Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can't find the link, but a couple days ago, they said in a thread here it was due to their lack of support of some important security features, and remarked that it didn't look like they were even interested in supporting them.
You cant re-lock the bootloader with a custom key which grapheneos considers a cornerstone of their security model.
Samsung Removes Bootloader Unlocking with One UI 8
71–80 of 254 posts
Re: Samsung Removes Bootloader Unlocking with One UI 8
#72dont worry, samsung knows only 300 people will actually care. As for me, I already swore off Samdung for their whole Samsung account bs and apps they bundle and won't let me remove (or disable).
samsung is the only smartphone manufacturer that still makes phones (though not many) with all the features I want: microSD slot, dual physical sim, side-mounted fingerprint reader, headphone jack, nfc, and regular (long-lasting) security updates they also have service centers pretty much everywhere in the world, so I can always get my phone fixed (for a reasonable price, as a result of their ubiquity) if and when I…
> samsung is the only smartphone manufacturer that still makes phones (though not many) with all the features I want
Not to mention the built-in EMR stylus. That makes such a difference in using the device, I cannot believe they are not more common. And they are a terrific backup for the not unusual case of a broken screen being unresponsive.Re: Samsung Removes Bootloader Unlocking with One UI 8
#73I have to wonder what Samsung's motivation is here. Of course they probably have some bloatware they profit from, but someone who plans to unlock the bootloader just won't buy their device now. Samsung only benefits if they lose money on device sales (do they?) and make it up on "services".
How many people are there that unlock their bootloader?
Next step will be to try PostmarketOS and see how that goes
Re: Samsung Removes Bootloader Unlocking with One UI 8
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
samsung is the only smartphone manufacturer that still makes phones (though not many) with all the features I want: microSD slot, dual physical sim, side-mounted fingerprint reader, headphone jack, nfc, and regular (long-lasting) security updates they also have service centers pretty much everywhere in the world, so I can always get my phone fixed (for a reasonable price, as a result of their ubiquity) if and when I…
Which of their phones have all of these?
Re: Samsung Removes Bootloader Unlocking with One UI 8
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
samsung is the only smartphone manufacturer that still makes phones (though not many) with all the features I want: microSD slot, dual physical sim, side-mounted fingerprint reader, headphone jack, nfc, and regular (long-lasting) security updates they also have service centers pretty much everywhere in the world, so I can always get my phone fixed (for a reasonable price, as a result of their ubiquity) if and when I…
Which of their phones have all of these?
https://m.gsmarena.com/samsung_galaxy_a15-12637.php Last year, but they removed 3.5mm this year
That I know, in Latin America, they don't have all that anymore. And there is only one left with 3.5mm.
Re: Samsung Removes Bootloader Unlocking with One UI 8
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’ve always said that it’s been “Google’s Android”, and wellp —- Welcome to Google’s Android, where the garden walls have been turned into a razorwire fence and you’re not welcome to leave. It’s really funny that Apple’s finally allowing carefully controlled access outside of their own fences and slowly adding more APIs and expansion (hell, Apple are the only platform now with third party APIs for RCS in the EU) whil…
Google is first and foremost an advertising company. They're going to do whatever makes them the most profit. It always had razor wire fences unfortunately.
Re: Samsung Removes Bootloader Unlocking with One UI 8
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fairphone does! https://www.fairphone.com/en/bootloader-unlocking-code-for-f...
Do anyone know why GrapheneOS doesn't support fairphone?
Re: Samsung Removes Bootloader Unlocking with One UI 8
#78dont worry, samsung knows only 300 people will actually care. As for me, I already swore off Samdung for their whole Samsung account bs and apps they bundle and won't let me remove (or disable).
Yep. Everyone I know who bought a Samsung anything (TV/Phone/Washer/Dryer) last time said it's their last Samsung product. Samsung sure know how to piss off customers.
Re: Samsung Removes Bootloader Unlocking with One UI 8
#79The only reason one would unlock a bootloader is to root the system partition. It is impossible to protect data on rooted phones and makes data exfiltration attacks significantly easier to do.
This is a huge problem for banking and music apps that absolutely rely on this capability. Samsung is, by far, the biggest seller of Android phones in the US. (I think Xiaomi is the biggest globally), so they are under much more pressure to clamp down on this.
That said, rooting Samsung devices has been a worthless pursuit for a long time. Doing so irreversibly (via eFuse) disables KNOX, which prevents DeX and Samsung Health from working. It also trips SafetyNet, which disables a whole suite of key apps (banking apps and Apple Music don't work; not sure about Spotify). There's a Magisk module that uses well-known device IDs to work around these, but these only work temporaily. Many people have also reported issues with the camera (a popular reason for buying Samsungs in the first place), and you no longer get OTA updates. I believe you also get degraded camera performance if you flash another ROM since the device module is closed-source and relies on One UI to work. This is before considering that stock ROMs have gotten really good over the years (especially Samsung's), and many of the reasons why we had to root have mostly gone away.
You can work around this by buying a Pixel for now, but I think we're a few years away from bootloader unlocking going away entirely.
That said, I stll root Android devices that will only serve a single-purpose, like my BOOX eBook readers that I use Firefox on. This lets me run AFWall so that I can block network traffic for everything except Firefox (and a few other apps). However, I won't be logging into my Google account on them, and they aren't ever going to run banking apps or anything like that.