Cops say criminals use a Google Pixel with GrapheneOS – I say that's freedom

Summary

Calvin Wankhede / Android AuthorityPolice in Spain have reportedly started profiling people based on their phones; specifically, and surprisingly, those carrying Google Pixel devices. Law enforcement officials in Catalonia say they associate Pixels with crime because drug traffickers are increasingly turning to these phones. But it’s not Google’s secure Titan M2 chip that has criminals favoring the Pixel — instead, it’s GrapheneOS, a privacy-focused alternative to the default Pixel OS.As someone who has used a Pixel phone with GrapheneOS, I find this assumption a bit unsettling. I have plenty of reasons to use GrapheneOS, and avoiding law enforcement isn’t on the list at all. In fact, I think many Pixel users would benefit from switching to GrapheneOS over the default Android operating system. And no, my reasons don’t have anything to do with criminal activity. Why I use and recommend GrapheneOS A privacy-focused operating system may seem more trouble than it’s worth. But when I replaced Google’s Pixel OS with GrapheneOS, I found it to be a transformative experience. For one, the installation was painless, and I didn’t lose any modern software features. Installing aftermarket operating systems used to equal a compromised smartphone experience, but I didn’t find that to be true in the case of GrapheneOS.Case in point: even though GrapheneOS doesn’t include any Google services, I was surprised to find that you can install the Play Store with relative ease and almost all apps work flawlessly — even most banking ones.This is impressive for any open-source fork of Android, but GrapheneOS goes above and beyond in that it also has some major privacy and security benefits. Primarily, it locks down various parts of Android to reduce the number of attack vectors and enforces stricter sandboxing to ensure that apps remain isolated from each other. GrapheneOS just works, with almost no feature or usability compromises. Take Google apps as an example. On almost all Android phone...