Just installed GOS on my phone, really like it. I want to know how GOS users setup their profiles to learn from them. So far, i found out the followings:
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everything in Owner
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leave Owner blank. Put everything in another profile names User.
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leave Owner blank. Put all Google stuff in user Google. Put all FOSS app in FOSS user. Put all bank stuff under Sensitive user.
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use Owner as an app repo. So install Google Play, Acrescent, Fdroid. Install apps from there, but dont use them. Instead, when create new user, push those apps from Owner. This is similar to Side of Burritos on Youtube.
anything different?
Everything in owner because I don’t understand the implications well enough to do otherwise (so thanks for the thread).
All you people with multiple profiles better have insane backup strategies and love doing it often and it’s a removed. You have to backup each profile and restore individually once booted back up starting with owner then one after another. It’s a nightmare.
You also cannot use a single drive to backup each profile as the backup reading process that distinguishes each profile does not understand.
Meaning the same drive cannot even be partitioned to have a save of each profile. It requires different drives entirely. The absolute simplest process for backups are having a flash drive for each profile. Graphene os is very cumbersome to backup and DOES NOT backup all data. Once you restore from a backup you’ll understand all the pains I say, including the data you have to restore separately. A good backup is only good if you know you can restore and it works.
Hope this helps people refine their profile strategies. Most people avoid owner usage. I think there are pros and cons to that strategy. Like no pop up messages, notification delays, many other lacking options outside of owner profile like certain settings are unavailable to tweak. Including dev mode.
I’ve used graphene for years, across multiple pixel generations. It’s not the white knight made out to be. Their project is very silo’d in security and lacks the true polish of a complete OS. I still use it and think it has great merit just note the drawbacks are many. There’s so much more to add. It is late in my timezone. Hope this helps someone.
I think after testing multiple strategies that the best is to main owner, business and Google stuff 2nd, sketchy apps and things you don’t care if they get lost to delete the phone back to factory. Backup 1 and 2 only. 3 or more are throwaways. You have far more threats to lose your data from theft or social engineering by friends or family etc. than you do someone hacking multiple encrypted browsers with sandboxes of apps and then across encrypted profiles. Most of those scenarios are too complex but your imagination makes them appear big and real because of movies or TV.
Reality is the true threats are often much easier and simple. Bad actors tend to be least effort to get their goal. Nor are most Jason Bourne.
I have all of my open source apps in my main profile, a Shelter profile for proprietary apps (which I hardly use nowadays), a user profile for apps needed for my university, and another user profile for apps needed for a certain gig I’ve been involved with
Default.
Thank you. I can’t inform a response, but your question is very helpful for me with limited / low level ideas and poised to jump to GOS.
Owner has everything as open source/de-googled as possible. User 2 has YouTube/twitch for my video game communities. User 3 is work mode with pretty much Outlook for work. (And apps that work wants)
Users 2 and 3 have play services enabled just to reduse headaches in the future
Everything in Owner and a secondary phone for all proprietary work and communication apps. The secondary phone is powered off or at least disconnected once I leave work. Google stuff and banking through a computer browser whenever possible.
If I were forced to use only one phone, the secondary phone’s contents would be on a secondary profile. This used to be my setup but switching between profiles throughout the day wasn’t my thing.


