For those unfamiliar, GrapheneOS is a privacy and security enhanced custom ROM endorsed by Snowden. Despite these big names, plenty of people give it backlash
Even @[email protected] gives it backlash despite being a moderator of Lemmy’s biggest privacy community. A quote here: “grapheneOS trolls are downvoting every single post and comment of mine, and committing vote manipulation on Lemmy. They are using 5-6 accounts.” That was in response to downvotes on a comment posted in the c/WorldNews community, which is entirely unrelated to technology.
One of the reasons is that GrapheneOS can only be installed on Google Pixels due to security compatibility, which makes complete sense considering Android should be most compatible with Google’s own devices. GrapheneOS even lists the exact reasons they chose Pixels, and encourage people to step up and manufacture a different supported device.
One year ago, Louis Rossmann posted this video outlining his reasons for deleting GrapheneOS. Mainly, he had multiple bad experiences with Daniel Micay (the founder and main developer of GrapheneOS) which put his distrust in the GrapheneOS project. Since then, he has stepped down and will no longer be actively contributing to the project.
So, I am here to learn why exactly people still do not like GrapheneOS.
I don’t hate the project but I do find its users to be among the most annoying within the privacy community. They seem to have absolutely zero understanding of threat modeling and will get very dismissive and condescending the moment you mention a project other than GrapheneOS.
I think this is likely just a result of GrapheneOS being the most well known privacy ROM; it’s just naturally going to attract the type of person who watches a single YouTube video on a topic and then acts like they are now an expert who deserves to be respected and listened to at all times. Sorry, but if all you can do is parrot dot points from the project’s website and spout some security theatre gobbledygook that has absolutely zero relevance to my personal situation then I’m probably not going to be taking any of your unwarranted advice.
GrapheneOS developers were literally harassing me! No cap. I highly suggest avoiding it.
I have been a member of the graphene os matrix room for some months, hoping to someday get a pixel and switch to it. I am a software advisor and have recommended GOS to a lot of my students. I have just posted a link of this lemmy thread to the matrix room, with no special intention but to share and talk about this. It took 3 mins or so for them to delete the message and ban me. So, this totally and radically confirms for me that Graphene OS staff is not a nice one, and that they obviously fear something, being incapable of talking openly, so I wouldn’t trust them. Thanks for the heads up.
The admin of the matrix room contacted me afterwards. They feel harassed by threads like this and also feels that this thread is having positive comments towards GrapheneOS censored and only negative comments kept.
It’s likely because the developers are highly opinionated, and this is true even for topics they don’t know very much about. See the entire discussion about implementing battery charge limiting in GrapheneOS. This makes for a lot of friction for people who would like to see more focus on usability in GrapheneOS as opposed to it being purely focused on security.
I stopped reading threads on their forums because the developers are so abrasive even though I still use the rom, because I don’t mind the loss of usability compared to other roms. I can completely understand why there is a lot of negative sentiment around it though.
Personally is due to the toxicity of their dev and socials team, basically if you ask something, you are wrong and they are right, if you recommend other options, you are wrong and they are right. They have been publicly raging war against cybersecurity content creators that dare question some decisions or do honest reviews (OS Is good but has it’s but scenarios) … Once they get better with their PR relationships most of the hate will go away.
People have to learn to separate software from its developer.
For example, I don’t care about Hyprland lead dev being an asshole sometimes, if the WM he’s developing works good. I don’t care about Cider devs political positions if it doesn’t directly affect my experience with the software.And people also have to learn, that if someone uses any particular software, they aren’t necessarily using it the way developer pointed out they should.
I use GrapheneOS on my device, but that doesn’t mean that I completely follow devs philosophy. I don’t use Vanadium, 'cause I don’t wanna support Chromium monopoly. I use F-Droid to install my apps, even if developers think, that I should get my apps directly from its devs.Does GrapheneOS founder or developer philosophy that you don’t agree with makes Graphene a bad OS? Of course it doesn’t. GrapheneOS is still one of the best options on degoogling your device if not the best.
He did not really step down, it was just a symbolic public gesture. He’s still actively contributing to the project, check the GitHub commits and comments. He just stopped having so many Twitter meltdowns.
