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Sadly Android is becoming more user-hostile all the time. For example there are fewer and fewer devices that will give you root access. Imagine buying a PC an

Sadly Android is becoming more user-hostile all the time. For example there are fewer and fewer devices that will give you root access. Imagine buying a PC and finding the manufacturer decided you can't have access to an administrator account.

mschuster91 5y ago
To my knowledge every Samsung can be rooted with Magisk, but at the cost of losing Knox, which makes a bunch of apps relying on biometrics go bonkers - Telegram, Chrome and the unlock screen work, but some banking apps outright crash or lose their data, even with "SafetyNet Fix" - they are expecting the presence and usability of Knox vault. For Google's Pixel lineup, the situation is similar. The really problematic stuff are Huawei (which can't be rooted at all with something trustable and open source such as Magisk), Xiaomi (these need to flash a custom recovery first, IIRC) and all the fly-by-night ops that don't have any kind of support other than hoping for a web/apk exploitable bug (I believe KingoRoot is using that method, but since it's closed source I wouldn't use it!).
- Causality1 5y ago
  Only Exynos-based Samsung handsets can be easily rooted, which requires unlocking their bootloader. An exploit exists for Snapdragon based devices running Android 10 and below but it's a paid service and isn't cheap. To complicate things, Exynos based galaxy devices will lose access to the AT&T network and every sub-carrier that operates on it in February when AT&T adopts a whitelist model.
  - GekkePrutser 5y ago
    Really? What about roaming travelers? Are they going to cut them all off? Here in Europe all Samsung phones are Exynos. Weird.
    - Causality1 5y ago
      As far as I can tell, yes. They're dropping their 3G network and anything not on their VoLTE whitelist will no longer be usable. https://www.att.com/idpassets/images/support/wireless/Devices-Working-on-ATT-Network.pdf https://www.att.com/idpassets/images/support/wireless/Device...
      - GekkePrutser 5y ago
        Ah but that's only for voice calls, right? Would it still be possible to connect for data? I personally hardly use regular voice anymore. Some months I have 2 to 3 minutes, most of my calls are over WhatsApp or Teams :) I don't think I've had more than 10 minutes on my bill for years. Also, 5G is coming and I hope they finally standardised the voice part well enough and don't make the same mistake as VoLTE. However I haven't really looked into that.
        Causality1 5y ago
        If it's not on the whitelist the network will refuse to activate the SIM at all.
        GekkePrutser 5y ago
        Hmm that's bad for roaming. At least there's more networks and as a roamer you're not bound to a specific network. But it does raise a problem once more networks start doing this.
phh 5y ago
I'm looking at Wikipedia page of most sold Android devices ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_mobile_phones https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_mobile_... ). We've got Samsung, Xiaomi and Huawei devices. Samsung and Xiaomi are root able (as far as I know without issue, having 4 Samsung devices in my collection, though sibling says otherwise). Only Huawei isn't (and it's actually much lower than Samsung and Xiaomi). I'm speaking only of root ability without security flaw (Huawei had some.), Since we're discussing user hostility That being said, there is one feature that is user hostile with regard to owning your software, it's contactless payment. Contactless payments all require stupid security requirements, that the community well knows how to circumvent (so it doesn't provide any actual security), but are pretty annoying for the user. I would guess Google isn't to blame there (even though GPay does have this anti-feature just like all other services, and Google being more monopolistic manage to make it even more annoying. But still insecure)
- ajsnigrutin 5y ago
  Rooting nexus and pixel devices makes them unable to be updated directly, so you need to update them via fastboot/adb and with a cable + root again with every update
  - marcan_42 5y ago
    Just flash something like LineageOS, which has a built in updater that works seamlessly. It's not surprising that making changes to an OS designed for delta updates and an immutable OS partition breaks updates. That's just how the technology works; the solution is to use an OS that is designed for that kind of use case. Root patches for original vendor OSes are never a particularly clean or secure experience.
    - ajsnigrutin 5y ago
      But that then breaks all the google goodies that you get with a pixel. I'm just trying to say that rooting (and then updating) is not something you'd have your parents do by themselves.
vzaliva 5y ago
While it is bad it is still not as restrictive as Apple policies. Even at non-rooted device you can side-load APKs. Rooting device gives you an extra level of freedom of loading custom OS. This is something none of iOS device never had officially.

