Vanadium
Vanadium | platform_frameworks_base | |
---|---|---|
88 | 9 | |
726 | 67 | |
4.1% | - | |
9.1 | 9.9 | |
6 days ago | 1 day ago | |
Shell | Java | |
GNU General Public License v3.0 or later | GNU General Public License v3.0 or later |
Stars - the number of stars that a project has on GitHub. Growth - month over month growth in stars.
Activity is a relative number indicating how actively a project is being developed. Recent commits have higher weight than older ones.
For example, an activity of 9.0 indicates that a project is amongst the top 10% of the most actively developed projects that we are tracking.
Vanadium
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F-Droid, Keyboard Libraries, and Choosing a Browser
While Graphene comes with Vanadium, their own Chromium-based browser, pre-installed I chose to go with Mull as my default browser. There wasn't anything wrong with Vanadium, it's just that I've been using Firefox (and the wonderful uBlock Origin plugin) on my Linux machine for a little while now and have really grown to prefer it to Chromium-based browsers. In my research I had seen a lot of mentions of Mull and Fennec, both based on Firefox but with further hardening and privacy modifications. This detailed browser comparison chart (produced by the developer of Mull) is what ultimately led to me choosing Mull. It's definitely worth a look at the chart even if you aren't in the market for a new browser!
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UnGoogled Chromium
Check out Vanadium, which is part of the GrapheneOS project: https://github.com/GrapheneOS/Vanadium
- Vanadium version 119.0.6045.163.2 released
- Vanadium version 119.0.6045.134.0 released
- Vanadium version 119.0.6045.53.0 released
- Vanadium version 119.0.6045.53.1 released
- Vanadium version 118.0.5993.65.0 released
- Vanadium version 117.0.5938.140.0 released
platform_frameworks_base
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Korean Smartphones Have Mandatory Shutter Sounds, 8 in 10 Want It Muted
As always, GrapheneOS disables this anti-user crap:
https://github.com/GrapheneOS/platform_frameworks_base/commi...
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CalyxOS 4.13.2
- run the build, wait 2 hours, flash it
Now.. there's no such thing as "CalyxOS compatibility layer" in Calyx. Yet, there's no difference in user experience - none of my daily apps are/were broken on either Graphene+Play services from their store, stock CalyxOS+MicroG or on Calyx+GApps. (Except last time I've used Apps on multiple user profiles, there was a lot of trouble due to different versions being installed iirc)
Taking privacy concerns into account, there might be some difference.. but once more, going through gmscompat code, I see mainly hacks about letting this app pop up this activity this time, faking this permission that time, etc [1].
Yes there's a layer that isolates some calls, but I just cannot see how it's supposed to alter user experience. Now, spinning an isolated "sandbox" (which is likely impossible, as IPC/binder/shared data and services model is fundamentally broken anyway) with just a couple apps on a separate google account - all restricted from having access to sensors, etc, having device ID's spoofed and having separate network isolation - would be a real game changer, but its a niche need, with semi-available solutions (sandvxposed, vmos, waydroid on docker on android), and it would likely violate every line in Play Services' TOS meaning it won't happen on a public OS.
Calyx cares about their users in a kind of a quiet wau, yet there's a ton of activity on their tracker.
GrapheneOS cares about giving privacy to more users I suppose, so that explains their marketing strategy and parts of their code being what they are (hardened libc? definitely cool. Yet I've not seen any public exploit that could bypass e.g. stock AOSP's libc with _FORTIFY_SOURCE since 2015).
End user experience, though? No real difference, thus no superiority. And people in need of "hard" sandboxing would just buy a box of burner phones anyway.
1. https://github.com/GrapheneOS/platform_frameworks_base/commi...
P.S. What about that SafetyNet certification on either OS?
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Struggling getting "Shelter" app to work
I think this might actually be a fix for it: https://github.com/GrapheneOS/platform_frameworks_base/commit/efc548c178abfb9c32854f026105c3d720f53be1
- Recent upgrade to LOS 19. Little green dot keeps popping up every minute or so in upper right corner of screen. Says location "Being used by Phone Services" despite location toggled off and Phone Services not having permission to access location. What's happening?
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Google releasing one last Pixel 3a and 3a XL update, arriving ‘by July’
Allowing revoking network access to better prevent data exfiltration: https://github.com/GrapheneOS/platform_frameworks_base/commit/86bb94b8def3b6f97a984f346950df7ab74f8a96
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Question about Datura firewall. Is this "fixed"?
Fun thing to know https://github.com/GrapheneOS/platform_frameworks_base/pull/132
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Which android applications allow for push notifications without google play services?
But in the git https://github.com/GrapheneOS/platform_frameworks_base/pull/78 it says it will be able to run the Google play services, including GSF, which is to my knowledge responsible for the notifications, or am I mistaken?
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Phone for all or most major privacy OSs
Removing sensor access to applications which significantly reduces the availability of privacy-sensitive data: https://github.com/GrapheneOS/platform_frameworks_base/commit/4717a544f817e0a0cf730223a68fef8d06734356
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[Request] Implementing secondary profile log out.
Link to their commit for logging out of profiles - enable secondary user logout support by default
What are some alternatives?
brave-browser - Brave browser for Android, iOS, Linux, macOS, Windows.
FairEmail - Fully featured, open source, privacy friendly email app for Android
brave-core - Core engine for the Brave browser for mobile and desktop. For issues https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/issues
platform_manifest - Repo manifest for the GrapheneOS mobile privacy and security hardening project.
ungoogled-chromium - Google Chromium, sans integration with Google
hardened_malloc - Hardened allocator designed for modern systems. It has integration into Android's Bionic libc and can be used externally with musl and glibc as a dynamic library for use on other Linux-based platforms. It will gain more portability / integration over time.
Firefox-UI-Fix - 🦊 I respect proton UI and aim to improve it.
platform_packages_apps_Settings
bromite - Bromite is a Chromium fork with ad blocking and privacy enhancements; take back your browser!
IYPS - A password strength app that evaluates and rates your password's robustness, estimates crack time, and provides helpful warnings and suggestions for stronger passwords.
mulch
GmsCore - Free implementation of Play Services