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LineageOS is currently installed on 1.5M Android devices

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Re: LineageOS is currently installed on 1.5M Android devices

#81

Post by notpushkin »

riedel wrote: post #37

Lineage is as much standard android experience as you can get after market without any gaming/styling mods. If google was series about AOSP and sustainability they should embrace lineage and at least give a non-rooted lineage with a relocked bootloader on pixel phones a safety-net pass. Lineage has been very careful to not piss off google by not including microg or alternative webview signatures or means to circumven…

DivestOS is a slightly modified Lineage version that officially supports relocking on some phones (in contrast with Lineage, which I think can be relocked but explicitly tells users not to do that). It also has sandboxed implementations of both official Google services — ported from Graphene, I think – and microG.

I'm using it with microG, bootloader relocked, and it seems to pass SafetyNet this way – at least the apps that didn't work on Lineage seem to work here. (I haven't yet tried Google Pay, though – I think it will require proper GApps.)

https://divestos.org/

Edit: by the way, banks requiring hardware attestation is probably a U.S. thing – in the EU and ex-USSR countries banks seem to not care about that at all (although some don't like it when you root your phone).

Re: LineageOS is currently installed on 1.5M Android devices

#82

Post by BHSPitMonkey »

poisonborz wrote: post #74
reify wrote: post #2

I install Lineage on the phones of the elderly at local care homes and any people who are interested in prolonging the life of their old phones. Poor people can't afford a new phone every two years. When in your 80's you dont need or want the constant nagging of apps pestering you when all you want to do is text and call your family and friends. I use abd to delete/disable every unnecessary useless app and leave them…

Take something as simple and necessary like Messenger or WhatsApp. Try to use it with no previous knowledge, texting, calling, turning on camera during call. All the text the UI displays, how it is worded. It's ridiculously unintuitive, not inclusive, a real barrier. There should be law to mandate the UI of any app beyond a userbase of 100M. If you say that would severely restrict apps becoming that big, yeah that wo…

Recently I was helping someone in my life who'd gone through a stroke (not too old or tech-unsavvy) to learn a password manager and go through various websites' password reset flows. It really forced me to confront the reality of what you described, i.e. that computing really has become an inscrutable, confusing mess where nothing makes sense and we've just come to accept it.

It used to feel like being "tech savvy" meant thinking logically as the system designers would have, but now I think it just means being conditioned through years of abuse into knowing the unwritten rules of how to skillfully outmaneuver bullshit interfaces and dark patterns.

Re: LineageOS is currently installed on 1.5M Android devices

#83

Post by notpushkin »

fensgrim wrote: post #71
AnonCoward42 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wanna add Xiaomi, however with the caveat that I like neither bootloader unlock procedure. Xiaomi wants to install their software on the host (I recommend a VM), you need a SIM installed, and you have to wait 7 or 14 days for the unlock to work (on MIUI at least, Android One does not have that). On Motorola you have to connect to the internet for 3 days at least and you may not interrupt it otherwise it resets (I h…

> Xiaomi mtkclient [0] would let you skip the whole 7/14 days thing (also: unrestricted partition dumping/flashing). Though there are chances of ending up with soft/hard brick (normally possible to revert back to working state as long as you have backups), and there may be no support for your specific chipset/device/software revision at all. 0. https://github.com/bkerler/mtkclient

Neat! Although there are Qualcomm-based Xiaomi phones, too (e. g. Redmi Note 8T).

Re: LineageOS is currently installed on 1.5M Android devices

#84

Post by jphilip »

fensgrim wrote: post #71
AnonCoward42 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wanna add Xiaomi, however with the caveat that I like neither bootloader unlock procedure. Xiaomi wants to install their software on the host (I recommend a VM), you need a SIM installed, and you have to wait 7 or 14 days for the unlock to work (on MIUI at least, Android One does not have that). On Motorola you have to connect to the internet for 3 days at least and you may not interrupt it otherwise it resets (I h…

> Xiaomi mtkclient [0] would let you skip the whole 7/14 days thing (also: unrestricted partition dumping/flashing). Though there are chances of ending up with soft/hard brick (normally possible to revert back to working state as long as you have backups), and there may be no support for your specific chipset/device/software revision at all. 0. https://github.com/bkerler/mtkclient

I went through a lot of trouble unlocking an old Xiaomi. mtkclient bypass methods do not work as a for all Xiaomi (or at least did not for my device). Thread: https://github.com/bkerler/mtkclient/issues/110

Re: LineageOS is currently installed on 1.5M Android devices

#85

Post by phh »

Dear LineageOS and other third party Android OS users (including waydroid),

Google wages a war against us using 3rd party apps as a proxy. They are pretending that Play Integrity API (previously SafetyNet) protects the user, and recommend it to app developers.

What can you do against this? Before trying anything to circumvent PlayIntegrityAPI/SafetyNet, start by opening a ticket (sending a mail, adding a comment on play store, whatever) to the app maker that your using, and tell them you use a more secure OS than the one provided by your manufacturer, and that their use of Play Integrity API reduces your personal security. If even 10% of 1.5M LineageOS users open tickets, that should be enough to actually get back to a manager of said app that will actually decide what to do with it.

