How Fairphone built the Fairphone Gen 6+
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
Security updates will end 01 Sep 2028.
Fairphone 5 and earlier have end-of-life Linux kernel branches without security support. Fairphone's more recent devices are headed to the same situation. In practice, the same thing happens with other components beyond the Linux kernel.
I am waiting for the next FP model where I can use a USB-C/dp external display and then I'm all over it.
Just as physical security, digital security most of the time not as radical, and tradeoffs are usually accepted, especially when they are "invisible": hardware and software security features are usually not mentioned in the specs and the regular and even power user just don't know most of them and what do they do.
When GrapheneOS says "private" and "secure", they mean top-of-the-line security features, updates as soon as possible, all available mitigations against zero-days and insecure code which will limit the impact before the patch, etc. Security as in a killdozer.
When other say "private" and "secure", most of the time it means: "we've followed all the recommendations applicable to our development budget, device price point, and support life time". Graphene does not like that definition of these words.
For smartphone, chip manufacturer goal is not to protect the user at all costs, but to provide reasonable security features for the price.
BUT the goal of chip manufacturer to protect the device at all costs is for… game consoles! That's why Xbox, PlayStation, Switch all run on a custom silicon and not an ordinary chips!
Not really. Xbox and PlayStation both run on pretty standard AMD Zen 2 chips. Somewhat customized, but standard enough that people by binned playstation 5 motherboards to use as computers with normal OS'es (lookup BC-250). The last gen with more customized chips was the PS3/Xbox360 era, when both went with a variant of PowerPC, same as Gamecube/Wii/WiiU.
Switch runs on basically the same Nvidia Tegra CPU/GPU as multiple android tablets.
There are whole sections of peripheral chips missing and they behave quite a bit differently with how they bootstrap and where things are mapped in memory.
Even Steam Deck has a custom APU made specifically for it. Call it "customized" if you don't like "custom".
If that is true then a lot (or most) of android phones run on "custom silicon" and the term is meaningless.
That doesn't mean that all the features are enabled right from the factory, or that the compatibility with already existing features is lost.
Modern chip's security features are pretty complicated and include hardware patches, hardware debug authentication, multiple provisioning states (and multi-key hierarchy for that), RMA states to clear all the private information, etc.
>Switch runs on basically the same Nvidia Tegra CPU/GPU as multiple android tablets.
Yes, and the one which got cracked with a bootrom vulnerability ;)
That's a pretty working motivation for a chip company to improve their chip security when the company as beefy as Nintendo tells them that their chip is vulnerable they're losing money because the customers can play for free ;). I'm pretty sure patchable bootroms started to be common only after Switch hack.
A couple of the tenets of computing security are:
- Defense in depth - Principle of least privilege
It is a foundational reality that software (especially in unsafe languages) will invariably have vulnerabilities. Defense in depth and least privilege have compounding effects by forcing attackers to chain multiple exploits to achieve a compromised device, rather than a single vulnerability.
GrapheneOS shows how much can be accomplished on top of relatively secure platforms to begin with (AOSP, Pixel Stock OS, etc.) without sacrificing nearly any usability to the end user (barring manufactured hurdles like Play Integrity). It makes it more damning that many "privacy" OSes and devices cannot even meet the baseline level of privacy and security that AOSP provides, but degrade it.
Firmware and driver neglect and the lack of secure element utilization is not "reasonble security for the price".
I don't think that expecting security updates it being an extremist, or is it?
Yeah, iPhoens are made that way as well. It's just caring about the privacy of your users.
> When GrapheneOS says "private" and "secure", they mean top-of-the-line security features, updates as soon as possible, all available mitigations against zero-days and insecure code which will limit the impact before the patch, etc. Security as in a killdozer.
I think it's deceptive because people think they will get better privacy/security with a /e/ fairphone when it's actually much worse than an iPhone.
Does /e/OS illegally collect users' data for ads and sends a lot of telemetry to their servers like Apple? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34299433, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26639261
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/adsupport/asidenti...
https://www.fool.com/investing/2023/11/19/apple-secret-digit...
Source? And what else?
I for one prefer to be protected from big tech. Sure GrapheneOS does both, but Apple does not.
There are just a bunch of companies which afford to do the same. Maybe Xiaomi will be the next one.
That's just blatantly not true though - even iPhones collect way more telemetry and Ad data than /e/ OSes.
