alt Hacker News> And once you are on GrapheneOS, break free from your proprietary watch ecosystem and switch to GadgetBridge
Then switch back to Google/Apple after half a year when you discover that you can’t run
- your banking app - any government app - the app required to access large sports events - the pandemic tracking app without which you can’t enter an airport - various other random apps
because they ALL detect that you’re running on a phone with an unlocked bootloader and will flat out refuse to start. And for many of those, there is no legal alternative.
(The extent of this varies depending on where you live, of course.)
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You can lock the bootloader again with GrapheneOS and many banking apps work.
> - the pandemic tracking app without which you can’t enter an airport
Not sure if airports specifically used another mechanism, but the Android contact tracing APIs were actually reimplemented in microG, allowing these apps to work even on custom roms.
Your other examples don't hold universally either (banking apps are compatible with un-rooted custom ROMs more often than not, and not sure how many sports event apps use integrity checks), but your general point stands that it may come with trade-offs.
YMMV. I run sandboxed Google Play Services on GrapheneOS so almost every app works. My digital payments app works, and the same with most government apps I have tried. My private bank's app doesn't work, but I just use their website for the handful of times a year I need to access it.
No banking app on phone because why; no government app because oh fuck why, whats wrong with your government (at least in primary phone and I never needed secondary); app for sport events - thats just me but I prefer doing sports rather than passively watch them, so 0 loss; pandemic what? its 2026 and I never saw such requirement in Europe, Africa nor Asia; no other app requires that.
Thats not coming from some paranoid security person, just regular (software dev) joe.
Most banking apps work perfectly, most government apps work perfectly, etc. It is only an exceptionally small subset of apps using anticompetitive measures such as play integrity.
Also, do not leave your bootloader unlocked. That is an incomplete GOS install and you will need to lock it to secure your device. Not locking it is both insecure and will make a much higher number of apps fail.