I'd also love to see them forking CalyxOS' Datura firewall:
https://calyxos.org/docs/tech/datura-details/
It's so much handier when you don't have to navigate through each app's settings.
Stock OS ships security updates on the latest major version. It means that you can only get a given patch level on the same version for a given device. CalyxOS wasn't rebased on Android 12 until fairly recently. As of January 2022 (prior to the Android 12 release), their vendor patch level was 2021-10-01 which means that at the time the OS was roughly behind 3 months in updates.
They were also shipping an outdated version of Chromium (v94) during the same period (this is important since Chromium distributions for both CalyxOS/GrapheneOS are updated through OS updates - and Chromium is whitelisted by the OS to provide the WebView, even if you happen to use another browser). Considering their userbase is privacy/security-conscious, I think they should've been aware they were more vulnerable than stock OS for a while.
Looking at their source code it's also evident CalyxOS is increasingly relying on the LineageOS codebase. Not that it's a bad thing (LineageOS has its own goals but they're not necessarily aligned with security-focused projects), but it's worth noting.
> CalyX has is constantly harassing and bullying other privacy-focused projects, causing incredible harm to the privacy and security community. It also has been missing updates for 4 months recently, making it a terrible choice for anyone.
You actively harass and bully by not providing any sources for your claims. That's bad for an open, fact-based discussion and is opposed to how I percept the community. What are your claims based on? Can you provide any sources?
As far as I know, CalyxOS tries to maintain a quite neutral temper:
https://www.reddit.com/r/CalyxOS/comments/pmguwi/grapheneos_...
> Made the permission signature|privileged so only system apps signed with the right key, or privileged system apps with an explicit allowlist for this permission can use it.
> Hardcoded the signature to be spoofed instead of letting the application specify it.
> Only allowed the microG packages, GmsCore and Store to spoof signature. Both of these are included as system apps on CalyxOS so simply checking against the package name is enough.
That doesn't sound like that much of a risk to me. Esentially, it's a tradeoff between privacy and usability that microG tries to solve/soften. For example, it came in handy, when standalone Open-Source implementations of Google's contact tracing approach weren't available yet. microG quickly implemented it so official apps worked.
Albeit I agree with your post to a certain degree, CalyxOS is not a hobbyist project. The Calyx Institute has a working business plan and has five full time developers. Have a look at their Annual Report:
https://calyxinstitute.org/about/financials-and-annual-repor...
Yes, and IIRC it's a reasonably priced MVNO setup with (mostly?) unlimited data. A friend of mine uses her Pixel4 with CalyxOS on google Fi but keeps a Calyx hotspot thingo around for traveling and it's been solid throughout North America at least.