With the hardware I'm not impressed, and on their own forum I've seen plenty of people reporting issues with overheating on the Gen 6. Hopefully kinks have been ironed out on their 6+.
The current CEO also has a persona that would stir up any community (read a few of his AI-gened posts on their blog, if interested of context).
Still holding on to my FP4, but they are not of consideration on my future phone purchase, unless there is some kind of reality check over there and improvements materialize beyond words.
Everyone and their dog can repair an iPhone because it’s the most popular phone on the planet. Are those repairs accessible to the consumer at home with amateur skills? No, not really. However, newer iPhone models are significantly easier to repair and come along with lower repair costs direct from the manufacturer compared to previous models.
You want years of software updates? Yeah, an iPhone has you covered there, too.
And of course, fairphone’s hardware and OS are nothing to write home about. For the freedom and security nerds they’re better off with GrapheneOS on Pixel or whatever upcoming Motorola phones will support it.
Who is the Fairphone for exactly? Who is buying it and why?
I think the fairbuds are their best product, but I also imagine AirPods Pro 3 are on a whole different level of sound quality, noise cancelation, voice quality/voice isolation, and firmware/software polish.
And let’s be honest about repairability with tiny earbuds: being able to replace the battery is has such a tiny impact on their footprint. If I have to throw out my AirPods Pro 3 every 5 years due to battery degradation, that’s such an insignificant quantity of material being wasted, so it’s probably worth it to get a better product. I could offset my environmental impact by eating a little less beef or riding my bike instead of driving a few times. You drive 30 miles and that’s an entire gallon of refined petroleum product, how much material and energy is used to make one pair of AirPods? I can’t imagine it’s a lot.
I don’t say any of this to be a big corporate or Apple shill. I am rooting for the little guys. But the little guys need to be realistic. You look at products like the Framework 13 Pro and you can actually say, okay, here’s a product with really legitimate benefits over its incumbent competition. There is a reason to buy this product for a certain buyer. I just don’t see that with Fairphone. I can’t think of a customer profile where that person is getting a better ownership experience with Fairphone products.
> And of course, fairphone’s hardware and OS are nothing to write home about. For the freedom and security nerds they’re better off with GrapheneOS on Pixel or whatever upcoming Motorola phones will support it.
For the "freedom nerds", FP is one of the only (if not the only?) vendor to have official support for microG-based operating systems, seamless OTA updates and everything included. The Murena e/OS offering in particular is simple enough that the non-nerds that (perhaps less outspokenly) care about freedom can just pick it up with little change in habits.
To be fair on either side of that debate, getting a phone that comes with /e/OS installed from the factory is going to be easier than flashing GrapheneOS on a Pixel or LineageOS with microG on another device.
I am not sure what you are trying to say here. I have never had an Android system that did not have OTA updates. Everything included... I usually like to install the apps I want?
As for microG, I think it's debatable. Is it better to have microG contacting the Google servers or sandboxed Play Services going through a Graphene-powered proxy? And say you have microG going through a Murena proxy (do they do that?), is that significantly better than sandboxed Play Services? At the end of the day, your system is made mostly of code written by Google (AOSP).
> The Murena e/OS offering in particular is simple enough that the non-nerds
Yes, I think it's what makes Murena successful. It's surprisingly simple to install GrapheneOS on a Pixel (you follow a wizard on a Chromium browser and click "next" a bunch of times), but many people are scare just by the idea.
The last bit of my sentence could easily be misread as an enumeration of three things ("microG", "OTA updates", "everything included"), but it was actually an elaboration: FP is the only vendor to support microG, and (in contrast to "unofficial" microG setups) it doesn't require sacrifices in convenience because standard features like OTA updates work just like with your average Android. Perhaps that's clearer?
(Notably "Everything included" does not mean it ships a thousand apps or something. To the contrary, FP stock OS is mostly vanilla Android)
Point being: I could install LineageOS on my last phone, but it was a poorly documented process, updates were a hassle (having to flash through custom recovery for lack of OTA), and I had virtually no confidence in data integrity when running major updates.
> Is it better to have microG contacting the Google servers or sandboxed Play Services going through a Graphene-powered proxy?
How about microG not contacting Google servers at all?
In any case you're presenting an unnecessarily binary argument though. Letting Google handle push notifications is different from using them as your location provider, and both are different from letting all Play Services lose on your system.
