That is great to hear! Please feel free to reach out if you need any help etc happy to help...
The web installer is fool/brick proof. Only issues you might have will depend on if you follow the instructions to the letter or have a non standard compliant cable or port.
There are no drawbacks unless you are heavily dependent on GPay and Android Auto. The latter however is roadmapped and is being researched into enabling it without privileged system level access.
Regards degoogling...
Just keep in mind that while yes using the Google Pixel is Google hardware and it may seem antithetical to degoogling, choosing any other device with any other OS other than GrapheneOS will still use Google and give them privileged system level access too.
CalyxOS and LineageOS both use Google services without a way to turn them off. Both also include privileged Google apps / services that are enabled by default. AOSP itself doesn't include Google Play. CalyxOS and LineageOS both add more Google apps/services to AOSP.
To clarify, they always use Google services even without microG. They use Google for connectivity checks, network time, attestation key provisioning, SUPL, DNS fallback (LineageOS only), PSDS (Pixel 6 and 7), eSIM activation and more enabled by default
GrapheneOS doesn't use Google services by default, because we don't add Google services and we replace the few used by the Android Open Source Project. See grapheneos.org/faq#default-c… and grapheneos.org/faq#other-con…. This is a very minor part of our work though and not the purpose of it. Purpose of GrapheneOS is not specifically avoiding Google services but WE DO AVOID using them AS THE DEFAULT SERVICES..
By default, we reroute location requests made by apps to Play services to our own implementation of the Google Play location service based on the OS location service. This means apps depending on Google Play location work without it on GrapheneOS by default.
It's not correct to sell the alternatives to GrapheneOS as 'degoogled'. More importantly, none preserves the security model or provides proper security patches.
With GrapheneOS Google Services are an option and one that if chosen can be used completely unprivileged and isolated like another app in the standard app sandbox.
If you don't want to we give the user complete control. Use them dont use them, the power is yours.
