fix typo and update packages

Author: avinal

blog/content/posts/blogs/privacy-is-the-new-black.md

@@ -1,9 +1,9 @@
 ---
 category: blogs
 date: 2024-09-22T05:47:00
-description: Privacy is just like hope. It is the quintessential human delusion, simultaneously
-  the source of your greatest strength and your greatest weakness. This post outlines my switch
-  to GrapheneOS and my experiences so far.
+description: Privacy is just like hope. It is the quintessential human delusion,
+  simultaneously the source of your greatest strength and your greatest weakness.
+  This post outlines my switch to GrapheneOS and my experiences so far.
 image: /images/grapheneos-kill-bloat.webp
 tags:
 - grapheneos
@@ -16,62 +16,63 @@ tags:
 title: "GrapheneOS Saga: The Privacy-Centric Midlife Crisis"
 ---
 
-In **The Matrix Resurrections** Morpheus says *Not all seek to control. Just as not all wish to be
+In **The Matrix Resurrections**, Morpheus says *Not all seek to control. Just as not all wish to be
 free*. The ever-increasing cases of privacy invading technology and the number of people sprinting
 to adopting them reflects the quotes in its entirety. It is true that in the modern world it is
-nearly impossible to have control of your complete data. But with few changes you can decide how
+nearly impossible to have control of your complete data. But with few changes, you can decide how
 much one has access to your data. Do remember once anything is on internet, it is forever.
 
 ## My Smartphone Journey
 
 I got my first smartphone in 2014. It
 was [Samsung Galaxy Star Pro](https://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_galaxy_star_pro_s7260-5749.php), a
-very basic budget smartphone with Android 4.1. I used it until mid 2019, then for a few months I
+very basic budget smartphone with Android 4.1. I used it until mid-2019, then for a few months I
 used ASUS ZenPhone Go. It belonged to my friend. This also means I have never used 3G on smartphone.
 It was a direct jump from 2G to 4G.
 
 My first good smartphone
 was [Nokia 6.1 Plus](https://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_6_1_plus_(nokia_x6)-9178.php). Excellent build
 quality, clean OS with decent performance. Camera quality was surprisingly excellent considering
-that it had almost no AI based processing. Nokia can be a market leader in smartphone, but it seems
+that it had almost no AI-based processing. Nokia can be a market leader in smartphone, but it seems
 either they don't care much or they aren't putting much effort. I had to leave this phone in a year
-because of severe charging port issue. Other than that it is still one of my most favorite
+because of severe charging port issue. Other than that it is still one of my most favourite
 smartphone.
 
-Then I bought [Google Pixel 4a](https://www.gsmarena.com/google_pixel_4a-10123.php) in January
-of 2021. First gadget bought with my first earning. Pixel 4 and 5 series are my most favorite
-smartphones still. These are ergonomic and handy phones without many bells and whistles. The
-design is nice with good performance and clean OS. After these things started going bad.
+Then I bought [Google Pixel 4a](https://www.gsmarena.com/google_pixel_4a-10123.php) in January of
+2021. First gadget bought with my first earning. Pixel 4 and 5 series are my most favourite
+smartphones still. These are ergonomic and handy phones without many bells and whistles. The design
+is nice with good performance and clean OS. After these, things started going bad.
 
 My current smartphone is [Google Pixel 7a](https://www.gsmarena.com/google_pixel_7a-12170.php)
-bought in 2023. It is good but for the price I would expect a little more. Takes excellent photos
-and the performance is decent. The stock OS is unfortunately not as clean at it used to be.
+bought in 2023. It is good, but for the price I would expect a little more. Takes excellent photos
+and the performance is decent. The stock OS is unfortunately not as clean as it used to be.
 
 ## Why GrapheneOS?
 
 Before I can explain why I choose GrapheneOS, I should explain what I need. It can vary person to
-person and phone to phone. But the keywords are same, privacy, security, performance and control.
+person and phone to phone. But the keywords are the same, privacy, security, performance and
+control.
 
 ### What I Do Not Need on My Smartphone
 
 This is a very opinionated list of things I do not want on my phone. This is in part inspired by
 privacy and performance concerns. A lot of it comes from my way of interacting with smartphone.
 
