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I agree it is an exciting phone, but what are the privacy gains versus an android phone with lineageOS and f-droid foss apps? AFAIK it's just the baseband code.

I agree it is an exciting phone, but what are the privacy gains versus an android phone with lineageOS and f-droid foss apps? AFAIK it's just the baseband code. Convincing regular users that opensourcing the baseband will solve any problems seems pretty DOA when you have the very visible google play services tracking issue and no on cares.

arendtio 8y ago
It is not just about privacy. With Android phones, you will sooner or later end up in a position where you can't install newer LinageOS versions, simply because your kernel is too old and the required binary drivers cannot be ported to newer kernel versions. Maybe project Treble helps to solve that problem, but it will still take a few years until we will find out (unless Fuchsia kills Android). Nevertheless, I hope that Purism will be able to deliver a product which is as easy to use as a "normal" Android device with those privacy/sustainability features as a bonus. That way I might be able to give the people who ask me which phone they should buy next some good advice.
AsyncAwait 8y ago
> what are the privacy gains versus an android phone with lineageOS and f-droid foss apps? Google oozes from every part of Android. I very much doubt that installing LineageOS with closed-source blobs for most of the hardware makes Google/NSA/OEMs completely unaware of your activity. Moreover, Android is such a critical piece of software that probably every significant 3 letter agency in the world has some sort of a backdoor in/to it. Android suffers a security fiasco quite often and the update situation is quite awful. Lineage is also often not as stable as one'd like and the update process from one major version to another can be itself nerve-wrecking. On the technical side, it is running ancient, out-of-tree kernels that lack a lot of the security work going upstream, which is especially concerning considering there's a new Spectre variant patch in practically every release. Lastly, having the full GNU/Linux experience in my pocket is something I've always wanted. Whether 'regular users' care about this is not particularly concerning to me, as I think the 'enthusiast crowd' is large enough to get the ecosystem started and once we feel comfortable recommending this to our 'regular' family members and friends, they need not to be aware of any of the additional benefits - it would be just the new smartphone that they have.

arendtio 8y ago

It is not just about privacy. With Android phones, you will sooner or later end up in a position where you can't install newer LinageOS versions, simply because your kernel is too old and the required binary drivers cannot be ported to newer kernel versions. Maybe project Treble helps to solve that problem, but it will still take a few years until we will find out (unless Fuchsia kills Android). Nevertheless, I hope that Purism will be able to deliver a product which is as easy to use as a "normal" Android device with those privacy/sustainability features as a bonus. That way I might be able to give the people who ask me which phone they should buy next some good advice.

AsyncAwait 8y ago

> what are the privacy gains versus an android phone with lineageOS and f-droid foss apps? Google oozes from every part of Android. I very much doubt that installing LineageOS with closed-source blobs for most of the hardware makes Google/NSA/OEMs completely unaware of your activity. Moreover, Android is such a critical piece of software that probably every significant 3 letter agency in the world has some sort of a backdoor in/to it. Android suffers a security fiasco quite often and the update situation is quite awful. Lineage is also often not as stable as one'd like and the update process from one major version to another can be itself nerve-wrecking. On the technical side, it is running ancient, out-of-tree kernels that lack a lot of the security work going upstream, which is especially concerning considering there's a new Spectre variant patch in practically every release. Lastly, having the full GNU/Linux experience in my pocket is something I've always wanted. Whether 'regular users' care about this is not particularly concerning to me, as I think the 'enthusiast crowd' is large enough to get the ecosystem started and once we feel comfortable recommending this to our 'regular' family members and friends, they need not to be aware of any of the additional benefits - it would be just the new smartphone that they have.