251–260 of 265 posts
Great what they are doing - yet I found Shiftphone to be also fair, equally or better repairable and even more open for alternative Operating Systems. I think Fairphone supports 2 OSes officially, Shiftphone has a whole custom ROM list of ~10. https://www.shift.eco/en/shiftphone-8/
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That doesn't come across as steelmanning our position at all but rather the opposite. It omits the most important points. Providing app accessible root in the OS greatly reduces security without people ever using it. It gives root access to a huge portion of the OS by having it around as a feature even if it's never used. It fundamentally breaks a large portion of the security model for verified boot, which can no lo…
How about having full access to /data? Or full system backups GrapheneOS still lacks? One might object granting root access to apps, but the device owner should at least have full FS access via adb.
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You are just reinventing LineageOS here basically, patching the defects of AOSP to make it work on real phones
I am really not sure what you are trying to say. GrapheneOS is AOSP + stuff. LineageOS is AOSP + stuff. Certified Google Android is AOSP + stuff. What comes from AOSP goes into GrapheneOS, LineageOS and Certified Google Android. So obviously it makes sense to compare them.
It's just a low level technical building block nowadays and everybody is chosing the parts they want.
Comparing your OS to AOSP itself made sense in 2016, it doesn't anymore in 2026.
It make sense to compare the OS between each other, what you can actually install and use on the phone.
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I am really not sure what you are trying to say. GrapheneOS is AOSP + stuff. LineageOS is AOSP + stuff. Certified Google Android is AOSP + stuff. What comes from AOSP goes into GrapheneOS, LineageOS and Certified Google Android. So obviously it makes sense to compare them.
It doesn't because AOSP itself is unusable on a modern phone. It's just a low level technical building block nowadays and everybody is chosing the parts they want. Comparing your OS to AOSP itself made sense in 2016, it doesn't anymore in 2026. It make sense to compare the OS between each other, what you can actually install and use on the phone.
Assuming they share a big part of the security model, how would it "not make sense" to compare them? If AOSP is the baseline, saying that /e/OS is often weakening the security model and GrapheneOS is hardening it is a way to compare them. That makes complete sense to me.
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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…
There are many vendors that are even worse than /e/OS in terms of updates. This is one of several reasons why Play Integrity is a farce, it has very little to do with security when vendors can be months late with critical vulnerabilities and still get to pass Play Integrity.
Basically anything that is not GrapheneOS, Pixel, or Samsung is in a deplorable state (Samsung not only rolls out security patches during the embargo period, they also do QPR2s).
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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…
GrapheneOS >>> Stock Android > /e/OS There are many vendors that are even worse than /e/OS in terms of updates. This is one of several reasons why Play Integrity is a farce, it has very little to do with security when vendors can be months late with critical vulnerabilities and still get to pass Play Integrity. Basically anything that is not GrapheneOS, Pixel, or Samsung is in a deplorable state (Samsung not only rol…
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Fairphones are closed source hardware with closed source firmware and closed source userspace drivers. Fairphones are less open than Pixels, not more open. It isn't truly known how a Fairphone compares to an iPhone or Pixel when it comes to environmental impact or fairness to workers. Fairphones are designed and built by T2Mobile since the Fairphone 4. T2Mobile barely has any public information available about it. Th…
Pixels are not as close repairable as Fairphones.
Reminder that Android is not Linux. The Linux phone experience is completely different from Android. People who utilize distro's like Ubuntu touch or postmarketOS demand that even firmware level binaries are open sourced. GrapheneOS is great, but it's not Linux, and not even close. If we start to confuse the two, we're confronted with the question about Unix, which is shared among both Android and iOS, so you could e…
The hardware and firmware for those devices is closed source. It's strange to claim users demand something which is not the case. GrapheneOS users want open source hardware and firmware too, but it isn't for any of these projects.
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If this were genuinely 100% a Qualcomm limitation, I'd expect every Snapdragon 7s Gen 4 phone to be similarly stuck. But Motorola's Edge 70 Fusion uses the same SoC and was already in Android 17 beta testing in February, and Nothing's Phone (4a) and OnePlus Nord CE 6 are also slated for Android 17. So it seems the SoC isn't inherently preventing Android 17.
it's not that simple to promise 5 year of security updates your SoC needs to also have that support for that time frame + part of your developmeant/production time (as you can't the last steps of development/production before that chip is released). Lastly you need to add the duration during which you promise the 5 years security updates. to put it simple for a 5 year guarantee you need ~8 better 10 year support for…
It's entirely possible to port to a new kernel LTS branch regardless of what the SoC vendor provides, but they don't either way. Fairphone 5 and earlier have an end-of-life Linux kernel branch without security support. The Linux kernel is an immensely important part of security on a device against both local, proximity and fully remote attacks. Not having security support for the kernel means the device lacks real ongoing security support.
Android 15 does not receive most privacy/security patches but rather backports of many High and Critical severity patches. Only the latest OS releases receive Low and Moderate severity patches. A growing number of High and Critical severity patches are no longer backported due to how many vulnerabilities are now being discovered.