I already addressed that in my comment, right after the line you quoted.
> Letting Google handle push notifications is different from using them as your location provider, and both are different from letting all Play Services lose on your system.
And what would you say GrapheneOS does of those? Do you know, or do you just assume that GrapheneOS does the worse there?
Where? You suggested it would go through Murena instead, but you can fully disable third party services by disabling external push providers and by using on-device databases for GPS. e/OS directly offers this configuration during initial setup.
> And what would you say GrapheneOS does of those? Do you know, or do you just assume that GrapheneOS does the worse there?
I'm not necessarily trying to present either as "better" or "worse" since they both have their merits depending what exactly you're after (which I don't feel this is the right time/place to have a detailed rundown of). It was the root comment that posited e/OS was strictly inferior for people who care about freedom.
by using FOSS only myself and hating monopolies like Apple etc., i still pretty much convinced that being "green" or "ethical" is more about participating/volunteering/doing-something towards a better world than off-loading your duty to other companies... one could easily make a point that Apple products despite locked down, are still green (Apple has a bunch of zero-emission and whatever policies) and much more if one uses their devices for a long while. i had a 2° hand iPhone SE 1° gen. till 2021? if stuff breaks despite your not being able to fix it's not like you can't hop into a specialized shop to change batteries or even pay the expensive service Apple offers... sure that allows exploitation and it's always nice to get rid of it, that's why somehow these emerging companies are important and/or policies like the right of repair will make them obsolete
Then I realised that:
- Fairphone 3 was already "slow" when it was released in 2019
- Fairphone 3+ was pretty much exactly the same hardware, but I bought it 2.5 years later
- My Fairphone 3+ was annoyingly slow from the moment I bought it (I was using it less than a normal phone because of that, and I just completely gave up on using the camera and asked other people to take photos instead).
- My Fairphone 3+ became painfully after 1.5 - 2 years.
I did not change phone because the hardware was not running anymore. I changed because I just couldn't use the few apps I needed because they were unusable (lagging and crashing). I don't mean games: banking apps, weather forecasts, public transports. Pretty much only Signal/WhatsApp were fine (slow, but fine).
So I painfully kept my Fairphone 3+ for a little more than 4 years.
Then I realised that people who buy an iPhone routinely keep it 6-8 years, without it being painful at all. Is it "greener" if I buy one iPhone/Pixel, or 2 Fairphones? I'm not so sure anymore. What I know is that the iPhone/Pixel are not painful to use.
Not quite. The people who care about security first are better off with GOS, yes. However, GOS's threat model very specifically treats the user as a thing to defend against; the freedom-first crowd should avoid them.
Can you elaborate?
GOS mostly honours the Android security model, which many alternatives don't do (many times they don't have a choice because the device doesn't allow them to relock the bootloader, so they just defeat the whole security model from the moment you install).
There is absolutely nothing that can be done on a Stock Android and that I cannot do on GrapheneOS. Or at least I haven't found it.
First, "protecting against an app running with user permissions" does not mean "considering that the human owning the device is malevolent", right?
The idea is that if the human installs a malware, we don't want that malware to own the system. I think it is completely fair, and for most people it is the better deal.
Second, your complaint about GOS is that you want root access, and they don't provide it. You want a feature they don't provide, sure, but that happens. And that's probably a good reason to use an alternative system. But turning "I want feature X" into "if you don't provide the feature I want, then you are not free software" is manipulative IMO. GrapheneOS is as open source as it gets, you can fork it and install it on your Pixel. It is free software. Maybe not the software you want (that's okay, different people have different preferences), but free software nonetheless.
GrapheneOS will never be closed source/proprietary because they believe code freedom (and user freedom by extension) is paramount. They have repeatedly said they don't have the resources to build a ChromeOS-esque firmware authentication and warning flow for ephemeral user-accessible root and support those builds alongside the existing production environment. They have NOT said it is something they have no interest in even discussing. They have also repeatedly said that where the utility is clearly demonstrated and can be architected in a maintainable way, they are open to contributions (and continued maintenance) that properly enable functions that people unnecessarily need to abuse root privileges for.
