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I purchased an Alcatel smartphone several years back and about a week after the device received a firmware update I started getting weird pop-ups with fake viru

I purchased an Alcatel smartphone several years back and about a week after the device received a firmware update I started getting weird pop-ups with fake virus warnings that led to some bogus cleaner app on the Play Store. I started examining the apps on my phone and saw that all the preinstalled system apps had been modified to siphon off social media data to Chinese servers. I collected as much information as I could to report the manufacturer to the Facebook. Several months later the New York Times reported that Facebook had been allowing cellphone manufacturers (including Alcatel) to access users social media data regardless of what privacy settings the user had set because FB considered them “Trusted partners” Alcatel has been found to have placed backdoors with root access and hard coded credentials in TCL branded televisions and their smartphones have been reported for DNS rebinding attacks to TCL clouds and also having packet sniffers in their low-end smartphones.

swiley 6y ago
This is where the Android security model really falls apart: The assumption that the ROM publisher/device manufacturer is trustworthy (or even just not pathologically hostile) is often false and the immutable OS means even technical users struggle to remove malware. IMO: this sort of stuff means the pinephone actually has a better UX than the cheaper android phones despite calls and SMS often not working because the basic "computer with cellular data" works exactly the way you would expect.
- throw98117 6y ago
  This doesn't apply to the Pixel phones. If one wants not too expensive, Pixel 4a seems good.
908B64B197 6y ago
There's a reason why iPhones are so popular. Hint: it's not marketing.
- bloqs 6y ago
  iPhones are popular because of a monolithic product that doesnt try and depart from the core brand and feel of the OS with manufacturer quirks (ie. Why Samsung and Huawei feel so different). Their marketing is very much the reason: iPhones are pitched and priced to appeal to the highest social status possible, the rest bleeds down from there. The percentage of people who buy iPhones specifically because of debated security benefits is substantially smaller. People who may have heard this but dont know/understand it will find it simply reinforces their existing preference for an iPhone on the earlier grounds.
- jareklupinski 6y ago
  no it's marketing

swiley 6y ago

This is where the Android security model really falls apart: The assumption that the ROM publisher/device manufacturer is trustworthy (or even just not pathologically hostile) is often false and the immutable OS means even technical users struggle to remove malware. IMO: this sort of stuff means the pinephone actually has a better UX than the cheaper android phones despite calls and SMS often not working because the basic "computer with cellular data" works exactly the way you would expect.

throw98117 6y ago
This doesn't apply to the Pixel phones. If one wants not too expensive, Pixel 4a seems good.

908B64B197 6y ago

There's a reason why iPhones are so popular. Hint: it's not marketing.

bloqs 6y ago
iPhones are popular because of a monolithic product that doesnt try and depart from the core brand and feel of the OS with manufacturer quirks (ie. Why Samsung and Huawei feel so different). Their marketing is very much the reason: iPhones are pitched and priced to appeal to the highest social status possible, the rest bleeds down from there. The percentage of people who buy iPhones specifically because of debated security benefits is substantially smaller. People who may have heard this but dont know/understand it will find it simply reinforces their existing preference for an iPhone on the earlier grounds.
jareklupinski 6y ago
no it's marketing