I use a secondary profile as my main, don't really ever use the owner profile unless I want to activate the wifi access point.
Also I don't have google anything installed, I use open source apps exclusively.
this post was submitted on 04 Sep 2026
26 points (96.4% liked)
Privacy
50749 readers
1387 users here now
A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.
Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.
Some Rules
- Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn't great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
- Don't promote proprietary software
- Try to keep things on topic
- If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
- Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
- Be nice :)
Related communities
much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)
founded 6 years ago
MODERATORS
I run three profiles: main profile is where all my FOSS stuff is, every day things, no tracking stuff allowed. And of it does, I just revoke network permissions. No Google play services or play store installed on this profile at all
Secondary profile has banking apps, basically anything at all to do with money or requires Google play services to work. I even disable network access for most of the apps on my secondary profile until I need to use them. Google play services and play store are installed on this profile.
Third profile is dedicated navigation user that just has Google maps and other amenities like music for listening while driving. I have this one separated because I allow my secondary profile to run in the background and I don't want Google maps running in the background so I created a third user. The third profile doesn't run in the background. It's pretty easy, I just switch to it when I need solid navigation. This of course also has play services installed. I know this is overkill. It's just for myself because location tracking is a particular peeve of mine
All my profiles have Molly installed and connected up so I never miss a text or call between profiles
I'll be honest: I am too lazy to switch profiles. I've done the best I can (for now) to eliminate propriety apps. I only have 12/100, and that's including Google Play Services, Play Store, and Android Auto. 2 do not have network permissions.
Main profile is my only profile...I used to do the whole main/secondary thing, but it became too annoying having to switch between them all the fucking time.
Same
My threat model didn't need the hassle of swapping profiles and such. Main profile and reap the other benefits of Graphene. All good.
x3
All my privacy-friendly stuff on main, and privacy invasive on a Shelter work profile. One journalism account on instagram in a separate user.
Yeah I keep Owner as my main daily driver, but it only has FOSS apps. My secondary "slop" profile has anything that is proprietary.
I do exactly the same and the only proprietary app I use on my 2and profile is Waze. Rarely ever use that anyways.
If it requires Google play or isn't used often it goes into my work profile which I disable when I'm not using it. That means it's pretty much Google Maps, and that's pretty much it.
I use main, that's it. No second profile, no private space.
Nearly all apps installed respect my privacy. Two apps installed that aren't great for privacy. They stay disabled until I need them, then they get disabled again.
Now, if I had a Google, Facebook, etc accounts, those would be in their own profiles.
I only use one profile and have a private space with play services, playstore and anything else that I don't trust. I turn it on only if I need to do something specific on it (use my banking app) and then it gets disabled again. I tried the main/secondary profiles approach buth I like this one more.
I use Shelter to create a work profile. Not as secure as OS "profile" but significantly more convenient, as I can have both available and receive notifications simultaneously, while still maintaining some level of sandboxing.
This is native now in Graphene. No need for Shelter anymore: https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/16670-private-space-on-android-15-grapheneos
So funny, I was just searching for these functions yesterday. (As is which os has it).
My ideal would be:
One sandbox instance with reading apps - that unlocks with fingerprint.
And a second for everything else.
Motorola can't come fast enough. I'm even tempted to get one without external sd card.
More phones they just need to make the right one for it not to be shit!! Or were they just shit like nuclear weapons hmmmmm. Every one and everything is on some proprietary app, you'd think the technology people would have learned a lesson but nope. Even Marx was suspicious about technology before he died, but those manuscripts were lost burned or are buried in some closed archives.