The main goal of their project is a system that can protect your personal thoughts, associations and memories to the best of its ability (against thieves, attackers, surveillance etc.) while preserving your interaction with the world. Current OSes (including GrapheneOS and iOS) are already far behind where they should be given the wealth of privacy enhancing technology, computer hardware security, systems engineering and OS design knowledge that has existed for decades- so their work is cut out for them and they are putting everything they have into leading the industry. Their hands are already full. For clear use cases the path of least resistance would be to contribute and commit to maintaining features everyone would benefit from.
If it is a feature/function someone understands they would benefit from personally but do not see the value to impose on others, we can circle back to the original fact which is that GrapheneOS is open source and can be bent/built to your will.
Providing app accessible root in the OS greatly reduces security without people ever using it. It gives root access to a huge portion of the OS by having it around as a feature even if it's never used. It fundamentally breaks a large portion of the security model for verified boot, which can no longer defend against attackers maintaining privileged access after a compromise
In addition to the inherent reduction in security from providing it, nearly all apps built around using full unconstrained root access don't need anywhere close to that. In nearly all cases, it's used as a shortcut instead of doing things securely. Following the principle of least privilege by only granting the required privileges is a core part of security. For example, an app for managing low-level firewall rules only needs an API for doing so in netd and netd only needs CAP_NET_ADMIN rather than full root. Doing this by giving full root access to a graphical application which is not properly integrated into the standard firewall management is not a secure approach. Giving full root access to a large portion of the rest of the OS in a way that can be hijacked in many attack vectors to make it possible to dynamically grant it makes it a lot worse.
GrapheneOS does have user-accessible root access in userdebug builds. Those aren't the main production builds of the OS but people who believe they know better and want to have it can build, sign and use those instead. Building the OS also gives an opportunity to include safe implementations of features instead of insecure hacks.
Every app can be backed up as part of the baseline. Apps can exclude specific data but are nearly all doing so because that data is a cache or can't be used elsewhere. For example, Signal encrypts their database with the hardware keystore and bypassing them excluding it from backups to back up all the files for it will not result in the data being possible to restore elsewhere.
To answer GPs point, I think Fairphone doesn't primarily target either of the two audiences. I think they primarily target the people that care about the ethics of the creation of the hardware. Basically people who would like to minimize the invisible human cost that their phone creates.
Do you know how the Sennheiser's compare? I'm looking for some for using at the gym, but wanted something I can easily fix if needed.
The Fairbuds are also quite a bit cheaper
I suspect that the venn diagram of the kind of person who takes issue with Bluetooth audio batteries and the kind of person willing to use wired headphones or prefers them outright has a lot of overlap.
Fair enough, but note that it does not concern GrapheneOS. Hopefully soon available on Motorola phones :-). That would be my next phone (assuming it's not too expensive of course).
I do have the feeling that many non-nerds can express the difference between all mentioned attributes, many just like FairPhone as an ethical phone. It’s not that simple, I agree.
And at that point I got quite disappointed by /e/OS, because I felt like their marketing had been abusing me for years. For instance, my Fairphone 3+ was 4 years behind the Fairphone Stock Android on some updates. /e/OS just wasn't forwarding them, they seemingly were just not maintaining the FP3. Though I bought it to /e/OS, under the promise that it would be supported!
Then I realised that all this time, not only my bootloader was unlocked (so the Android security model had been broken from the first day I powered the phone), but the system was signed with the Google test keys! When you are encouraged to install apps "from the internet" instead of the Play Store, on a phone that disabled the security model so that you're not protected against malware as on any Stock Android, would you say it's being a security nerd?
The thing that GrapheneOS keeps repeating and I realised is true is that many times, if you run a deGoogled alternative that is not GrapheneOS, you get worse security than if you were running Stock Android. It's not about "getting the best possible security", it's about getting the baseline. The truth with /e/OS (or LineageOS, which is pretty much what /e/OS ships, I believe?) is that it depends a lot on the phone. And with many phones, you get worse than the baseline you would get with Stock Android.
> I do prefer de-googled + freedom to do what I want over security (to a degree).
So I switched to GrapheneOS on a Pixel, and I feel like I get the best of both worlds: I get the privacy benefits of the sandboxed Play Services, and the better security. And it's not a "weird" system at all: I asked my family to use it and they didn't realise it was not a "normal Android". It is very different from running something like a Linux on mobile, which would be very very different.
> many just like FairPhone as an ethical phone
Yes, why not. If I was to get a Fairphone again, though, I would use the Stock Android.
