5 ms·
Wouldn't a solution be to install Lineage OS [1] or similar custom ROM and have the advantages of a cheap phone and the privacy of a high-end one? [1] https://
by ghgr 7y ago
Wouldn't a solution be to install Lineage OS [1] or similar custom ROM and have the advantages of a cheap phone and the privacy of a high-end one?
[1] https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/ https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/
- milankragujevic 7y agoUnless the phone has an un-unlockable bootloader -- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21178430 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21178430 -- but still has spyware apps.
- the_pwner224 7y agoThis is not practical for many phones and many people (even those who frequent this site) because you need to unlock the bootloader, which may be impossible, and then port LineageOS, which is probably not too hard in the best case, but is not a trivial undertaking. I tried building LOS from source recently for my OnePlus 7 Pro, which is mainlined into LOS. Installing build prerequisites was easy for me because I use an OS with a package manager and a large catalog of packages. Then, it started downloading the LOS git repos. After a few hours all 58 GB of the free space on my disk was used. I cancelled it and will just stick with the provided LOS builds. Time is worth something too.
- snaky 7y ago> and then port LineageOS All the privacy aware people should actually do is to check the list of officially supported phones on the LineageOS site before buying, then spend 15 minutes to read the installation instruction and follow it.
- IanSanders 7y agoYou can download prebuilt images for supported devices. Installation is not always a smooth ride, but once you spend 30 minutes you generally forget about it. Plus you get updates.
- the_pwner224 7y agoThe post I replied to was talking about installing LOS on cheap phones. But LOS mostly doesn't exist on cheap phones, unless you want to do the work of porting it yourself. My post showed that for many people just building LOS from scratch may be a big challenge - I gave up even though my phone is already ported and has official builds available.
- IanSanders 7y agoThere are some supported sub-100$ ones.
- pmlnr 7y agoSince the change - from Cyanogenmod to LineageOS - the amount of supported devices shrinked and nowadays I can't even find old LineageOS builds any more for devices they used to support, but not any more. I've lost faith in LineageOS.
- omnifischer 7y agodue to problems with bootloader unlocking most devs prefer pixel or oneplus or poco phones. you can lose faith in lineageos - but it is not a company - just group of devs - trying to help each other in their time.
- pmlnr 7y agoThat still doesn't explain why old builds are removed from the site, eg. Samsung Galaxy S IV.
- m45t3r 7y agoWell, space is not infinity and you need to remember that this is mostly voluntary work. If they're a company I would understand your claims, however they're not and there is no need for then to keep builds for your ancient device.
- SmellyGeekBoy 7y agoAlso these builds will be based on old Android versions that are full of known security holes by this point. It would be irresponsible of them to knowingly distribute insecure software. As far as companies go... Will Microsoft sell you a copy of one of their old unsupported OSs? Of course not.
- shakna 7y agoThe number of phones with unlockable bootloaders is also shrinking at the same time. This is an uphill battle.
- plett 7y ago
- lotsofpulp 7y agoThat’s the solution for a specific phone. A solution for the problem of having malware on phones period is to stop buying phones with malware.
- snaky 7y agoIt's not easy to check whether a phone has malware. It's easy to check whether a phone supported by LineageOS. Just like home routers and OpenWRT.
- SmellyGeekBoy 7y agoIt's easy to boycott a manufacturer though. I was a lifetime ThinkPad user up until Lenovo's malware debacle, for example.