As some small proofs that Play Integrity API IS NOT about security, but about enforcing Google/OEM monopoly on the device you own:

- Play Integrity API didn't care about permissive SELinux for a very long time (even though that's trivial and non privacy-invasive to test), I don't know whether it's still the case.

- https://twitter.com/MishaalRahman/status/1752734296400379957 Play Integrity API punishes you for using a custom kernel

- To this day, it is still trivial for an attacker to bypass Play Integrity API. It has became annoying for the community who would rather do useful stuff. A full-time attacker just need to spend their day scouting for approved firmwares and re-use them

- I can extract the "key attestation" certificate (""ultimate level"" of Play Integrity API) of a Google-made device (a quite recent device, it has been upgraded up to Android 13), because real security is hard, and this key is still valid. Of course most other OEMs are worse in that regard, so if it's doable for Google-made devices, imagine what an attacker can do to simply target the weakest OEM. (hint: they simply publish those certificates over the internet)

tl;dr they spent all their headcount on enforcing that the firmware the user is using is the google/oem one, and none on enforcing the security of the firmware.

Re: LineageOS is currently installed on 1.5M Android devices

#86

Post by COGlory »

Moldoteck wrote: post #75
duffpkg wrote: post #4

I am pretty hard on phones. Been using lineage for years now on google pixel unlocked phones. 5a and now 6a. I have found both to have some real durability problems. Are there any good alternatives that are unlocked to use with lineage?

for durability -fairphone

Seconded. Lineage works great on my FP4. Switched after killing a 3a, 4a, and 5a.

Re: LineageOS is currently installed on 1.5M Android devices

#87

Post by grey_earthling »

reify wrote: post #2

I install Lineage on the phones of the elderly at local care homes and any people who are interested in prolonging the life of their old phones. Poor people can't afford a new phone every two years. When in your 80's you dont need or want the constant nagging of apps pestering you when all you want to do is text and call your family and friends. I use abd to delete/disable every unnecessary useless app and leave them…

Can LineageOS do major upgrades without needing support? (so once it's installed you never need to reinstall, and you can keep it safely up-to-date forever by clicking a button every so often - like Silverblue)

Re: LineageOS is currently installed on 1.5M Android devices

#88

Post by wkat4242 »

riedel wrote: post #37

Lineage is as much standard android experience as you can get after market without any gaming/styling mods. If google was series about AOSP and sustainability they should embrace lineage and at least give a non-rooted lineage with a relocked bootloader on pixel phones a safety-net pass. Lineage has been very careful to not piss off google by not including microg or alternative webview signatures or means to circumven…

> Lineage has been very careful to not piss off google by not including microg or alternative webview signatures or means to circumvent device attestation. This love is not returned.

I wish they weren't so pedantic about that. At the moment if you even mention microg in the lineage channel you get insta-banned.

As you say their hard stance is not doing them any good with Google anyway, they're ignored either way. And MicroG is a really good solution which can replace google services like cell-based location with much more privacy-sensitive alternatives. They even implemented the corona bluetooth protocol during the pandemic! The only place it uses google's services is for push notifications, necessary because most app server infrastructure doesn't have the ability to communicate with anything else. But it does so in the most privacy-sensitive way possible.

At least the good folks at https://lineage.microg.org/ provide a great fork with microg built in.

Re: LineageOS is currently installed on 1.5M Android devices

#89

Post by wkat4242 »

notpushkin wrote: post #81
riedel wrote: post #37

Lineage is as much standard android experience as you can get after market without any gaming/styling mods. If google was series about AOSP and sustainability they should embrace lineage and at least give a non-rooted lineage with a relocked bootloader on pixel phones a safety-net pass. Lineage has been very careful to not piss off google by not including microg or alternative webview signatures or means to circumven…

DivestOS is a slightly modified Lineage version that officially supports relocking on some phones (in contrast with Lineage, which I think can be relocked but explicitly tells users not to do that). It also has sandboxed implementations of both official Google services — ported from Graphene, I think – and microG. I'm using it with microG, bootloader relocked, and it seems to pass SafetyNet this way – at least the ap…

Yeah US companies are weirdly strict on this. The McDonalds app won't even work if installed through the Aurora store, it has a custom screen that says it won't work if it wasn't installed through the play store :D Ridiculous. It doesn't even handle payments here in Europe, you still have to pay at the kiosk.

Re: LineageOS is currently installed on 1.5M Android devices

#90

Post by wkat4242 »

i5-2520M wrote: post #67
encom wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never understood the banking app thing. I can use my banks website to manage my finances, using my built-from-source Gentoo Linux computer. Why must a phone then be totally locked down?

Bank would probably prefer if they could lock that websi5e down as well.

Banks are all form over function.

I came to my bank to discuss a mortgage and I saw them log into their environment. A nice Windows environment with bright blue title bars and big red X buttons. In other words, Windows XP for which even the long term extended support has long since passed.

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