Insular - Questions

Apps
1

Hi all,

I recently came across insular, I tried it out to install a non FOSS work chat app into the island. It crashed a few times, but generally seems to work fine, but I have some questions:

  1. I noticed it does not use my VPN in the island, which is good, since I don’t want non FOSS apps to be on the same IP as my normal android apps. Question is, the local IP and network is still shared. I only keep trusted devices in my LAN, and non trusted, i.e. Windows on a guest wifi. Is it possible to make the island use the guest wifi and not have access to my trusted LAN?

  2. The file system seems to be clean for the island, meaning it has none of my files, which is good. But say I installed excel into the island, how would I put an excel spreadsheet on to the island file system?

  3. What are the cons vs keeping those same untrusted apps onto a different device? I mean if I had the non-foss chat app on another phone that I could switch on and off whenever I wanted. Also I could keep it at home (in an ON state) while I went out, how does that compare to having that chat app on my normal device, in an island, also ON. Are there any disadvantages?

Thank you.

2

the local IP and network is still shared

yes, use another VPN app in the work profile to block LAN access

guest wifi

no

how would I put an excel spreadsheet on to the island file system

you can still share/pick files between the main and work profile
you can also install this app into each profile to make it easier: Save on Device | F-Droid - Free and Open Source Android App Repository

that I could switch on and off whenever I wanted.

you can still switch off the work profile via the “pause work apps” button, it completely stops them

any disadvantages?

you can see what apps can see about your device without permissions using this app: kDI Device Info system permission | F-Droid - Free and Open Source Android App Repository

for just a proprietary chat app, a work profile is likely fine

2 Likes
4

@SkewedZeppelin Thanks for your replies, I have started using Island/Insular and it seems good. One question I had, with regards to DOS, is it safe to install microg in Insular under DOS? There is an app that refuses to work without play services. If its not safe then Ill skip it.

5

Largely.

microG on DivestOS is per-profile, so having it in a work profile won’t interact/interfere with main profile.

2 Likes
6

I confirm it works fine :slight_smile:

1 Like
7

It does not for me. I installed microg apps from the microg repo on fdroid and they did install fine, but none of the apps such as ms teams got registered for notifications. Ebay still refused to work as if it still did not see any google play services. So all in all it made no difference.

8

@wolverine092
you likely did not install the latest version of microG as is required

please ensure you scroll down to the versions section and choose the latest, it will NOT default to the latest, you must manually tap the latest.

please see the steps here: Faq - DivestOS Mobile

1 Like
9

@SkewedZeppelin you were right, FDroid auto installed an older version and when I updated it to the latest many of the apps started working correctly and registering for push notifications. Teams works correctly now. There were a couple apps I tried, which did not work, eBay being one of them, it loads the app, but fails to load any content within the app, the login does not work and fails with some generic message. Also I tried a banking app, it did not work as expected.

3 Likes
10

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