CalyxOS
Everyone needs a phone. Not everyone wants governments and corporations tracking their every move and spying on their communications. CalyxOS lets you have your cake and eat it too, with "Privacy by Design".
Features
Properties
- Privacy focused
- Lightweight
Features
- Ungoogled
- Custom-ROM
- Mobile OS
- OTA Updates
- Ad-free
- No Tracking
- Works Offline
- No registration required
- Dark Mode
Tags
- Privacy Protection
- Security & Privacy
- Encrypted
- open-source-projects
CalyxOS News & Activities
Recent News
Recent activities
OpenSourceSoftware added CalyxOS as alternative to Marathon OS- footprint410 reviewed CalyxOS
I absolutely love it! The clean interface, combined with robust privacy and security features, makes it a reliable companion for my daily tasks. I genuinely feel no desire to return to Google. The addition of MicroG and the many features I cherish enhance my experience even further. I also like apps like GCam, Firewall, Onion collection, Hypatia, Calyx VPN, Riseup VPN, K-9 Mail, DAVx, and etc....
As a suggestion for the future, I wish if possible it if MicroG services could be made an optional...
- ARTUR52 reviewed CalyxOS
their calyxos release has been suspended, read the reason on their website.
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What is CalyxOS?
Everyone needs a phone. Not everyone wants governments and corporations tracking their every move and spying on their communications. CalyxOS lets you have your cake and eat it too, with "Privacy by Design".
When you use a phone with CalyxOS: • phone calls are encrypted so nobody can listen in • text messages are encrypted and a timer can be set so they disappear • web browsing is anonymized • advertising trackers are blocked • built-in free VPN services protect you from being spied on • your phone is receiving regular, timely, automatic security updates • your data is backed up with strong encryption to your personal cloud server or to USB storage
Features: • Verified Boot to prevent tampering with the phone's operating system, using cryptographic signatures
• Security and privacy by default: Instead of the bloatware, spyware, and backdoors installed by default on many smartphones, CalyxOS includes a suite of privacy, security, and censorship circumvention apps available out of the box, including 
Signal, 
Tor, 
DuckDuckGo Privacy Browser, 
K-9 Mail, Calyx VPN, and 
Riseup.
• Android without spyware: CalyxOS has reconfigured 
Android to avoid Google's spyware and tracking. It uses 
F-Droid for installing and updating free software applications, and strips out Google's privacy-invasive business model, replacing it with 
microG, which allows you to run nearly every app from 
Google Play Store without giving Google access to your phone.
• Regular security updates and patches: CalyxOS receives the latest security updates for Android, fixing software vulnerabilities and security flaws that can put your phone at risk.
CalyxOS information
Developed by
The Calyx Institute Licensing
Open Source and Free product.Rating
Average rating of 4Alternatives
41 alternatives listedSupported Languages
- English
Comments and Reviews
A really good Custom ROM on android 10 and hopefully android 11 soon
Edit: It's been a year and I can affirm that CalyxOS is an amazing FOSS smartphone OS and the Calyx Institute is doing an amazing job. Regular security patch with monthly update that always improve the experience. You must try this CustomROM if you want to get free !
their calyxos release has been suspended, read the reason on their website.
I absolutely love it! The clean interface, combined with robust privacy and security features, makes it a reliable companion for my daily tasks. I genuinely feel no desire to return to Google. The addition of MicroG and the many features I cherish enhance my experience even further. I also like apps like GCam, Firewall, Onion collection, Hypatia, Calyx VPN, Riseup VPN, K-9 Mail, DAVx, and etc....
As a suggestion for the future, I wish if possible it if MicroG services could be made an optional feature can activate it and deactivate it as desired as in Divest OS. Thank you to the entire team for your hard work, and I wish you all continued health and wellness.
I've had the best experiences using Calyx and iodé
Lacking behind GrapheneOS.
Most of these Features can be done on GrapheneOS too, with a way more secure foundation.
They support more devices, but many of those do not have near similar security. Not even regular updates.
https://calyxos.org/features/
I hope they dont install all those 3rd party Apps as System Apps, which would be very bad.
But its important that these Apps are not made by CalyxOS. Shelter, Signal, Torbrowser, K9mail, Orbot, the VPNs, all these can be installed on GrapheneOS or any Android too.
Its probably a good OS if you already have those Phones
But if you have a Pixel, get GrapheneOS, if you get a new phone, get a Pixel. And thats not some Google fetish, they are simply supported best, and fulfill all the security requirements.
And microG is not secure, anonymous or anything. Unless it is actively patched, its a proprietary system app, not officially supported and with full access to anything. MicroG with GrapheneOSses compatibility layer is said to work, and for sure UnifiedNLP is nice. But this is an extreme security vulnerability.
People dont experience security. They experience stock AOSP with some apps, looks nice, but there are huge holes beneath.
microG is free and open source, not proprietary. Its source code is released under the Apache 2.0 license (https://github.com/microg/GmsCore) and it is being actively updated. CalyxOS reviews and applies the latest updates from the master branch of the microG repository for each release. On the other hand, the Google Play Services client is closed source and proprietary. Regardless of how much "sandboxing" GrapheneOS claims to apply to the Google Play Services client, it will always be an opaque black box compared to microG, which is fully transparent due to all of its source code being available for public review. Google Play Services also includes ads and tracking, while microG does not.
CalyxOS is a privacy-minded Android distribution similar to Graphene. It includes microG, but allows users to choose nothing or even flash GApps along with it.
However, it falls slightly behind Graphene in some security faucets, including sandboxing and sync. That said, if you like microG, Calyx has a distribution for you!
microG has to be used with GrapheneOS' sandboxed play compatibility layer. UnifiedNLP is great, but microG is a huge security issue, so important that nobody should even consider this OS.
What comprises a security issue is very much situational - and, for one's own devices, deeply personal. It's silly to assert that no one should "even consider" it...
microG isn't a gaping security hole like some assume. There are minor trade-offs, though. While you need signature spoofing enabled for full functionality, permission to install spoofed applications is generally locked behind a privileged permission gate in most Android distributions. That includes CalyxOS.
Calyx also requires that only whitelisted signatures can be spoofed for whitelisted apps, so it's virtually impossible to exploit this particular issue. For practically all non-stock Android distributions, attackers have far better options should they have control of your device!
On a personal note, I have friends who love to tinker with their phones. Unlocked bootloader, rooted, and security patches years out of date. All of them are fine! Not everyone is an FBI agent 😄
Also, I don't believe microG is compatible with the GrapheneOS sandboxing layer. Around a year ago, I suggested this feature to the lead maintainer. A few minutes later, he randomly PM'd me, stating that I was "spreading misinformation about Graphene" and that I'd have to "apologize" to rejoin the community. I'd still be happy if it were implemented, though I'd be pretty darn surprised! 😱
Anyway, my only real point is to consider things for your situation. I find this stuff fun - and a lot of other folks do, too!
Its cool and same like android but its open source and it's gas some issues also that have to resolve