Micay did not step down nor is it a symbolic gesture. He removed himself, at the demand of others within the organization, from any public relations duties he once held. He is an excellent and talented engineer and an absolutely horrible representative.
He has no people skills. He does continue to contribute and guides the project privately. It should have been done long ago because I think he has done a lot of damage by overreacting and fostering a community of toxicity by being a bad example.
Since his departure it has been improving and GrapheneOS is becoming mature and a far cry from the Copperhead days.
He still regularly bans people and removes posts he disagrees with or that show the bad side of Graphene
I’ve tried both CalyxOS and GrapheneOS, since I’ve had a Pixel already. I don’t consider one “better” than the other.
Calyx is based on LineageOS, so you get a wider range of devices and functionality. It uses microG, which works great as long you don’t use any apps with IAP.
GrapheneOS’ play service sandbox can handle the case though, so I went with that, not being able to live without MacroDroid pro. Plus I like they got rid of Google location services altogether, and functionality-wise I’m not missing anything either.
Other people will have other priorities or preferences when it comes to their devices. Use whatever tickles your pickle.
You are making too much sense. You need to choose a side or both communities will hate you.
Basically because Daniel “MacCock” behaves like a massive paranoid schizophrenic prick when he doesn’t take very strong meds (that’s my take on it anyway). And as others have mentioned, his claim to have stepped down is just that, “his claim”. Everything points to him still very much being at the help of the project.
I like the project, but any software I use being directed by someone like that guy is a huge red flag.
I’m good with a project that’s concentrating on privacy being run by a paranoid fuck. If he’s pouring all his lunacy into making it as locked down as possible, seems like a good thing to me.
I particularly like the recent duress PIN code upgrade. Seems like something every OS should have in it. I don’t need some cops fucking around with my social media and banking info because I got stopped for jaywalking.
It’s not just paranoid, it’s totally toxic and aggressive. He attacked and verbally abused dozen of different project for naive reasons, and spread FUD and slanders about other developers and projects
I hate that they use discord and telegram for comms without any notice that the matrix/irc room you’re joining is bridged to those services.
Any organization that thinks its OK to feed my chats to obvious bad actors is extremely concerning. I have brought this to the attention of the maintainers and all they do is say 'but the chats are public, and anyone can index them. So what’s to stop discord from harvesting the data from the other public forums".
Well, guess what, as bad as discord is I’m pretty sure theyre not going around to obscure forums to scrape user data when they have such a plentiful source feeding them with their own consent. I do not consent to this invasion of pitvacy and am disgusted a ‘privacy’ OS can do this and no one be outraged about it.
Other than that is is a great OS and I still run it. However I’m now on the lookout for a good alternative. Sadly there doesn’t seem to be many, yet.
They tried to switch to Matrix, but it turned out to be too inefficient and buggy for such big community.
Matrix continues to be awful and weird. Discord is basically easy to use IRC – too bad no one else has figured out an easy irc
Honestly, I think you summed up the biggest issues. As much as I look forward to getting a Pixel for my next phone solely for GrapheneOS, it’s understandable for people looking to degoogle to not want to buy a Google phone. The developer I think is the bigger issue. Despite having since stepped down, his behavior went unchecked for long enough to make quite a bad reputation and leave a bad taste in a lot of people’s mouths. While recovering from that will simply take time, I have wondered why they haven’t taken the opportunity to come out with a Graphene-lite for non-Pixels. Something like CarbonOS as secure as possible sans Google hardware. Could easily overtake Calyx/Lineage.
I have wondered why they haven’t taken the opportunity to come out with a Graphene-lite for non-Pixels
The issue I see is simply a lack of developers to do so. Trying to split the team between two mostly different projects would most likely cripple both.
@Charger8232 @DARbarian I don’t think that’s it, it’s more that they’re a project where you’re expected to buy a device for it, in this case a Pixel.
Pixels have amazing security features and they don’t want to lose that.
They tell you why right on their website. They dev for Pixels because it’s a stable platform with a predictable future.
If you’re not going to listen to the devs, I don’t know what to say.
I like grapheneos the product.
