Apple’s iOS Lockdown mode is the closest to an out of the box secure option.
It would be great if an Android OEM made a similar product. I’m actually surprised Google hasn’t given their Advanced Protection option they have for Google Accounts.
A GAP mode for Pixel seems a natural addition.
Unless you buy a Google Pixel with GrapheneOS already flashed, from someone like NitroKey.
Didn’t even know that was a thing, thank you for educating me.
Never said the others are better, just that Samsung sucks (Android as a whole really, nobody except google does “timely OS and security updates”).
Lineage does have better update schedule though, so I’m assuming that Samsung and every other manufacturers are just lazy
Does Samsung or other large OEMs ship their own kernel modules? Could also be a big problem if so
wouldn’t that count as openbox/refurbished, since it’s not from the manufacturer of the phone. I haven’t checked what are the warranty implications on that (if any).
If I have to guess, it’d be more because of the number of devices Samsung supports and the different aspects of OneUI (usually on a trickle-down basis) features those devices get. Expecting optimized updates fro 8 Gen, 8s Gen, 7 Gen, 7s Gen, Mediatek SOCs to be done at the same speed as Tensor series chip would be a bit too much imho.
It’s not really the case though, I’d argue that Samsung OneUI is sloppily optimised. Even flagship devices became laggy after one or two android updates, try asking around lineage development spaces and you’ll understand what I meant.
Even more so when you consider that in comparison, even an old flagship samsung whose last update was Marshmallow could run Android 12 (lineage) just fine. Add to that the non-removeable bloat (microsoft onedrive, some facebook service, etc as a system app). They’re not optimising shit.
On another note, they should’ve just stick to standard implementation of android if they want maintainability. Nobody told them to use nonstandard bootloader (download mode), non-standard partition (Samsung System As Root implementation was a massive mess), non-standard voLTE implementation (that’s why it’s always broken on custom rom), non-standard encryption that got breached, non-standard camera API, non-standard work profile implementation, non-standard notification system (they haven’t implemented per category notification toggle yet unlike AOSP), etc. Maintainability was an issue of their own doing
Edit 1 :Do you know that they limited the Always on Display functionality on their budget phone even if the screen is OLED? Yeah that’s another variation that’ll make maintainability harder
Edit 2:They should’ve considered making Samsung Phones properly compliant with Project Treble, but they’re probably too focused on gatekeeping features for their high end phones so maintainability be damned
Samsung permanently cripples their devices when you unlock as part of their warranty bit “feature” and doesn’t allow using a bunch of the security features from an alternate OS so despite having nearly all the security features we require they’re far very from actually being viable for an essentially non-technical reason. They would need to decide to provide proper alternate OS support.
yes, quite some ppl talk a lot here, while you just have to read some GrapheneOS tweets to know whats up.
I’d be willing to trial GrapheneOS but they’re REALY hurting themselves for increasing their user base by only support recent Google Pixel phones…
They aren’t hurting themselves at all, they’re just only supporting secure hardware, which are Google Pixel devices.
Kinda relevant, but Punkt is making an OS called Apostorphy that is built off of GrapheneOS. Hopefully when the Punkt mc02 is out in consumers’ hands, we can see if it really is close enough to what we have with Pixels and Graphene, which is our gold standard. My only issue is that it is built off of the MediaTek Dimensity 900
EDIT: Didn’t realize it was already out. Just read a review and I would gather that we are still stuck with Pixels and Graphene until we get a better top down solution from a company that cares about security and privacy
This tells everything that we need to know about that phone.
I appreciate your reply!
I guess you’re correct but only supporting the most expensive brand for Android seems really limiting for most people…
I got a Pixel 8 for around 530USD, you can find quite a few android phones that cost much more than this. For a device with decent spec, good hardware security and expected to serve 7 years (based on its software support cycle), it is really not expensive.
I still have my older Nokia and Sony smartphones, where the software update stopped in 2/3 years. They costed me around 20% less, but with 60% shorter support period. Not a very good investment.
The target audiance of GOS is not the masses, as majority of the people just won’t give up convinence for some benefit that cannot be seen right away. Especially when most of the people don’t really care about firmware updates, they don’t even care about app updates, and won’t update until the app stop working.
I got a Pixel 7 Pro for 250 euros, no box and other accessories, but the seller added in a random cable and a GaN charger.
Pixel 6a is basically around 100 euros, not sure how Pixel devices are the most expensive ones.
These Samsung, Xiaomi, and Motorola budget phones don’t even come close to Google Pixel devices in basically any way, shape, or form, so it makes sense that this kind of junk will be cheaper than proper devices, you get what you paid for.
Pixel 6a starts from atleast 200 euros second hand where i live and are very rare to come by. Most people sell their old Pixel 6a for 300-400 eur. A new Pixel 6a is 600 eur
new pixel 7a are in the US under $300, in Europe under 350€ (pixel6 even less).
no chance to import?
P6 and p7 seems not a good option, although thay are 20%-40% cheaper, their software support ends much earlier than p8.
Also the p6 and p7 have worse build quality (p8 seems having less hardware issues, for now) and battery life(mainly due to modem).
Get a refurbished p8 /p8a seems more sensible.