We've collectively handed control of our personal computing devices over to Apple and Google. I fear the long-term consequences of that will not be positive...
1) Google doesn't release devices without unlockable bootloaders. They have always been transparent in allowing people to unlock their Nexus and Pixels. Nexus was for developers, Pixels are geared towards the end user. Nothing changed with regards to the bootloaders.
2) Google uses Coreboot for their ChromeOS devices. Again, you couldn't get more open than that if you wanted to buy a Chromebook and install something else on it.
3) To this day, app sideloading on Android remains an option. They've even made it easier for third party app stores to automatically update apps with 12.
4) AOSP. Sure, it doesn't have all the bells and whistles as the latest and greatest packaged up skin and OS release, but all of the features that matter within Android, especially if you're going to de-Google yourself, are still there.
Any one of those points, but consider all four, and I have trouble understanding why people think REEEEEEEE Google.
So you can't play with one ball in the garden (SafetyNet), you've still got the rest of the toys. That's a compromise I'm willing to accept in order to be able to do what I want to and how I want to do it. (Eg, Rooting or third party roms.)
If you don't like what they do on their mobile OS, there's nothing that Google is doing to lock you into a Walled Garden to where the only option you have is to completely give up what you're used to...
...Unlike Apple. Not one iOS device has been granted an unlockable bootloader. Ever.
I shouldn't have to choose between keeping full control over my device and being able to use it to access the modern world.
(For the record, I don't think SafetyNet should exist at all, but if Google is pretending it's for the user's security and not just to allow developers to make it harder to reverse engineer their fast food apps, they should at least set some boundaries.)
It's frustrating that Google has fostered an ecosystem where not all "Android apps" work on vanilla Android.
[1] https://twitter.com/topjohnwu/status/1277683005843111936
Instead, what Google has done is allowed app developers to check that the user isn't doing anything surprising - especially unprofitable things like blocking ads or spoofing tracking data. Since Google profits from ads and tracking, I must assume a significant part of their motivation is to make unprofitable behavior inconvenient enough most people won't do it.
This is not accurate. Pixels that come from Verizon have bootloaders that cannot be fully unlocked.
As long as you buy a Pixel directly from Google or one of a few authorized resellers, it is unlockable. (I recommend B&H, they help you legally evade the sales tax.) You can also use a Pixel you buy from Google with Verizon.
Back when contract pricing was a more regular thing, I ended up doing the math on the plan rate after I requested for the device contract subsidy to be removed as I didn't want to upgrade the device. I had a Droid DNA at the time.
The monthly rate dropped by $25 just to keep the same device. (Nevermind that I had to ASK for them to not continue to charge me the extra $25/mo after 2 years)
$25 a month for 24 months is $600.
The device on contract was $199.
Full retail price if you didn't opt in for a 2 year contract when getting it? $699.
So I ended up paying an extra $100 for the device than if I had just bought it outright.
Even if the offerings/terms are different now... Verizon, regardless of how they market anything, absolutely makes you pay full price (and then some) for the device you get at 'discount.'
It's funny now that we're seeing people being able to BYOD to Verizon these days and AT&T is the one engaging in aggressive whitelisting.
And 10%/yr simple interest is a reasonable price for a retail loan.
Carriers might provide a network unlock -- these are 2 VERY different things.
In many cases you have to get an authorization code from the carrier that sold the device in order to unlock the bootloader. That may or may not involve retrieving a code from your device, and it may or may not also involve interacting with the OEM. It depends on the details negotiated between the carrier and the OEM.
For example, T-Mobile sells devices that are both bootloader and network locked but (for some devices) provides a process to unlock both of those once certain criteria have been met (length of device ownership, account standing, etc). To be perfectly clear, for devices sold by T-Mobile they generally have to authorize you somehow before the OEM will send you a bootloader unlock code.
> Verizon
again.
> Verizon
Google didn't sell you that device. Verizon did.
Except, uh, GPS. Even for third party navigation apps.
Yes, I know about microG, but the fact that there had to be a third party reimplementation of what should be a standard system API is still a problem.
AOSP does support GPS without needing any additional software, but does not have built-in support for Wi-Fi and cell tower triangulation. As you mentioned, UnifiedNlp (bundled with microG) optionally supports triangulation using a variety of location providers (including offline and online choices) for a faster location lock.
True but misleading. If you unlock your bootloader, you can no longer use a lot of apps, including Snapchat, Netflix, Pokemon Go, Super Mario Run, Android Pay, and most banking apps. And before you say this isn't Google's fault, know that they provide the SafetyNet API, which has no legitimate, ethical use cases, and is what allows all of the aforementioned apps to detect whether the device has been modified, even if the owner doesn't want that.
This really depends on the apps. I have used over 10 banking apps on an Android phone with an unlocked bootloader without ever encountering any issues. On a device rooted using Magisk, the MagiskHide masking feature successfully bypasses the apps' root checks in my experience.
You have 10 accounts at different banks? I thought I was bad with 4
Sure, the protection currently isn't bulletproof. But wait until it becomes mandatory for TrustZone to participate in the attestation.
I'm hoping that Microsoft's support for Android apps and integration with Amazon Appstore in Windows 11 will hedge against Google's SafetyNet enforcement by making an alternative Android ecosystem (with fewer Google dependencies) more viable. Apps that require SafetyNet would most likely not work on Windows 11.
Using Magisk and Magisk Hide. Though oddly enough, none of my banking/credit card apps make an issue of being rooted, so they're not even in the Magisk Hide list.
If you wanted to do a WSL but for Android, SafetyNet guarantees many apps won't work.
It also puts alternative Linux-based mobile operating systems, like SailfishOS or postmarketOS, at a disadvantage because they won't be able to run certain Android apps for no real technical reason other than the protection of Google's money firehouse.
Hey now, the operating system and app distribution cartels include Microsoft, too.
But with it stuck on IE11...
The only real way to avoid this is to sandbox all Windows and macOS systems and only run them from Linux hosts, but you're still taking a performance hit when you do this and sometimes usability just isn't up to par with the other two.
It's not very user friendly, but it might be a bit more intuitive than apple's special dance of click right -> open to bypass said controls.
---
[0] For example, the Prometheus exporter for windows x64 is not signed and doesn't trigger the alert. I can download it (no alert) click open (no alert) and it runs . The x32 version does have a "this may damage your computer" alert in the browser (edge).
https://github.com/prometheus-community/windows_exporter/rel...
What I mind is when my personal life, the stuff that _actually_ matters, is being monitored or has a backdoor that allows ANY third party easy access to monitor it.