I’ve written this blog post about moving from rooted Samsung to a Pixel running GrapheneOS. It’s a list of every root tool that I used, with a note on whether I’ll miss it. I wrote it as a checklist for myself initially, and decided to add links and more comments and publish it. Turns out I don’t really need root, which truly surprised me.
Do you have any apps or tools that hold you back from leaving root?
Ansolutely! I thought a lot about the pros and cons of GrapheneOS, and decided it was better for both my privacy and security, and also ease of life. I still felt bad about the loss of control though, and that’s why I wrote this list for myself. Now I don’t feel as some evil company forbids me from having root access, but that I voluntarily chose a system that protects my privacy to the point of taking some tools (that I didn’t really use that much) away from me to protect me agains exploits. It may be copium, but I’m happier :)
Valid, I can respect that choice. I prefer having full access available, but that’s just how I do.
And you can still root Graphene - they just don’t support it
But you have to compile it again on every update, right?
You don’t have to compile GrapheneOS from source thanks to avbroot which can take a release zip, patch it with root and sign it using a custom avb key. This lets you root while keeping the bootloader locked.
The rooted-graphene project automates this completely using GitHub actions. It even lets you do OTA updates like normal GrapheneOS.
Wait, what? That’s a pretty big deal!
It should be noted that while you can do this, it can increase your attack surface, defeating a lot of the point of Graphene. Before I started using Graphene, I was a huge fan of rooting and getting full control of my device, so I definitely understand the appeal. But I don’t think I would root Graphene myself, automated or otherwise.