And I wish Fairphone could get to the level where they can be supported by GrapheneOS. But it feels like my next phone will probably be a Motorola with GrapheneOS rather than a Fairphone.
If you're just a rando like me yes, it's paranoia.
Even if you haven't done anything "wrong", you may have engaged in speech or activities that the current US admin has deemed problematic and will try to punish you for if they can find any evidence.
Once open models catch up to the current frontier in vulnerability exploitation, the cost to target people will go way down. In the past, the cost to hack a random individual person was generally high enough that if there wasn't some special reason to hack you in particular, it wasn't worth it. That may no longer be the case in the near future. The floor of what is acceptable security for the General Public probably needs to rise quite a bit over the next few years.
Its just raising the bar across the board, I don't see how only attackers would benefit.
Fairphones are closed source hardware with closed source firmware and closed source userspace drivers. Fairphones are less open than Pixels, not more open.
It isn't truly known how a Fairphone compares to an iPhone or Pixel when it comes to environmental impact or fairness to workers. Fairphones are designed and built by T2Mobile since the Fairphone 4. T2Mobile barely has any public information available about it. There isn't information on the working conditions, pay and other aspects of of it. The same applies to the rest of the supply chain. Fairphone provides a list of companies involved in the supply chain without details.
It isn't truly known how a Fairphone compares to an iPhone or Pixel when it comes to environmental impact or fairness to workers. Fairphones are designed and built by T2Mobile since the Fairphone 4. T2Mobile barely has any public information available about it. There isn't information on the working conditions, pay and other aspects of of it. The same applies to the rest of the supply chain. Fairphone provides a list of companies involved in the supply chain without details.
I really would like to mention that many times, using /e/OS or LineageOS (or the likes) means that you get worse security than Stock Android.
It would be fine to run /e/OS or LineageOS on a Pixel, assuming those Android systems are not too slow with updates (my experience with my /e/OS phone was that they were 4 years behind as compared to Stock Android).
But really, if you have a Pixel, it doesn't really make sense to use something other than GrapheneOS IMO.
So to me it's really:
- GrapheneOS if you can
- Stock Android vs an alternative otherwise
Both /e/ and LineageOS lag far behind on current security updates on a Pixel. Neither is based on Android 17 yet which was released in June 2026. Neither has the June 2026 or later Pixel firmware, kernel, driver and HAL patches. Both also roll back the standard security of AOSP but /e/ does so much more than LineageOS.
The latest releases of LineageOS for Pixels do not provide the June 2026 and later updates to the firmware, kernel, drivers and HALs because those have only been provided for Android 17 since it was released and LineageOS isn't yet based on Android 17. Separately from that, since Lineage is still based on Android 16 QPR2 it also doesn't include the many privacy and security patches not backported from Android 17.
Android ships many security patches as part of the QPR2 and yearly releases which are not backported to older releases. The backports to older releases are increasingly incomplete. Years ago, they stopped backporting any Low and Moderate severity patches to older releases and more recently they've been scaling back the amount of High and Critical severity patches which are backported. An official policy announcement was made to OEMs that they'd no longer backport many High and Critical severity patches where an LLM discovered the vulnerability internally due to the large volume of patches.
Pixels move to the latest OS releases and that means the firmware, kernel, driver and HAL code is only provided for those. It's most difficult for the major yearly releases due to the new API level but it's not trivial for QPR1, QPR2 and QPR3 either.
My fairphone 2 had lasted 5 years, but was completely unusable at the end. My current phone works very well (again, huge kudos to the team if anyone is reading this), and I would not mind trying to reach the decade with it - but in a few months, someone (my bank, a shop, a 2FA, whatever) will ask for an unsupported android feature.
I know people will give me names of exotic non-android distros, but will they run my bank's app :/ ?
I'd be interested in the list, the website you've linked is super sparse (the full menu is like shop, some feel-good pages about device deposit and impact, blog, and contact us - no knowledge base, documentation, or somewhere where you'd expect to find OS info or even downloads)
And then in 2010, Maemo merged with Intel's Moblin to become MeeGo (featured on the Nokia N9). The MeegGo engineers who were let go (due to Nokia x Microsoft) then created Mer, and eventually started a new company called Jolla, who created SailfishOS based on Mer.
