I think we should revisit this. If users are following our recommendations then they’ll be running the latest Android anyway. It looks like A15 adoption is now at around 30%. When you take into account that a lot of Android devices are smart TVs and the like that don’t get regular version updates, I think it’s fair to say enough users are on A15 that we can remove shelter now.
Also it seems like Shelter hasn’t had an update in around a year which is a bit concerning.
android 13 and 14 are still supported branches by google
tbf it doesn’t really do much by itself, it is just an interface to the system feature
It is now roughly two years later from back then.
Yeah surely it’s been long enough now:
I use Android 11. My wife uses Android 13. Don’t remove Shelter. Wait several years, please.
In addition to the recommendation, you can simply mention that there are built-in tools for Android 15+.
PG doesn’t cater to odd usecases. Just because PG removes it doesn’t mean you have to stop using it.
PG going to stop recomment the useful tool that has no alternative on Android 14-.
We recommend things assuming you’re running a supported version of the operating system. If you’re running Android 11, you have so many unpatched vulnerabilities that I view something like this as essentially security theater.
A14 is still supported.
I personally don’t think it makes sense for PG to officially recommend a tool intended for Android 14 only. Perhaps you could elaborate on why it’s important that PG recommends it for “several years” more?
As @Expert4870 states, you and your partner are welcome to do as you please regardless. And if it’s to assist users of Android 13 and below, I think it’s fair enough as @fria says to make recommendations for supported systems, so that the baseline security can ensure your privacy measures are meaningful.
We do not, Android OS | endoflife.date
That’s simply not going to happen. PG isn’t around to validate personal decisions to run devices way after upstream support is discontinued. We regularly prune things when unmaintained. We only talk about supported systems and that is the general PG baseline otherwise we end up being an encyclopedia of everything from the past.
Work profiles can be scheduled, not private spaces yet.
GrapheneOS acknowledges work profile use-cases:
The remaining use case of a work profile for now is that you can’t have more than 1 Private Space so you can continue using a work profile as a 2nd poor man’s Private Space.
We look forward to simply being able to tell people not to use work profiles for personal use but we can’t yet because it’s useful having 2 nested profiles rather than 1.
GrapheneOS would prefer to replace work profiles and secondary user profiles with multiple private spaces, but (very importantly) they have not done so yet:
In the future, support for having multiple Private Spaces would largely replace 1 person using multiple secondary users.
Work profiles use the same framework [2] as private spaces and secondary profiles, just with customizable isolation, which is a feature for many, not an antifeature.
I am citing GrapheneOS frequently, but it is important to remember that GrapheneOS users represent a minority of our readers, and our Android recommendations are general purpose.
Until private spaces have a reasonable quantity limit I think we should not remove work profile tools. It is important to continue recommending Shelter unless a better alternative which achieves the same functionality (secondary user profiles do not) is found, because it serves a purpose many people demand, and Island and Insular are worse.
Today I was looking and Shelter remains actively maintained. The development repo has already increased the target SDK version to 35, but they have not published a tagged release so the version of F-Droid is still 34 (Android 14).
I don’t think this is a mistake, however, as Android 14 remains maintained with security updates, it is up to the global current May 1 security patch level.
This meets Google Play’s current target SDK requirement.
I see no reason to update an app like this more than once a year if no security issues are discovered with it. It is feature-complete because all it does is basically enable a flag that is built in to AOSP, AOSP obviously maintains the actual work profile code.
In the absence of issues (security or otherwise) with the app code itself, I think the only obligation is to update yearly to bump the SDK level, which Shelter does.