GrapheneOS says Pixel 11 has MTE support after all • Hacker News Board

Re: GrapheneOS says Pixel 11 has MTE support after all

#11

Post by user_7832 » Wed, Sep 02, 2026, 2:33 PM UTC

readthenotes1 wrote: post #5

user_7832 wrote: post #2

To clarify, regarding the confusion: it was disabled , leading them to think it didn't outright exist. Why disabled? Well, its performance is apparently quite poor. But why? ...Apparently to save money.

The thread made it sound like it was more- that the actual release of pixel 11 did not have the firmware to support MTE, not that it was just disabled. Is the thread wrong or did I misread it?

Nah sorry my bad. I mixed up "it's currently disabled" and "the hardware is there" into "it was earlier disabled".

Re: GrapheneOS says Pixel 11 has MTE support after all

#12

Post by alpaca9 » Wed, Sep 02, 2026, 2:37 PM UTC

hk1337 wrote: post #9

So, where does the restriction for side loading apps live, on the device or the OS? Curious about getting the Pixel 11 Pro if/when I can install GrapheneOS.

GrapheneOS themselves said it wasn't worth getting the 11 over the 10 on Twitter. It has a worse GPU and less RAM, and the increase in CPU speed is so negligible that often you end up with better performance using the previous generation. In addition, GrapheneOS isn't even available on 11 series devices yet.

Re: GrapheneOS says Pixel 11 has MTE support after all

#13

Post by rkozik1989 » Wed, Sep 02, 2026, 2:39 PM UTC

Phones typically have 2 operating systems: one to handle telephonic functions like managing tower connections and separate operating system for user applications. The security implication here is that the telephonic operating system has access to the same system resources as the application operating system at the same time, right? The problem is your data is always available in plaintext to the telephonic OS because it has to be stored somewhere before it gets encrypted, so assuming graphene OS doesn't handle both functions its not a perfectly closed loop system.

Re: GrapheneOS says Pixel 11 has MTE support after all

#14

Post by rootsudo » Wed, Sep 02, 2026, 2:40 PM UTC

ulfw wrote: post #10

jmm5 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google makes money, I'm not sure Pixel does.

Zero chance the Pixel division is net positive

agreed h/w negative, but how far removed is pixel from android itself and then the ad tech platform, playstore, etc in general?

Re: GrapheneOS says Pixel 11 has MTE support after all

#15

Post by colincowardly » Wed, Sep 02, 2026, 2:42 PM UTC

So not only a price increase: less RAM, performance scraping backwards, crippled/lost features, a camera system that captures stuttering audio and video imperfectly often, and Pixels dropping out of AOSP.

Google Pixel has the marketshare it deserves.

Re: GrapheneOS says Pixel 11 has MTE support after all

#16

Post by bramhaag » Wed, Sep 02, 2026, 2:42 PM UTC

rkozik1989 wrote: post #13

Phones typically have 2 operating systems: one to handle telephonic functions like managing tower connections and separate operating system for user applications. The security implication here is that the telephonic operating system has access to the same system resources as the application operating system at the same time, right? The problem is your data is always available in plaintext to the telephonic OS because…

  > The security implication here is that the telephonic operating system has access to the same system resources as the application operating system at the same time, right?

It shouldn't. As per https://grapheneos.org/faq#baseband-isolation:

  > The baseband is isolated on all of the officially supported devices. Memory access is partitioned by the IOMMU and limited to internal memory and memory shared by the driver implementations. The baseband on the officially supported devices with a Qualcomm SoC implements Wi-Fi and Bluetooth as internal sandboxed processes rather than having a separate baseband for those like earlier devices.

Re: GrapheneOS says Pixel 11 has MTE support after all

#17

Post by hk1337 » Wed, Sep 02, 2026, 2:43 PM UTC

alpaca9 wrote: post #12

hk1337 wrote: post #9

So, where does the restriction for side loading apps live, on the device or the OS? Curious about getting the Pixel 11 Pro if/when I can install GrapheneOS.

GrapheneOS themselves said it wasn't worth getting the 11 over the 10 on Twitter. It has a worse GPU and less RAM, and the increase in CPU speed is so negligible that often you end up with better performance using the previous generation. In addition, GrapheneOS isn't even available on 11 series devices yet.

interesting. what about the side loading apps? I assume that's an OS and Graphene would likely allow it?

Re: GrapheneOS says Pixel 11 has MTE support after all

#18

Post by Grombobulous » Wed, Sep 02, 2026, 2:49 PM UTC

ulfw wrote: post #10

jmm5 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google makes money, I'm not sure Pixel does.

Zero chance the Pixel division is net positive

I think there’s a very high chance it’s net positive. It’s growing quickly and approaching 10% marketshare for premium phones (the most profitable segment) in the US.

https://axis-intelligence.com/google-pixel-statistics/

They’re also strongly tied in with Google Fi which is almost certainly very profitable.

Re: GrapheneOS says Pixel 11 has MTE support after all

#19

Post by alpaca9 » Wed, Sep 02, 2026, 2:50 PM UTC

hk1337 wrote: post #17

alpaca9 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GrapheneOS themselves said it wasn't worth getting the 11 over the 10 on Twitter. It has a worse GPU and less RAM, and the increase in CPU speed is so negligible that often you end up with better performance using the previous generation. In addition, GrapheneOS isn't even available on 11 series devices yet.

interesting. what about the side loading apps? I assume that's an OS and Graphene would likely allow it?

Sideloading has always been allowed, and that new "advanced flow" is something entirely decided by the OS so I don't think it has or will have any effect with GrapheneOS use.

It's actually recommended to get least of your apps as possible via the play store and use 3rd party stores if you are going for maximum privacy or de-googling.

Re: GrapheneOS says Pixel 11 has MTE support after all

#20

Post by protimewaster » Wed, Sep 02, 2026, 2:52 PM UTC

Unfortunately, the headline is somewhat optimistic compared to the reality, I think.

The thread makes it sound like it could have been disabled due to errata or performance issues. Basically, it looks like the software Google is shipping intentionally doesn't use MTE on the Pixel 11 hardware. That raises the question of...what does Google know is wrong with MTE on the Pixel 11?