the only thing keeping me from jumping from GrapheneOS is contact and storage scopes. :(
A sufficiently motivated threat actor will have them (the exploits) too.
Motorola will be working towards providing the same thing as part of our partnership with them, but we're starting out with the high end flagship devices due to those currently being required for it.
I don't understand why it took LineageOS so long to update to AOSP 17, while GrapheneOS managed to update to 17 in just 3 days. LineageOS really should be based directly on GrapheneOS.
LOS => most security, most usability, breadth of support
GrapheneOS greatly improves upon the increasingly inadequate privacy and security provided by Android. It fixes many privacy and security vulnerabilities along with adding important missing privacy and security protections.
Traditional cell phones lack any form of secure communication and are entirely dependent on cellular. Those lack basic updates and security protections in practice too. Those are the opposite of a more private and secure device. A smartphone with GrapheneOS or iOS is far more private and secure than any traditional desktop/laptop computer at a hardware, firmware and software level.
There's nothing illegal about using GrapheneOS.
GrapheneOS does not have circle battery.
> LineageOS really should be based directly on GrapheneOS.
What would that achieve?
Here's a hint: GrapheneOS has paid developers working on it full-time, while LineageOS is done by people in their spare time. Also, GrapheneOS has a collaboration with Motorola and through that gets for instance early access to security patches, and probably other things as well. And lastly, LineageOS supports roughly 10x the number of devices. It's significantly easier if you restrict yourself to Pixels.
Just for clarification (your points are very valid): the GrapheneOS developers have stated on several occasions that they getting embargoed patches from another OEM than Motorola.
I get the point you're trying to make, but in reality, it wouldn't be very useful. Many security features of GrapheneOS could easily be bypassed, due to flaws in LineageOS, such as the fact that they ship userdebug instead of production builds, don't really allow for bootloader relocking, etc. High-level improvements like the GrapheneOS hardened memory allocator, Auditor app (hardware-based remote attestation/device integrity monitoring), etc. are pretty useless, when the entire system has an unlocked bootloader and thus no verified boot, weakend SELinux policies due to the use of userdebug builds, etc. GrapheneOS also purposely narrows the list of supported devices for security reasons. They mandate a high-quality secure element, hardware memory tagging, etc. whereas LineageOS tries to support as many devices as possible. Those two very different philosophies simply aren't compatible.
Privacy heavily depends on security. GrapheneOS greatly improves both privacy/security patches and privacy/security protections. The sole reason for the focus on security in GrapheneOS is because it's a privacy project. It has no other reason to work on security.
Android 17 was released in June 2026 and has been required for full standard Android privacy and security patches since then. Only a subset of the patches Google deems to be High or Critical severity are backported. Keeping up with the standard backports and major updates is important but increasingly inadequate.
- secure app spawning (huge because without it, many hardening improvements are useless)
- extremely secure memory allocator
- fully enabled MTE on shiba and newer
- relockable bootloader
- stronger forensics resistance
- more trustworthy developers (ever heard of LOSCoins?)
- rapid support for new Pixels
- lightning fast security updates faster than most OEMs/ODMs
- built-in TTS without GMS
- real GMS that isn't priv-app
and so much more
It’s a bit more annoying but also isolates stuff like photos etc. by default, so you don’t have to think about it.
Or even to AOSP: https://source.android.com/docs/setup/contribute/submit-patc...
Although as an extension of that - I'm hesitant to use software written by people with such a philosophical difference. It might work today, but I wouldn't trust it to work tomorrow.
Anyways, since you're here perhaps you can answer my question from the other subthread: If I flash GOS and then flash Magisk on it, how hard is it to stay unbricked? Is it as easy as declining to relock the bootloader once, or is the system going to actively fight me on every boot?