For those watching this stuff, there are two other promising paths using ZK-proofs which might disarm the tradeoff situation we've been stuck in. Banking apps etc aren't willing to eat the liability of devices that are rooted or running alternate OSes, and Google's been banking on the exclusivity that brings from being both hardware and security provider.

Path 1: a ZK-proof attestation certificate marketplace implemented by GrapheneOS (or similar) to prove safety in a privacy-securing way enough for 3rd party liability insurance markets to buy in. Banks etc can be indifferent, and wouldn't ignore the market if it got big enough. This would mean we could root any device with aggressive hacking and then apologize for it with ZK-proof certs that prove it's still in good hands - and banking apps don't need to care. No need for hard chains of custody like the Google security model.

Path 2: Don't even worry too hard about 3rd party devices or full OSes, we just need to make the option viable enough to shame Google into adopting the same ZK certificate schemes defensively. If they're reading all user data through ZK-proof certs instead of just downloading EVERYTHING then they're significantly neutered as a Big Brother force and for once we're able to actually trust them. They'd still have app marketplace centrality, but if and when phones are being subdivided with ZK-proof security it would make 3rd party monitoring of the dynamics of how those decisions get made very public (we'd see the same things google sees), so we could similarly shame them via alternatives into adopting reasonable default behaviors. Similar to Linux/Windows - Windows woulda been a lot more evil without the alternative next door.

Longer discussion (opinion not sourced from AI though): https://chatgpt.com/share/68ad1084-eb74-8003-8f10-ca324b5ea8...

All of my bank apps work fine on graphene. I'd switch banks if their app stopped working, not stop using graphene. I stopped using Google wallet, I don't miss it enough to justify using stock android. For other apps, I just put them in a separate profile that has good play installed/configured. It really wasn't bad. The worst part is wiping your phone to install graphene the first time, I prefer just to get a new device for it so I can move stuff over

My banking app works fine on GrapheneOS. There is a crowd-sourced list here with current status for many of them: https://privsec.dev/posts/android/banking-applications-compa...

I love how so many of the responses in this thread are "it works for my particular bank" or "my bank's website is good enough" or "I'd only need it to deposit checks, but I never need to do that"... as if those are actually helpful responses to this general problem.

Many many people have banking apps that will not work on non-Google-blessed devices, use banks that have mobile websites that are terrible, and need to do mobile check deposits (which is usually only available in the app, and not the mobile website, if the bank even has one). And no, we're not going to "change our bank".

The reality is that there are so many things that break, sometimes in subtle ways, when you try to use an alternative Android OS. Some people may not have any problems, and that's great! But many -- I would dare to say most -- will.

And there's also a ton of uncertainty: I don't really want to wipe my phone, install GrapheneOS, spend hours messing with it and setting it up, only to find that something critical doesn't work, and now I have to flash back to the stock OS, and hope I can restore everything the way it was.

Most banking app work, either directly or with a settings change to allow Google Play Service emulation. [1]

[1] https://grapheneos.org/usage#banking-apps

Second phone for all official business apps, banking, etc. Never leaves home and it's used only for this purpose

Is that a jab at grapheneOS ? Because thats just another thing that google is borking up. And a little bit more so the banks themselves.

GrapheneOS is the way that all phone operating systems SHOULD be made. Layers and segregation between your banking apps and all the privacy breaking trash and malware you can get off the app store.

It is the banks and google making weird rootkit shit to try and lock down things that is the problem here.

A web browser in the worst case scenario. The same way you'd do it on a computer.

What's wrong with their web apps? The only real shortcoming I can think of is depositing checks digitally but I haven't had to do that in years.

As a GrapheneOS user, the way I access my banking app is by downloading it from the Google Play store just like everyone else.

My credit union app already wants 24x7 GPS tracking of my location and full access to my camera at all times and full access to my collection of photos, so the app is already dead to me anyway. Demanding that I use it on a locked down device isn't going to change anything for me, I'm already actively not using it. I use the website on a desktop, I rarely need to access my CU at all much less access it remotely. Given the large amount of battery and bandwidth already used to track my every move, I wish there was something like "Docker for phones" where I could enable and disable 24x7 full access to my every action IRL.

Uh, my bank has a pretty good mobile website, personally.

I've never done it but

"Many other devices are supported by GrapheneOS at a source level, and it can be built for them without modifications to the existing GrapheneOS source tree."

https://grapheneos.org/faq#supported-devices

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Fairphones are also LineageOS and postmarketOS compatible, both options are without tracking and without Google's mandated policies.

LineageOS without gapps is really usable if you set aside the "big" social media apps. WhatsApp can be sourced from their website as an APK. The social apps like facebook, instagram, snap, tiktok and others all require Google Play's tracking services (aka gapps).

For YouTube there's multiple better alternative open source apps available, and mastodon, amethyst and the fediverse apps on f-droid are far superior in terms of performance to the Google Store alternatives.

> Fairphone never updating their phones

I have a Fairphone and i get updates pretty frequently so not sure what you mean?

... and that pales in comparison to the billions stolen via malicious actors on certified software. Lol.

I don't need to sideload a fucking fake bank app to steal your money. Get real. This isn't how most fraud or scams are done. Grandma isn't gonna install a fucking unsigned binary on her android phone. But she IS going to give out her password.

I regard Google highly in many domains, but this needs independent research. There is just waay too much opportunity to misuse data to paint a picture of themselves as the protectors. Especially curious about their definition of malware, because to me the app stores seem worse than browser toolbars from the 2000s.

It also shows how bad Google is at preventing malware in the Play store. There are far more than 50x more installs from the Play store than from side loading, which means that most malware is installed through the Play store, despite the much lower barrier to entry for side loading.

Heh, I've always done this. Maybe if every mobile dev made sure I could find text like I can in a browser I'd be less strident. But really, I need a very good reason to install stuff.

It's incredible that by the end of it, the WM rollercoaster made us actually miss WinCE. If you had have told us that initially none of us would have believed you. WM had so much potential and was just totally botched.