-- AI: It is awesome in quantities in which Wine can be enjoyed. Too much of it and the phones
+- AI: It is wonderful in quantities in which wine can be enjoyed. Too much of it and the phones
   behaves exactly like a drunken, too much talk but very little of it makes any sense.
 - Apps I will never use: Every smartphone comes with some set of preinstalled applications. Some of
   them as crucial for the phone to function normally. Some of them are useful but may have an
   alternative. And others neither crucial nor useful. And on most phones you cannot even
   uninstall/disable them. It makes no sense to keep two apps with same functions or apps with no
   functions.
-- Spyware/Malware/Adware/Bloatware: On many smartphones these are intentionally installed. Ok, maybe
+- Spyware/Malware/Adware/Bloatware: On many smartphones these are intentionally installed. OK, maybe
   not the first two, but definitely the next two. Most of the Chinese smartphones are riddled with
-  Adware and Bloatwares, probably the reason why they are so cheap. They are privacy nightmares and
+  Adware and Bloatware, probably the reason why they are so cheap. They are privacy nightmares and
   eat up your performance and battery.
 - Inability to control permissions: A smartphone is a huge data generator and gatherer. If wrong
   entities have access to it, they may use it for nefarious purposes. One of the shocking example
   is [How Facebook was able to track location using accelerometer](https://www.cpomagazine.com/data-privacy/facebooks-use-of-alternate-location-tracking-methods-to-circumvent-apple-privacy-protections-expands-to-accelerometer-data/).
-  So I would like to be in charge of what permissions each application has.
+  So I would like to oversee what permissions each application has.
 - Gimmicks: IYKYK
 
