@pre@boing.world2026-03-28 21:00:44
Battery drain on GrapheneOS here the last couple of days has definitely been worse than stock Google Android.
Battery-monitor says Molly is the main culprit.
Apparently Molly, the Signal client, keeps an open connection to the Signal server.
You can't just have the app check every 10 minutes if it has to ring like a phone upon call request. You need actually persistent connection.
On Google's android, google's play-servers do some kind of kung-fu to keep that modem mostly asleep despite this persistence.
Without Play Services, that don't happen.
But, there is a thing in F-Droid called "Sun up".
That does a similar thing I guess? Called "unified push". It uses Mozilla's servers instead of Google's. And does so anonymously apparently, but who knows for sure really? Not me.
End to end encryption means worst you'd be leaking is timing data really.
So install Sun Up from F-Droid and change Molly's settings / notifications / delivery-method to "Unified Push"
We will need a MollyServer too apparently as a bridge from Signal to Unified-Push at Mozilla.
All the cool kids are using molly.adminforge.de - there's the QR code you need at the site there. Maybe molly.notify.dykes.ca or some other one is better? I dunno. Can always use a different one if yours goes away.
We will find out over the next few days if that actually makes any difference to battery consumption.
Might save more if you have lots of other things also using open connections that can use unifed-push too. Emails and Matrix or whatever. Mux all those connections into one.
I don't do those things on my phone though, so it's just Molly, so we'll see.
#grapheneOS #molly #signal
