Real title: Graphene OS teams criticizes fairphone for the low quality support of /e/os
Maybe Fairphone should criticize Graphene OS for the non existent support of Fairphone devices.
Seriously I’d get a Fairphone with GrapheneOS in a heartbeat should it become available.
for the non existent support of Fairphone devices.
There is a good reason they dont do that. The Fairphone is a real piece of shit from a security (or even a consumer) standpoint, especially because no single phone from the got more than 2 Android versions, and even then they are just months to Years behind(ert) on security updates. The Grapheneos team has a sctrict set of minimums a phone should provide in order not to mislead users by branding an insecure OS with a name associated with security.
GrapheneOS only used Pixel until now was because they a) didn’t have to reverse engeneer that shit and b) it had a few rare security features.
And now that they have to work a lot more to make their OS work, it is a really stupid idea to demand support for an inferior product which they would rule out by default.
But for now, Ill just keep wondering when the EU will Sue Fairphone into bankruptcy for not even obeying the minimum support period
Fairphone doesn’t have the right hardware support. There’s a good comparison chart here if you aren’t in the market for a new device right now:
No different to any previous Fairphone, or indeed the majority of Android phones on the market from any manufacturer other than Google. Fairphone is in an unfortunate situation in a way, because its devices have (in recent history) been more open than that of any other manufacturer other than Google, which means there is a thriving custom ROM scene that includes privacy-focused competitors to GrapheneOS, yet its devices have also never met the requirements for the GrapheneOS team and so routinely get “slammed” by its developers who have to respond to requests/questions every time a new Fairphone releases. Clickbait Android “news” sites then run these developer replies taken from social media or forums as “news” and people who don’t bother to read beyond the headline/don’t know anything about the topic (AKA the majority) come away with the completely misguided impression that Fairphone is not just “not as private and secure as a Pixel with GrapheneOS” but is actually “bAd fOr pRiVaCy aNd sEcUriTy” compared to all devices on the market. Devices from most manufacturers lag well behind Pixel update times, most don’t even maintain a monthly update schedule, yet you will never see negative news articles about how these other devices are insecure/lacking in privacy. Only Fairphone gets hit with this comparison because only Fairphone has even attempted to compete in that space.
The problem is that it would take a ton of effort for fairphone to comply with grapheneOS because they need a separate TPM chip and custom firmware and (likely) a lot of android integration stuff for it that Google has a habit of keeping to themselves for a competitive edge (e.g. new android material designs exclusive to pixels for X years, GCam, etc…)
I have also heard that the Graphene team can be a bit toxic, so those things combined with the fact that they would probably get <1% of their sales with a preinstalled Graphene option makes it likely not worth it for them.
I would also love to get a fairphone and run Graphene on it, but I just don’t see it happening.
As a non-native speaker, I had no idea what this headline is supposed to say. Here is what it is about:
The team behind the GrapheneOS platform has criticized the Fairphone Gen 6 for apparent security issues.
As a native speaker, thanks for clarifying.
As a native speaker, I also didn’t really get the headline at first
I’d normally interpret “taking the knife to something” as roughly the same as “making cuts”
But graphene doesn’t make the fairphones and doesn’t support them, so nowhere to really make cuts
I feel like maybe they got the message that people are getting tired of headlines over using terms like “slammed” and wanted to do something different but chose a pretty terrible alternative.
At least we all know what “slammed” means now.
I thought it meant that they started investigated porting GrapheneOS to Fairphone. That they meant a surgical knife and getting to work.
Yeah, I tend to over-interpret and am non-native too, how could you tell?
I am a native speaker and this was close to my first interpretation. The headline is just bad.
gOS threat model is “everything everywhere all at once” - nation state actors et al - and from that standpoint, yeah, eOS and lOS and whoever else is lacking.
but the vast majority of users have a threat model that can be boiled down to two things:
- a lost/stolen device doesn’t compromise me - the fucker can’t get at my stuff and/or impersonate me, and
- free from apple’s/google’s reign - I control what stuff runs on my phone
both easily accomplished with lineageOS and derivatives running on a $50 phone. if you truly want to spend four digits annually on Newest & Best, you do you, I’m good.
e/OS is just particularly egregious. This isn’t about GrapheneOS being paranoid, it’s Murena not delivering the most basic level of security patches, then hiding it.
