GrapheneOS is not just AOSP with the existing security features intact. CalyxOS is a well implemented derivative of AOSP with optional microG support. They've worked on support for non-Pixel devices too, but within the constraint of supporting ones that are reasonable secure.
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The difference between GrapheneOS and CalyxOS is that GrapheneOS provides substantial privacy/security hardening beyond AOSP and CalyxOS integrates microG support, the F-Droid privileged extension and bundles other apps. CalyxOS is the only other AOSP derivative preserving the...
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... standard privacy / security model, taking care to implement things properly and trying to support devices with all of the standard hardware security features intact. Pixels have a lot more advantages than verified boot compared to most other devices though, and an OS can't...
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... fix serious security problems in the hardware and firmware. The hardware and firmware is the foundation for privacy and security in the OS. Few devices with ongoing security support and a lack of serious security flaws have alternative OS support, let alone in a way that...
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... actually preserves the standard security features for the alternate OS. That's a really low bar and yet a tiny fraction of devices can meet it. A higher standard would be providing comparable firmware/hardware security as the reference devices (Pixels)... doesn't exist ATM.
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And even that would just be matching the security of mainstream devices. I think it's pretty sad that those are the best options and no one else currently seems particularly interested in producing hardware that's competitive let alone better, just branded/marketed as such.
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You'll need to be specific about what you don't understand. So for example, with the initial tweet, what's not clear? twitter.com/DanielMicay/st
Most derivatives of AOSP roll back privacy/security. GrapheneOS is entirely about doing the opposite: improving it.
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Replying to @ODELL @MATT_ODELL and 3 others
GrapheneOS has substantial privacy and security improvements compared to AOSP. AOSP itself has verified boot just like the stock OS. Most derivatives of AOSP substantially roll back privacy and security. GrapheneOS is focused on doing the opposite by doing significant hardening.
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You could look up AOSP and verified boot if the issue is you don't know those terms. I wrote these tweets for an audience aware of those terms. It's just a high level overview of how the approach of these projects is fundamentally quite different. Seems most people treat privacy
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Verified boot is an OS agnostic term. AOSP stands for Android Open Source Project. AOSP is an operating system. Android is not a specific OS but rather a family of compatible operating systems. AOSP is the open source reference implementation that others fork into their own OS.