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How Fairphone built the Fairphone Gen 6+

arstechnica.com

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Re: How Fairphone built the Fairphone Gen 6+

#231
post #169
post #67

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isn't the main point of Fairphone to not use conflict minerals? by using FOSS only myself and hating monopolies like Apple etc., i still pretty much convinced that being "green" or "ethical" is more about participating/volunteering/doing-something towards a better world than off-loading your duty to other companies... one could easily make a point that Apple products despite locked down, are still green (Apple has a…

I have been wondering and I first got a Fairphone 3+ because I thought, among others, it was "greener". Then I realised that: - Fairphone 3 was already "slow" when it was released in 2019 - Fairphone 3+ was pretty much exactly the same hardware, but I bought it 2.5 years later - My Fairphone 3+ was annoyingly slow from the moment I bought it (I was using it less than a normal phone because of that, and I just complet…

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Re: How Fairphone built the Fairphone Gen 6+

#233
post #178

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Isn't the Pinephone getting super old now? And it was already very slow when it was released...

Yes, but it depends on what you want to do with it. HN is still fast enough on it with Firefox, the terminal works well, too. Good DEs like https://sxmo.org/ are snappy.

Re: How Fairphone built the Fairphone Gen 6+

#234

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Right, but still my CarbonOS idea ('degraded' GrapheneOS) is better than /e/, Lineage, Calyx, and stock. By 'degraded' I mean the minimal changes to current GrapheneOS needed to get it working on a given GrapheneOS-unsupported device.

An incomplete port of GrapheneOS to Fairphones will be missing many of the core security features and won't have reasonable security updates. Fairphones are nowhere close to reasonably secure devices. Most people expect to have decent encryption without a strong passphrase, at least 5 years of security updates and a lot more. Fairphone says they provide updates far longer than they do for many components, and those c…

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Re: How Fairphone built the Fairphone Gen 6+

#235
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ten? So like Android and Linux flavors? I'm not sure I even know of ten: e/OS, Calyx, Lineage, Ubuntu Touch, eh is there like Mobian or something still alive... how do they get to ten?? Do they also all fully work? Camera and calling (and not only on 2G) for example? I'd be interested in the list, the website you've linked is super sparse (the full menu is like shop, some feel-good pages about device deposit and impa…

their marketing is really low-key and they must improve it because they have enticing products. OS offers page: https://www.shift.eco/shiftos/

Okay that's six: the ones I forgot are iodéOS and Postmarket (possibly the most popular Linux mobile, idk how I forgot about them), plus Shift's own custom OS which I'll count as two because there's a googleful and a googleless variant which is a relatively significant change, plus LineageOS and e/OS which I had mentioned. That's a lot of choice indeed! Thanks for the link

Re: How Fairphone built the Fairphone Gen 6+

#236
post #169
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

isn't the main point of Fairphone to not use conflict minerals? by using FOSS only myself and hating monopolies like Apple etc., i still pretty much convinced that being "green" or "ethical" is more about participating/volunteering/doing-something towards a better world than off-loading your duty to other companies... one could easily make a point that Apple products despite locked down, are still green (Apple has a…

I have been wondering and I first got a Fairphone 3+ because I thought, among others, it was "greener". Then I realised that: - Fairphone 3 was already "slow" when it was released in 2019 - Fairphone 3+ was pretty much exactly the same hardware, but I bought it 2.5 years later - My Fairphone 3+ was annoyingly slow from the moment I bought it (I was using it less than a normal phone because of that, and I just complet…

I think your story also points to the idea that business ethics or other tertiary benefits will only sell a product to a limited extent. They help, but the product being fit for its core purpose is still most important.

Re: How Fairphone built the Fairphone Gen 6+

#237
post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A problem I see is that GrapheneOS has a history of being extremely blunt about the shortcomings of alternatives, and of course alternatives (and users of alternatives) don't like getting that feeling that maybe they have been compromising on... something . At least that's how I felt when I starting reading more after a few years of using /e/OS on my Fairphone 3. And the more I read, the more I realised that Graphene…

Yeah it's hard to argue that their points are technically incorrect, after all this is the mobile ARM ecosystem we're talking about, with buggy ass locked down binary blobs with more security holes than swiss cheese that are never updated, as the industry standard. And in regards to Fairphone, user reviews have generally shown that their disregard for keeping their software updated by far eclipses any gains made by t…

> By being this exclusive, it counts as a complete endorsement

I disagree. The only way they can prove that they can build a good system is to prove it on good hardware, and the Pixels are the only ones that meet the criteria. If GrapheneOS was running on random phones like LineageOS does, with unlocked bootloaders and/or signing with the Google test keys, then GrapheneOS would be no different from LineageOS (and wrappers on top of LineageOS like /e/OS).

Said differently, your complaint about GrapheneOS is the very thing that gives a reason to exist to GrapheneOS.

And I think GrapheneOS is proving its point: more and more users and finally got interest from Motorola. I am quite impressed and I hope it will continue growing and getting more and more interest by other manufacturers.

Re: How Fairphone built the Fairphone Gen 6+

#238
post #173

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> they also compare the security to the "Android Open Source Project" as if it's a real thing It is very much a real thing. You can build AOSP from sources and install it on a phone. Many Android devices run that (e.g. drone controllers). > Is certainly much better than my Samsung flagship Oh yeah, that's for sure. To share my experience, in terms of updates for me it has been GrapheneOS >>> Stock Android > /e/OS. I…

No you can't, AOSP doesn't even include a functional keyboard not a functional call manager nowadays. And I'm not even talking about the firmware side of things Sure that might be enough for very basic hardware like your drone controller example but not a phone

Well then you install apps.

Re: How Fairphone built the Fairphone Gen 6+

#239
post #168

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> However, GOS's threat model very specifically treats the user as a thing to defend against Can you elaborate? GOS mostly honours the Android security model, which many alternatives don't do (many times they don't have a choice because the device doesn't allow them to relock the bootloader, so they just defeat the whole security model from the moment you install). There is absolutely nothing that can be done on a St…

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> And that's actually a perfectly valid argument; handing root access to apps does break their security model, but if the user doesn't have root then I'd contest the idea that the user is in control.

First, "protecting against an app running with user permissions" does not mean "considering that the human owning the device is malevolent", right?

The idea is that if the human installs a malware, we don't want that malware to own the system. I think it is completely fair, and for most people it is the better deal.

Second, your complaint about GOS is that you want root access, and they don't provide it. You want a feature they don't provide, sure, but that happens. And that's probably a good reason to use an alternative system. But turning "I want feature X" into "if you don't provide the feature I want, then you are not free software" is manipulative IMO. GrapheneOS is as open source as it gets, you can fork it and install it on your Pixel. It is free software. Maybe not the software you want (that's okay, different people have different preferences), but free software nonetheless.

Re: How Fairphone built the Fairphone Gen 6+

#240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Linux, macOS and Windows user it’s really strange to me that you can’t just install the latest OS on your device. Even my iPhone updates to the latest version as soon as it’s released.

I dont know. Does your Linux distribution immediately upgrade to the latest kernel when Linus releases a new one? Besides, the phone software is highly optimised for the specific hardware. It is not a generic software like Windows

> Does your Linux distribution immediately upgrade to the latest kernel when Linus releases a new one?

Yes, it does (CachyOS).

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