Eylenburg publishes detailed comparison tables and timelines on Android operating systems, browser engines, desktop environments, payment methods, and digital freedom.
HN commenters point to its Android OS comparison as a third-party table of security and privacy features, used in GrapheneOS and CalyxOS discussions.
I am not a project member so I cannot speak for GrapheneOS, but maybe I can help clear up some misunderstandings.
>insistence on not supporting MicroG leads to poor UX,
The problem they are trying to solve is apps not working without the presence of Google Mobile Services or Google Play. They don't want to compromise by having a component with high privileges integrated in their image that involves security issues like signature spoofing.
MicroG will send less data to Google partly because it is simply an incomplete implementation of the features offered by GMS (sanboxed-google-play appp compatibility is quite a bit higher), partly because the access is more granular or there are choices offered for services like location (GrapheneOS provides non-Google location services and community support on only installing and enabling the parts you need for specific app features to work). UX is not adversely affected, but if you want to use a privileged app bypassing security checks and sending data to Google anyway then you have the freedom to compile microG with it integrated if you would like.
>They also seem to be very opinionated about (not) using a firewall for privacy, like NetGuard, instead recommending some weird alternatives like DNS firewalls
GrapheneOS tries to implement or end encourage sustainable approaches to privacy and security, and this partially means approaches that don't break if the adversary knows what you are doing.
Egress/outbound traffic filtering is…
Tl;dr: Google needs to fund Mozilla because there are no other internet browsers available; suitable for todays Internet standards. Microsoft gave up, Opera gave up and Webkit is the only other and it's now iOS exclusive. It failed as a desktop browser.
Without Firefox, Alphabet would be liable to an anti-trust lawsuit. Apple not so, because they keep it to their iDevice.
- Firefox is Mozilla's and Mozilla is a non-profitable organisation.
The story as I know it is that in the early days Mozilla became the defacto internet suite as they produced a suite of applications. Email, FTP client and a browser and these were crafted and sustained by volunteers. (This is skipping the predecessor, Netscape).
The internet was simple then. HTML and CSS with an lil' bit of Javascript made the internet fine.
Everything was open and the rainbow coloured fence of your neighbour was pretty. You could even implement your own renderer and know it would work.
In the dozens: https://eylenburg.github.io/browser_engines.htm
Introducing Google: they started out just as search engine and that it was. Pretty great at it what it was and their was no other. It's boasted feature was one of that you could rank pages with PageRank although in the long run became unprofitable.
The popped dotCom boom had made VC's scared to invest and Silicon Valley was still recovering from the aftermath.
Unlike Yahoo, Lycos and other service providers, who all had offered services like email and entertainment…
Neither of those is a privacy or security hardened OS. AOSP is much more private and secure than the desktop Linux software stack and GrapheneOS greatly improves upon it. GrapheneOS does not promote Google services. /e/ always gives privileged access to Google apps and services and ships with a bunch of Google services active default. GrapheneOS doesn't come with sandboxed Google Play and doesn't connect to Google servers by default.
https://eylenburg.github.io/android_comparison.htm
https://grapheneos.org/features
We have a non-exclusive partnership with Motorola Mobility to bring GrapheneOS to their next generation and later devices. This is necessary because non-Pixel devices don't provide the updates or hardware-based security features we need. GrapheneOS supports the latest available Pixels and plans to add support for future Pixels alongside our partnership with Motorola, which is not exclusive and does not preclude having additional OEM partnerships.
/e/ greatly reduces privacy and security compared to the standard Android Open Source Project. /e/ has repeatedly claimed hardened devices mainly benefit criminals and pedophiles and have falsely claimed GrapheneOS is mainly used by criminals on multiple occasions too. That's very relevant to the context leading to someone creating this thread.
https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/116353973732143171
GrapheneOS claims to be a lot more secure, having additional hardening. See https://eylenburg.github.io/android_comparison.htm - keep in mind that it is not an independent comparison, the Graphene guys directly feed what this table is supposed to say in the issue tracker, https://github.com/eylenburg/eylenburg.github.io/issues/. But it gives a good representation of the state of the ROMs according to Graphene.
In regular use, main difference will be that /e/OS comes with access to the alternative cloud service that project provides. It uses the default FOSS solution microG for google api compatibility, unlike GrapheneOS with their sandbox approach. /e/OS sets on AppLounge to install and upgrade both play store or F-Droid apps. Graphene has a small curated app repo instead.
I'd never use GrapheneOS since I don't trust the project. /e/OS is also not my favorite since it feels like it is developing slowly, having issues with outdated software versions - though it does work well in practice. Have a look at iode for an alternative.
The company that imports Fairphone 4 to the US (Murena) runs e/OS which is OK. There's a bit of FUD that pops up on HN about e/OS from time to time, but the reality is that it's a mostly de-Google'd but still usable LineageOS clone. Their emphasis is on de-Googling, and usability, not security. It's probably worth a look. I'd say that their privacy/de-Googling is the best of all the LineageOS flavors. You can see comparisons between all the flavors here:
https://eylenburg.github.io/android_comparison.htm
That said, you can flash any Android Os that supports Fairphone, or PostmarketOS to it.
The phone itself is responsive/quite good despite being a bit old at this point. I can do all normal phone tasks (email, web, music, navigation, etc) with no lag or any issues. I have not attempted to game on it. The Fairphone 4 is modular, parts are available for repairs, and it works great in the US with T-Mobile or T-Mobile MVNOs.
https://murena.com/america/shop/smartphones/brand-new/murena-fairphone-4/
That's untrue. The main focus of GrapheneOS has always been privacy. This level of privacy is enabled through good security. GrapheneOS goes above and beyond in regards to privacy. No other custom Android OS hosts its own time server, proxies for PSDS and SUPL, captive portal, Wi-Fi positioning proxy, Widevine provisioning proxy, etc.
GrapheneOS doesn't make any connections to Google or Qualcomm by default, unlike all the other other Android-based systems. https://grapheneos.org/faq#default-connections
See https://eylenburg.github.io/android_comparison.htm
As previously mentioned, GrapheneOS hosts a proxy for the Qualcomm SUPL service. In addition, it removes unique device identifiers from the requests, that would normally be present.
GrapheneOS supports the Pixel tool for provisioning eSIMs, but it's fully sandboxed and doesn't share any data with Google.