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Actually Android is open source: The full name, AOSP, stands for "Android Open Source Project", and you can download the source here: https://source.android.com

Actually Android is open source: The full name, AOSP, stands for "Android Open Source Project", and you can download the source here: https://source.android.com/setup/build/requirements https://source.android.com/setup/build/requirements Anyone is free to modify, build, and distribute their own versions of Android. How else would OEMs ship their own skins? This also means you can audit Android source for vulnerabilities, backdoors, etc.

manquer 8y ago
Very Disingenuous , AOSP standalone is rarely sold over the counter in a consumer droid phone, you could run it if you are interested, projects use it as a base but AOSP standalone is not the version most consumers run. Every major version ports more functionality from AOSP over to GSF - which is closed source. I cannot audit GSF and I cannot check for backdoors,, GSF phones home as it legitimate functionality, it is next to possible to verify back-doors don't exist. Location APIs could just be for your location, or google/ three letter agencies could be tracking you . All the major OEMs include AOSP + GSF and then their custom layers. The only popular OEM using without GSF I know is Amazon with the kindle platform. To get Google certified OEM / use droid trademarks / use GSF you need to jump through hoops and give Google all kinds of access, not remotely same as open source.