I use RethinkDNS app to block ads. It’s VPN based, but you can point it to any WireGuard tunnel and it still blocks ads. It even has split tunneling.

Do I miss having root? Yes. Would i switch back? That’s complicated. Yes and No, but really dependent on how Google proceeds in their endeavors of trying to lock everything down.

Exactly! I think most people who have left root share this view. I wish to see it change over my lifetime, but I don’t have much hope given the current state of things :(

It’s great to hear someone found it interesting :) I’ll be looking forward to your notes on degoogling. And I’m glad you like my website, I really love the current small web revival, even though I’m too young to have experienced the original small web times of the internet.

GrapheneOS has a full system backup, but I haven’t used it yet.

Having access to all data feels great, but I personally used it only once: to move history and open tabs fom one firefox fork (Mull) to another (IronFox). It came very handy tho.

I completely agree on the system tweaks part.

And for an adblocker, I wonder what do you use? It was a big reason to root for me, but I switched back to RethinkDNS (DNS blocking using the VPN slot) after a while. The reason was that I use pretty aggressive filters, and need to unbreak apps often. With ADAway, I needed to start logging, then do the problematic request again, look in the logs, allow the domain, and then reapply the filters to my system.

For blocking individual apps from accessing the Internet entirely, I couldn’t find a good solution, although I feel like it must be possible with root. GrapheneOS, on the other hand, allows you to toggle the internet permission like any other.

That’s one of the biggest topics surrounding android customization, and I somehow completely dodged it. My bank app does not care about anything unless I try to hook it with LSPosed modules. No integrity checking, no root checking, no scanning for installed apps, nothing.

Thanks, I fixed the link, but the old version still seems to be cached. It should be https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/1173-taskmanager-real-killing-of-processes/9 And yes, I restart my phone pretty often, and I think it also restarts automatically at night, so re-enabling Shizuku every time is something I don’t want to deal with. Another alternative I forgot to add to the post (and now I will) is this app: Force Stop Helper. It’s a simple list of apps with following features useful for my usecase:

• Clicking on an app takes you to it’s system settings page where you can enable/disable it with one click
• You can pin certain apps to the top
• Disabled apps are shown greyed out and marked as disabled

Using this is not as convinient as Hail, but perfectly fine for apps that I don’t need to freeze multiple times a day. Sort of a middle ground between convenience and security.

But you have to compile it again on every update, right?

Ansolutely! I thought a lot about the pros and cons of GrapheneOS, and decided it was better for both my privacy and security, and also ease of life. I still felt bad about the loss of control though, and that’s why I wrote this list for myself. Now I don’t feel as some evil company forbids me from having root access, but that I voluntarily chose a system that protects my privacy to the point of taking some tools (that I didn’t really use that much) away from me to protect me agains exploits. It may be copium, but I’m happier :)

Samsung (surprisingly) has a simple toggle in the developer settings that unlocks it. No account or internet needed IIRC.

I’m currently stuck at that region (my first run) and I hate it. Spent a good few hours in 5 pebbles already.

I’ve used Samsung for my whole life and I just learned this.

I know that you said you know how to do it, but Universal Android Debloater can restore any removed apps in one click, which might be useful if you decide to try it.

Racoon for Lemmy still have some rough edges, but is really cool and nice looking.