 I still want my phone to be usable and have regular updates. I want it to perform close to what it
@@ -88,7 +89,7 @@ before I finally installed it. Now that I have done it, I think there is no goin
 GrapheneOS can be installed using WebUSB or via command line. Both are simple, but WebUSB is
 simpler. Since Fedora is not in
 the [supported OS](https://grapheneos.org/install/web#prerequisites). WebUSB may not work, for me,
-it didn't. So I opened my favorite tool, the terminal and started
+it didn't. So I opened my favourite tool, the terminal and started
 typing. [Installation via CLI](https://grapheneos.org/install/cli) works flawlessly as long as you
 follow it step by step. There are few extra steps you might need for Fedora, that I will be
 explaining here:
@@ -107,16 +108,16 @@ explaining here:
   sudo fastboot devices
   ```
 
-4. After that you can continue following the instructions. Use `sudo`.
+4. After that, you can continue following the instructions. Use `sudo`.
 
-Wait patiently as it takes some time and there is not much interactive response. Be sure that the
+Wait patiently, as it takes some time and there is not much interactive response. Be sure that the
 process has ended successfully before you disconnect your phone.
 
 ## First Impressions
 
 The onboarding was short and clean. No account logins, no spooky agreements to accept. Once you set
-up your phone, it should feel like a minimal installation of any Linux distros, few necessary
-pre-installed apps and nothing else.
+up your phone, it should feel like a minimal installation of any Linux distros, few necessaries
+preinstalled apps and nothing else.
 
 In GrapheneOS all apps are sandboxed, no matter what is its origin. They have similar permission
 scopes and no app is treated as royalty. On stock Android, some Google apps have system level
@@ -136,12 +137,12 @@ Apps as well as FOSS applications.
 ### My daily drivers
 
 These are everyday applications, like calendar, payment and banking apps, maps, messaging, phone,
-contacts, browser, email etc. To install apps from Play Store you will need to install Play Services
-first. This is easy, just go to the App Store and install them.
+contacts, browser, email etc. To install apps from the Play Store, you will need to install Play
+Services first. This is easy, just go to the App Store and install them.
 
 ### Enhancers
 
-There are few apps, mostly FOSS that I use to improve my experience. In no particular order (its
+There are few apps, mostly FOSS, that I use to improve my experience. In no particular order (its
 alphabetic):
 
 - [AdGuard Home Manager](https://github.com/JGeek00/adguard-home-manager): An AdGuard Home client
@@ -153,7 +154,7 @@ alphabetic):
   it has everything you may need in a media backup app. Even more features are being added
   regularly.
 - [Insular](https://secure-system.gitlab.io/Insular/): I use this to enable a separate work profile
-  where I keep all my less used or data hungry applications. When not in use I can just pause them,
+  where I keep all my less used or data hungry applications. When not in use, I can just pause them,
   and it saves battery as well as enhances privacy.
 - [Lawnchair](https://lawnchair.app/): To be frank, I am unable to find a launcher that fits to my
   liking. My favorite launcher is still the OP Nokia Lumia launcher. Lawnchair is a Pixel launcher
@@ -170,18 +171,18 @@ alphabetic):
 ## Things I Loved
 
 New OS, new experiences and new things to love. There are many things that made me say _**Wow**_,
-but I will point out the biggest changes in my smartphone experience.
+but I will point out the most significant changes in my smartphone experience.
 
 ### Game-changers
 
 - Google Pixels are known for churning out good performance out of comparatively less powerful
   hardware. With recent AI outbreak, Google and other organizations are putting too much of it even
-  in places that makes little sense. GrapheneOS is clean from all that bloat, not even the
+  in places, that makes little sense. GrapheneOS is clean from all that bloat, not even the
   Assistant. If I really need it, I can install specific applications.
 - Battery life improvement is the biggest visible change I observed. I am now getting around 25%
   more screen time than before with similar uses.
 - I can now decide what permission each app has as well as stop their access to network completely
-  without relying on a third party apps. You also get fine control for your location data as well as
+  without relying on a third party app. You also get fine control for your location data as well as
   activity indicator.
 - As I mention in my first point, Pixels have good performance, but GrapheneOS takes it to another
   level. My phone feels significantly faster. This should be expected since you no longer have bloat
@@ -198,7 +199,7 @@ but I will point out the biggest changes in my smartphone experience.
 ## Things That Went Wrong
 
 Yes, not everything is great with GrapheneOS. There were some downsides, some failures as well loss
-of data. I backed up all my data before making the switch and still got few things wrong.
+of data. I backed up all my data before making the switch and still got a few things wrong.
 
 ### Horribly Wrong :(
 
@@ -207,7 +208,7 @@ of data. I backed up all my data before making the switch and still got few thin
   of how dependent everything is on Google, if WhatsApp had allowed independent backup, this would
   not have happened. I did find a probable fix, but after I lost my data. You can use _Transfer
   Chats_ feature of WhatsApp to transfer between phones. But you need two phones with latest
-  versions of WhatsApp so not possible for me anyway. There was a lot of not-important data, few
+  versions of WhatsApp, so not possible for me anyway. There was a lot of not-important data, few
   important and some which I wanted to remove but couldn't. So the destiny decided it for me, it
   seems.
 - GrapheneOS doesn't have a great backup solution. It uses an implementation of Seedvault, which is
@@ -216,27 +217,27 @@ of data. I backed up all my data before making the switch and still got few thin
 
 ### Manageable
 
-- All banking apps worked, except PayTM. After some research I found that it is not GrapheneOS
+- All banking apps worked, except PayTM. After some research, I found that it is not GrapheneOS
   fault. It seems PayTM hardcoded application used for webview. The usual _Android System Webview_
   is not available neither installable on GrapheneOS since it uses its own implementation. It is
-  okay because I always use a different payment app.
-- Getting location to work was a little tricky. First few attempts completely failed. GrapheneOS
+  okay, because I always use a different payment app.
+- Getting location to work was a little tricky. The first few attempts completely failed. GrapheneOS
   uses something called _Reroute location request to OS_ which limits when and how Play Services can
   access location. A great privacy feature, but it took some time to work.
 
 ## Things I am missing
 
 - Reliable backups would be a major missing. The GrapheneOS seems to be working on it, but it may
   take time.
-- Some of the features are not latest compared to Stock Android or even completely missing i.e.
+- Some of the features are not latest compared to Stock Android or even completely missing, i.e.
   Wallpaper Chooser, Extreme Battery Saver, Digital Wellbeing, pausing of apps. I understand that
   these may not be a priority for the team, so it's okay.
 - I loved _Now Playing_ feature on Pixel, it is not available.
 - Although GrapheneOS is extremely minimal, there are still apps you cannot remove. The preinstalled
   apps for dialer, contacts and cameras are simple and do the work, but the UI is pretty outdated,
-  and they do not have many features. So I installed alternatives but I cannot remove them. Some of
+  and they do not have many features. So I installed alternatives, but I cannot remove them. Some of
   them can be disabled though.
-- There are few UI issues that needs fixing. Not anything critical but sometimes it bothers.
+- There are few UI issues that need fixing. Not anything critical, but sometimes it bothers.
 
 ## References