I’ve got the top end latest Pixel model and it did not cost me 4 digits. Bought one used, so Google never got my money. Immediately put grapheneOS on it, this phone in its pre-gOS spyware form never had access to my actual data in the first place. Or even a real network.
I bought a refurb Pixel 7 on eBay for like ~$150 and put Graphene on it. It’s not like you have to spend four digits unless you want to.
That’s a crazy good deal
Same old broken record as with previous Fairphones.
Their holier-than-thou attitude towards security backed them into the corner of being virtually unable to run GrapheneOS on any platform other than Google’s own Pixel phones, and now Google is pulling the rug from under them.
The GrapheneOS people were tedious when Micay was there, and they haven’t really changed.
I don’t really mind that GrapheneOS excludes other manufacturers/devices based on their extremely strict requirements, it’s good to have a tighter option for those who want it. Their team has always been unnecessarily antagonistic/hostile towards other projects in this space, though. The way they communicate publicly is always so extreme and deliberately lacking in context so that everything is framed as “GrapheneOS = good, competitors = bad”. They won’t acknowledge differing threat models to their own and treat everyone else as a bad actor or a clueless moron, which has led to this very weird cult mentality among the userbase. So many people shill the absolute fuck out of this project online yet have never put any thought into what their personal threat model is or what features they actually want in a custom OS. They don’t even know why they installed GrapheneOS, they just read comments from other people on social media or watched a YouTube video and blindly followed along.
Same old story, GrapheneOS’s self-rightousness has caused them grief before (plenty of times actually), and this is just another example of it. Compare and contrast with something like CalyxOS, or even just Vanilla LineageOS, and it’s night and day for being able to support more devices and be less reliant on Google. And I say that as a guy who loves his Pixel 6 Pro with CalyxOS.
GOS is a great idea, and I’m glad it exists, but ultimately they are their own worst enemies about a lot of things. Micay obviously wasn’t the whole issue there either (though he certainly bears a lot of responsibility for what made Graphene and its community so toxic for several years too…).
Yeah, and I have a hard time trusting a “de-google” os that requires I buy a phone directly from google. I want to be free from google entirely, and that includes not buying their hardware.
as someone who originally chose Calyx out of the perceived toxicity of the community, I really could not have said it better myself.
So what do people run on their fairphone? Graphene has been the only non mainstream commercial mobile os I’ve heard of even on lemmy.
I run CalyxOS on my Fairphone4 and have zero issues.
Aside from /e/OS which was mentioned in the article, Fairphones are also typically supported by LineageOS, iodéOS and CalyxOS.
I run stock, because it’s my work phone. LineageOS would be an option, but I prefer GrapheneOS, which currently limits me to Pixels.
Not necessarily agree with the tone of the headline, but happy they are finally taken into consideration when talking security.
At least they didn’t say “slammed”…? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
LOL yeah.
I used e/OS for a very short time a few years ago then learned about some of their security practices. This isn’t a new problem with that version of Android.
care to share what those practices are?
Rtfa?
I did, you said a few years ago. IE not the Fairphone 6.
unless you’re a time traveling scumbag?
What I remember most was having to make an e/OS account a la google in order to be able to use the ROM, and some of the third party apps it shipped with were of dubious origin, mainly Chinese IIRC. I’d heard other sources talking about it being behind on patches then as well. Overall, it gave me the ick, especially the account bullshit, and I continued with Lineage.
Not sure why you feel the need to call me a scumbag.
ryfc.
Honestly I’m with the GrapheneOS team on this one pixels (A series mostly) are relatively cheap and you can easily find them second hand for even a cheaper price so I don’t think you gonna save anything by the repairable Fairphone and on top of all this they lag behind security updates too just more reason to avoid them. Ofcourse that’s just my opinion