It's been 13 years already since SailfishOS was out, and if you include the Maemo heritage, it makes it the oldest surviving mobile Linux distribution.
So why does a brand new phone run an operating system from over a year ago? Does it really take over 6 months to update a phone to a new version of Android?
How am I supposed to believe a company is committing to supporting a phone for a long time when at release it already runs outdated software?
Otherwise, I preferred 16. The UX, AI, and all the other garbage I really could do without. I don't love it. My phone (pixel 9) feels slower and the battery is now draining like crazy.
You would be missing out on:
- Minimum Target SDK Enforcement Blocks installation of apps that target ancient versions of Android and legacy APIs.
- Restricted settings for sideloaded apps
- Null-Cipher rejection and 2G disabling
- Cell Network Surveillence Alerts
- Platform Rust Migration
- Scoped Media
Among many many unpatched Med and Low severity CVEs that don't get backported.
Funny to list a user-hostile change as the first “improvement” that comes to mind.
I guess GP should have said “series of cosmetic changes, and breaks in your UI habbits and a few of your apps deemed too old”.
Feel free to look at the AOSP SDK changes for each major version that's released and you will see many of these examples.
Apps that failed to keep up with these changes, regardless of licensing, should be avoided and ultimately removed from availability.
The deprecation of 32-bit apps is another example of this.
For those not aware, Android Security Bulletins only cover high/critical vulnerabilities. There are also rumors that Google will soon stop fixing vulnerabilities in not-actual versions that were discovered by Google in LLM-driven vulnerability discovery. There was recently a GrapheneOS thread about it.
These are not rumors. It's an official announcement from Google to OEMs and we have access to it.
Aren't those back-ported for a while?
Android Security Bulletins do not cover the vast majority of Linux kernel security patches. They only cover an extremely small subset tied to Android. The Linux kernel has a massive tsunami of security patches on an ongoing basis. Fairphone 5 and earlier have an end-of-life Linux kernel without security support. They're close to not updating the kernel at all anymore. Their more recent devices will end up in the same situation.
The Linux kernel is not the only component ending up unmaintained while the devices are still presented as supported.
https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/114101511604296440
You need new releases or QPRs to get other patches.
But Google being Google, this release is pretty much useless until Samsung et al deal with all bugs and performance issues, which will take 2-4 months.
Besides, the phone software is highly optimised for the specific hardware. It is not a generic software like Windows
But there's also nothing to stop you simply building the latest kernel from source and using that - it's pretty easy and it will work fine.
Seriously, why can't Android just be installed? Are they building it like the old-timey kernel before modules and embedding drivers in a giant monolith or something ridiculous?
Yes, it does (CachyOS).
Fairphones have 1-2 months of delay for partial security backports to older releases from the beginning and much longer delays for full updates. Android 17 is required for full Android security updates. Only a subset of patches are backported to older versions and that subset is decreasing.
Android 17 is also required for the latest and greatest privacy/security protections which are not backported. There have been massive privacy and security improvements in each yearly Android release.
Android versions are locked to kernel versions, which are locked to binary drivers to run your hardware. there's no way around that and you can't reverse engineer or do anything if you want that SoC vendor to continue to fulfill your orders (which you're already at the bottom of the fulfilment list because of low volumes)
to promise 5 year of security updates your SoC needs to also have that support for that time frame + part of your developmeant/production time (as you can't the last steps of development/production before that chip is released). Lastly you need to add the duration during which you promise the 5 years security updates.
to put it simple for a 5 year guarantee you need ~8 better 10 year support for the SoC, measured from is release date
a lot of phone SoC (which tend to get Android porting priority by their producer) have shorter support. Hence why the fp5 had a SoC from a product line designed for industrial embedded appliances instead of a phone SoC...
but the main reason is likely simpler:
They are relatively small and likely will updated FP5, 6,6+ to Android 16 roughly at the same time to not have to support multiple major Android versions for the same time.
Still as long as Android 15 still gets security this doesn't matter too much. Recent major Android version IMHO often have been more disruptive then helpful. At least for me, but my guess it's this applies widely for the kind of audience which pay more because they plan to actual have the same smartphone in use for more the 3 years ;)
It's entirely possible to port to a new kernel LTS branch regardless of what the SoC vendor provides, but they don't either way. Fairphone 5 and earlier have an end-of-life Linux kernel branch without security support. The Linux kernel is an immensely important part of security on a device against both local, proximity and fully remote attacks. Not having security support for the kernel means the device lacks real ongoing security support.