mschuster91 5y ago

To my knowledge every Samsung can be rooted with Magisk, but at the cost of losing Knox, which makes a bunch of apps relying on biometrics go bonkers - Telegram, Chrome and the unlock screen work, but some banking apps outright crash or lose their data, even with "SafetyNet Fix" - they are expecting the presence and usability of Knox vault. For Google's Pixel lineup, the situation is similar. The really problematic stuff are Huawei (which can't be rooted at all with something trustable and open source such as Magisk), Xiaomi (these need to flash a custom recovery first, IIRC) and all the fly-by-night ops that don't have any kind of support other than hoping for a web/apk exploitable bug (I believe KingoRoot is using that method, but since it's closed source I wouldn't use it!).

Causality1 5y ago
Only Exynos-based Samsung handsets can be easily rooted, which requires unlocking their bootloader. An exploit exists for Snapdragon based devices running Android 10 and below but it's a paid service and isn't cheap. To complicate things, Exynos based galaxy devices will lose access to the AT&T network and every sub-carrier that operates on it in February when AT&T adopts a whitelist model.
- GekkePrutser 5y ago
  Really? What about roaming travelers? Are they going to cut them all off? Here in Europe all Samsung phones are Exynos. Weird.
  - Causality1 5y ago
    As far as I can tell, yes. They're dropping their 3G network and anything not on their VoLTE whitelist will no longer be usable. https://www.att.com/idpassets/images/support/wireless/Devices-Working-on-ATT-Network.pdf https://www.att.com/idpassets/images/support/wireless/Device...
    - GekkePrutser 5y ago
      Ah but that's only for voice calls, right? Would it still be possible to connect for data? I personally hardly use regular voice anymore. Some months I have 2 to 3 minutes, most of my calls are over WhatsApp or Teams :) I don't think I've had more than 10 minutes on my bill for years. Also, 5G is coming and I hope they finally standardised the voice part well enough and don't make the same mistake as VoLTE. However I haven't really looked into that.
      - Causality1 5y ago
        If it's not on the whitelist the network will refuse to activate the SIM at all.
        GekkePrutser 5y ago
        Hmm that's bad for roaming. At least there's more networks and as a roamer you're not bound to a specific network. But it does raise a problem once more networks start doing this.

phh 5y ago

I'm looking at Wikipedia page of most sold Android devices ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_mobile_phones https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_mobile_... ). We've got Samsung, Xiaomi and Huawei devices. Samsung and Xiaomi are root able (as far as I know without issue, having 4 Samsung devices in my collection, though sibling says otherwise). Only Huawei isn't (and it's actually much lower than Samsung and Xiaomi). I'm speaking only of root ability without security flaw (Huawei had some.), Since we're discussing user hostility That being said, there is one feature that is user hostile with regard to owning your software, it's contactless payment. Contactless payments all require stupid security requirements, that the community well knows how to circumvent (so it doesn't provide any actual security), but are pretty annoying for the user. I would guess Google isn't to blame there (even though GPay does have this anti-feature just like all other services, and Google being more monopolistic manage to make it even more annoying. But still insecure)

ajsnigrutin 5y ago
Rooting nexus and pixel devices makes them unable to be updated directly, so you need to update them via fastboot/adb and with a cable + root again with every update
- marcan_42 5y ago
  Just flash something like LineageOS, which has a built in updater that works seamlessly. It's not surprising that making changes to an OS designed for delta updates and an immutable OS partition breaks updates. That's just how the technology works; the solution is to use an OS that is designed for that kind of use case. Root patches for original vendor OSes are never a particularly clean or secure experience.
  - ajsnigrutin 5y ago
    But that then breaks all the google goodies that you get with a pixel. I'm just trying to say that rooting (and then updating) is not something you'd have your parents do by themselves.

vzaliva 5y ago

While it is bad it is still not as restrictive as Apple policies. Even at non-rooted device you can side-load APKs. Rooting device gives you an extra level of freedom of loading custom OS. This is something none of iOS device never had officially.