French government. Its not drama. This is a very real situation.
All secured OSes and messaging systems are threatened by European governments / EU institutions at the moment, and the French government has been doing so for a few years.
This is not a grapheneOS only issue and it is not new.
I don’t think it’s in any way limited to the EU lol
Being French, I am not knowledgeable enough beyond Europe 😁.
For context, Germany recently did a last minute blockage of a European move towards mass surveillance of messaging (called chat control), and a v2 is already being prepared for another attack on privacy at European level.
We are living in interesting times.
deleted by creator
i might just fork grapheneos and rewrite everything.
Who benefits?
Who benefits from sowing a narrative around “drama”, “accusation”, and/or “paranoia”. Seriously.
I think given the following circumspect; GrapheneOS’s reaction, to move project pieces out of potential hostile environments/jurisdiction, is perfectly reasonable.
-
France’s Support for EU “Chat Control”, scanning proposals. France has been one of the governments most supportive of EU‑level proposals that would require scanning of communications and devices for illegal content.
-
The general French framing and approach to cybercrime. As in other EU countries, French authorities are pushing for: Expanded powers to compel cooperation from service providers, and developers. Strong rhetoric against tools that are seen as systematically obstructing investigations.
The main GrapheneOS dev creates beef with a bunch of other projects. It’s not some shadowy organisation, it’s him having stupid takes in GitHub issues and spreading false claims about other projects.
Man, I am so totally with you, but the problem - and it’s ridiculous to say it’s not a problem - is the guy running GrapheneOS is apparently a socially backward drama whore. Louis Rossman is an amazing advocate, I don’t even pay that much attention to shit and I know him as one of my favorite people on YouTube because of his advocacy for right to repair. And this guy just pisses all over his face for the most minor perceived infraction. I have no problem imagining that something like GrapheneOS would face intense harassment from the state, but when you act like this dude does you completely lose all credibility. Everybody is just left wondering if maybe, just maybe, this is just your weird ass making shit up.
-
GrapheneOS has always had a massive PR problem and crazy leadership unfortunately.
Unlike say Google? Why is there an expectation that a group working completely against some of the most powerful actors on the planet, openly, against the grain of mainstream society often and having to bear that responsibility would be charming, at ease?
I cannot even begin to imagine the mental stress from constantly having to think ahead, in a global David and Goliath, in a maze designed to get you to give up. I probably have half the issues the GOS team does and I can’t claim it’s for doing anything on the scale of what they are.
You are mistaking what I am saying. I have nothing against the project as whole and the mission is fantastic.
They just have zero PR skills, don’t know when to keep their mouth shut or how to communicate properly when they need to. A little bit of consultation would go a long way for them. Obviously I am not expecting Google levels of PR/marketing, but it’s not great to see just ranting Discord messages. If it wasn’t an issue, these posts wouldn’t exist at all, the main dev is psycho.
GOS is a great project. This is a FUD campaign.
You’re not the only one. It’s one of my biggest reasons for staying away from it
What do you use instead?
LineageOS with microg
I also feel concerned about GrapheneOS. Here’s why.
I got banned from the GrapheneOS Matrix chat simply for asking a question, it was worded similar to this:
“Hey there! GrapheneOS is cool. I noticed CalyxOS added support for eSIM, are you planning to add that as well?”
The post got deleted, I thought I had not sent it and posted it again. It was deleted again. I asked something along the lines of “Wait, where has my question regading eSIM support and doing the same as CalyxOS gone? Seems to have disappeared, lol”.
THAT was also deleted.
Then I posted something along the lines of “Huh, my questions seem to be disappearing”.
That was NOT deleted.
Then I asked something like “Anyway, are there plans to add eSIM support just like CalyxOS? :)”.
That was ALSO deleted.
I got a private message from a mod saying I was banned.
That was alle the interaction I ever had with the GrapheneOS project. I might have started contributing, but I could not even ask a simple question. It seems that they don’t like it if you mention any other custom ROM, I guess.
(This has been a while ago, so I don’t remember my precise wording)
Which channel on Matrix ? They seems to have many ones so mods in general if questions get asked in wrong channels ban which is weird I would expect them to reply that go to #relevant room and ask there
It seems you were rightfully banned.
I wouldn’t trust a sane person to do a ultra private phone OS.
You need the paranoia, you need to see the shadows move to do it right.
I don’t care about the community, I just care about the experience of using it.
In my opinion both the evident ego of of the project lead as well as his naivety (tethering the project to Google) are huge red flags despite any assumed technical superiority.
They chose Google because they are the only major OEM to allow you to relock the bootloader after installing a custom ROM. Samsung, Motarola, Huawei, Xiaomi etc all don’t.
In addition to this, they are working with an OEM to produce their own Graphene phones. It sounds like they’ve made significant progress on that front so I’m hopeful.
They’re literally working with a manufacturer to make non-google phones. Tethered to google is a wild mischaracterization.
No it’s not. This is a recent development that has not yet actually come to fruition. It may exist in 2026.
Before that GrapheneOS dismissed any idea of targeting other phones than the ones build by one of the most anti-privacy companies on earth, that seeks to consolidate control of Android.
This isn’t true, they’ve supported other devices in the past. They’ve been Pixel-focused for the security features that other manufacturers haven’t offered
Yes, before Google made phone on it’s own they supported some Nexus devices (google-partnered) and the Samsung Galaxy S4.
deleted by creator
I don’t need a phone, GrapheneOS needs one now that Google is trying to force them out. I wonder if their new phone will actually meet all the requirements, if it comes out.
As for complaining, GrapheneOS is the one bitching about other Android versions existing since forever. Now, they 've started making unsubstantiated claims of them attacking them somehow.
deleted by creator
No GrapheneOS is not just calling them out on lack of security.
It’s apparently from their discord, so it took me a while to find it again.
It’s not about the personality of it’s directors, it’s about it’s effect on the (alternative) Android ecosystem as a whole, which is not just about security but also privacy and user control.
Even with regards to security, their choice of limiting devices apparently makes their users targets for extra scrutiny and harassment. That does have actual implications for people whose threat model includes authorities unless they already are guaranteed to be targets.
deleted by creator
deleted by creator
Two things can simultaneously be true, Daniel can be an individual who engages in very problematic behaviours and GrapheneOS can still be the most-secure and reliable OS out there.
Basically this. The project head might be a bit too paranoid, bellicose and problematic, but at this time a phone with GrapheneOS seems to be by far the safest way to have a smartphone, and the project head’s personality might be a part on this as their stated objective is to be able to resist state-level actors, you likely need someone who’s more than a bit “out there” to have the right mind for this
Can we get a tldr of the “problematic behaviours”?
As a casual who bought a pixel 9 specifically for Graphene, I not too embedded in the culture/dramas, and surely many others reading here are similarly unfamiliar
His «problematic behaviour» is simply callingäoutäthings for what they are, with no soft wording.
Honesty, I think graphene is a honeypot. Glowies usually dont moan that much when they can’t breack into things
The main reason why I decided not to use it, despite it being an obvious choice. But I’m also that kind of old dude that is not very receptive to drama… this may explain ;)
Could you post what you are talking about to give some context?
