Over the last three years I’ve had a lot of folks ask me questions about using GrapheneOS. Let’s answer them!
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I’m glad to have found the banking app compatibility list from her FAQ and see that a few of the big banks in my country is proven working. This gives me hope of jumping ship from my S24U.
I couldn’t have predicted how much shittier Samsung was going to be when I weighed the S24U vs the Pixel 9/10 (the 10 was newer at the time of research thus expensive), as I put a lot of weight on the stylus the S24U have. Had I known that samsung were to
- Disallow bootloader unlock
- And soon in their android 17 update, close off fastboot functions IIRC (please correct me)
I would have bit the bullet getting the pixel 9 and installed graphene. I also got spooked off by overheating issues in hot climate countries and network issues. And in hindsight I think I would have been fine with the theoretical lower performance of the tensor chip vs the snapdragon in my S24U.
I also wished this FAQ existed sooner / researched more properly regarding app compatibility on graphene, so this is wholly my mistake
Cest la vie
I’ll do better next chance I get.
I have GOS on a pixel8a and my solution to the banking apps was to make a browser bookmark on my homescreen that goes straight to the bank mobile login site . it feels just like the app…except I can’t deposit checks via the camera.
I really wanna switch to e/os or graphene (especially on Motorola), but in Denmark you need MitID to live in society and it only works on Android and iOS 😭
A draft of a draft of a plan that I just thought of right now.
I might just have to carry two phones lol. One is a small cheap phone just for all those pesky financial and governmental apps, and one main phone with graphene.
It rubs me the wrong way to have to resort to a burner like trash device with less scope/(security) features to handle the most sensitive things.
How about we force everyone to do all thst only on Linux instesd of Windows when on a desktop? Fuck this infra.
I watch the British “Coronation Street” and see them just swiping their phones at a little gadget when buying a coffee at the local diner. Swipe and go, no other steps.
Non starter until tap to pay works consistently.
Who cares? What is the obsession with banking apps? From a privacy perspective, one does not want tap to pay or banking apps on their device. Setting that up gives the bank/a whole pipeline of interim companies access to every transaction you make as well as phone telemetry, whether or not you use the tap to pay service. Carrying a card or paper money is so simple.
It’s a novelty, sure, but who wants tying their ability to purchase, drive, go through airports, and such, to an electronic stalking tether with a limited battery? Much simpler, as others have said, to use tools that do not require battery.
That’s a weird hill to die on, I should know I die on weird hills every day
👌
Tap to pay works perfectly fine on my plastic cards that don’t run out of battery or need to be unlocked before I tap them. I genuinely don’t see what the big deal is about having it work on a phone.
It is admittedly more secure.
A stolen card can be used for tap to pay, with not all transactions requiring a PIN with a card. A stolen phone cannot if they don’t have your phone’s PIN or biometrics.
And most phone tap-to-pay apps will also randomize your card data in the transaction to prevent your information from being tracked or compromised in the event of a large-scale data breach, like what happened with Target in 2013 and hundreds of retailers since.
If a phone is lost or stolen, at least that security of unlocking to tap-to-oay will prevent purchases from being made. A plastic card, not so much.
It’s easier.
For me it’s that 75%+ of my contactless payments trigger an “insert card and enter PIN” check, which defeats its purpose. Presumably because my bank has become super cautious or their fraud detection is managed by a clanker.
I never have a problem with the same transactions using my phone.
Honestly, I’d prefer to use my card, rather than gift transaction data to my phone manufacturer.
There was a recent change in the last month or three that any tap transaction over $100 has to be chip or swipe. Likely what you are seeing. Which again goes back to how pointless phone tapping is when the ability to buy goods and services is already rife with hoop-jumping.
Exactly. A physical card is simply better in every single way. Imagine the stress when your phone inevitably dies, if you are out traveling and suddenly you have no access to money or communication. Screw that.
I use Graphene. There is some banks that do tap-to-pay independent of Google Pay, but not mine. There is one legit good thing about modern tap-to-pay - it cycles card numbers, making it harder for retailers to track you.
And using tap or chip on a regular credit card does as well. Every tap rotates through a set of keys in the card. The periodic use of the chip refreshes the tap keys. It isn’t the first gen tap to pay on credit cards anymore, it is much more robust.
But beyond that, the retailer already saw your face when you walked in, already saw it at the point of sale, already tracked you as you traveled the store via WiFi, already saw the BT/WiFi profile of your rotating MAC address device as it only obfuscates, and in some cases, already had your phone join their WiFi network via EAP-SIM through your carrier, already scanned your license plate with Flock in the parking lot, and already saw your club/discount/points card number at the point of sale, so they already associated you with yourself.
Tap-to-pay also sets up so all your transactions, on-phone or not, are captured by the handset manufacturer for further resale of metadata.
I didn’t know that. That’s a handy feature.
Oh God, it’s an edge case I’ll never run into!!!
Optimize the median, not this hog wash.
Haha, I hope the code you write isn’t running anything important.
Gotme
I personally agree, but (some) people stop carrying their wallets, when they can pay with their phones.
I guess I am not a defeatist either, good to know.