The staff is super abrasive and they constantly attack other privacy projects. See the recent attacks on Jonah from privacy guides, or the attacks on calyx, or the bs with rossman that forced micay out of the spotlight.
They need to hire an outside professional to manage their PR. The way they communicate is their biggest flaw.
It was never so much about the hate for GOS as it was for Daniel. Daniel is a absolute genius but has some mental and paranoid issues. Which hurt GOS reputation in the proces, Dont get me wrong I do not hate the guy or GOS at all but I do agree Daniel has some serious issues.
There are one or two accounts on Lemmy who seem to show up in every privacy or graphene thread and shit-talk GOS.
I say if there is something wrong with GOS or the code itself, identify it and prove it. The founder may have been “problematic” or whatever, but it doesn’t sound like that person is even associated with the project anymore.
I have personally daily-driven GOS for a year. It has worked well for me. I use a lot of FOSS apps. I use some traditional Play Store apps and avoid logging into Google and I manage permissions closely. I’d say GOS gives you options. Maybe some people would like other customized degoogled OS better, and that is fine. Just… for the love of all that is sacred, don’t use vanilla Googled Android.
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I just think it is a vessel for proprietary software and doesn’t protect my freedom.
There a certainly worse things to use but I like Lineage OS personally
I don’t understand your comment. Could you explain it a bit more?
TL;DR Lineage OS is fine as it pretty much anything else fossdroid
Is there any truth to the concern that Lineage could be hacked more easily than Graphene OS?
And what about how Graphene OS uses Pixels that have a chip that make brute-forcing hacking a locked device much harder?
Are those real things or just gimmicks? I really don’t know.
It depends on your threat model. However, I am skeptical of flashy security features. I haven’t heard of a case where Graphene saved a journalist or similar.
People who escape doom because of technological prowess don’t usual tell others out of risk of antagonizing an adversary and inviting more conflict.
I find the criticisms of the founder pretty seriously overblown. My interactions with him have always been positive. He’s on the spectrum and a lot of people engaged in pretty serious abuse toward him and the project he created… so I’ll give him some slack.
I’ve used GrapheneOS for 5 years. It’s good, the project has integrity, and there really isn’t anything that meaningfully compares in meeting its goals. It’s proactive in that they actually do meaningful security research and implement solutions. People who troll on the project are either straight up bad actors or just stupid.
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bruh, I think I agree with most of your conclusions, but you gotta work on your delivery, as it definitely doesn’t serve your message well. I think you receive a lot more pushback because you use so many harshly negative words to describe people.
Just in this comment, you use:
- disease
- sewer
- “security” clowns
- pure snake oil
- disgusting sole developer
- minions
- witch hunt
- maliciously
- trained monkeys
which makes this comment sound more like a Donald Trump rally than a well-reasoned argument. It’s understandable given your history of conflict with members of the project, and I usually hate tone policing, but I think this word choice severely hurts your argument. Remember, most people here are just passerby and have no idea about the drama or your experiences with their community. Their first impression is gonna be you’re the flip-side to Micay.
I think your thesis is largely correct, that the project does a suspicious amount of shilling for big tech and Google and pushes a lot of anti-FOSS propaganda and has a toxic social media presence that silences good people geniunely asking questions or voicing opinion in good faith.
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Even @[email protected] gives it backlash despite being a moderator of Lemmy’s biggest privacy community. A quote here: “grapheneOS trolls are downvoting every single post and comment of mine, and committing vote manipulation on Lemmy. They are using 5-6 accounts.” That was in response to downvotes on a comment posted in the c/WorldNews community, which is entirely unrelated to technology.
It seems to me that you might be confusing things: You say that people hate the OS but share a comment complaining about the community of users/fans, not about the OS.
I have never used GrapheneOS and cannot comment on the OS, but I have seen some users in different communities commenting that GrapheneOS is the only valid alternative OS and discrediting any other OS. It becomes tiring pretty fast.
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Hey there, I’m sorry about this craziness. My comment was not really directed at you, but I was just quoting part of the original post that mentioned you.
I was trying to suggest that OP is confusing criticism of the GrapheneOS community with criticism of the OS. You make a good point and, as I pointed out, you were not criticising the OS, but the community. Not the same thing.
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