Android 15 does not receive most privacy/security patches but rather backports of many High and Critical severity patches. Only the latest OS releases receive Low and Moderate severity patches. A growing number of High and Critical severity patches are no longer backported due to how many vulnerabilities are now being discovered.
It does matter, because Android Security Bulletins only contain fixes for high/critical vulnerabilities. But all the other vulnerabilities can be useful in exploit chains. Add to that that ASBs have a three month embargo, but GrapheneOS and Samsung roll all/some patches out before they are in a security bulletin. So phones like the Fairphone have critical/high CVEs have been known for up to three months for anyone that looks.
but the main reason is likely simpler:
I think the main reason is that they do not do most hardware and software development by themselves, it's done by their Chinese ODM T2Mobile, for which Fairphone is probably just another customer.
Everything is at glacial speed. For instance, Android 16 on FP6 has some IPv6 bugs that breaks WiFi connections after a few minutes for a substantial number of their customers [1]. Six months later, they still haven't been able to properly fix it.
[1] The issues itself is probably not restricted to WiFi, it's that some brands of WiFi routers trigger one or more of the condition. One of which is sending a router advertisement with a lifetime of 0 for the IPv6 prefix used by the network. The connection handling code goes in a state where it misses the next prefix advertisement.
Perhaps the EU can step in and force these SoC companies to change their way of working so that a user can simply install Android 17 with a few clicks regardless of their hardware (to a point). Like how desktop computers work.
Mobile chips are not used for desktop and servers, not used for Windows and Linux. They are used for Android, and that's a 98% of the market. The customers of the chips (the companies which develop devices on the chips) just don't use Windows or Linux, that's why there's no reason for a chip company to support it.
Android does not use desktop/server firmware, desktop/server bootloader, and even desktop/server stock Linux kernel. They have their own Generic Kernel Image with the Android patches on top, strict Google requirements for the booting and working process, etc.
PC operating systems are supplied by third parties that are not part of the computer manufacturer, motherboard or processor vendor. All component manufacturers must write drivers for Windows, certify them with Microsoft, and make sure that their device works properly ideally on any computer. You, the user, buy (or obtain) a copy of the operating system from the operating system company.
The operating system for a appliance (smartphone) comes with the appliance itself (as a bundle), and is supplied by the appliance manufacturer, not by operating system manufacturer. The manufacturer of electronic components does not need to contact the creators of the operating systems, they write a driver for Android kernel (yes, for Android kernel, with all its wakelock subsystems and such in mind) and gives it to the manufacturer of the appliance directly (and sometimes only supplies hardware, and the driver must be made by the manufacturer of the appliance).
Fairphone chose to use T2Mobile as their ODM designing and making their devices. They chose to use the SoC platforms they did. They chose to focus very little on providing updates to the point that the Fairphone 5 and earlier have an end-of-life Linux kernel without security support. Fairphone 5 is still presented as supported with many years to come but it's not getting a large portion of the high importance security patches anymore.
Android versions are not locked to kernel versions. In general, new Android versions do not require new kernel versions.
In practice, all kernel drivers are open source including for Snapdragon, Exynos and MediaTek. The kernel drivers can be ported to new major kernel versions regardless of whether the firmware and drivers are still supported. The benefit of updating the kernel and kernel drivers without firmware and userspace driver updates is very low. Rewriting the userspace driver code as open source code on top of the kernel drivers is also entirely possible. It's a lot of work and there's a lack of a security motivation to do it due to needing up-to-date firmware with patches for serious remote vulnerabilities and other issues.
From my understanding it’s not there as the Graphene team says that fairphone haven’t taken security hardware seriously and there’s key hardware security features missing that means they are not even interested to look at supporting the device.
Keen for latest updates on this, happy to be corrected.
This feature is usually NOT present in desktop computers, and has only really been implemented by the Google Pixel hardware so far. It's unclear why it's viewed as being so critically necessary for Graphene: MTE is certainly useful but I personally wouldn't say its absence indicates an "insecure" device, and it imposes both a clear performance (and battery life!) penalty and a significant hardware burden on the SoC manufacturer. It's a pretty significant trade-off.
Anyway, that's the biggest single reason why GrapheneOS devs say "this hardware is not adequately secure": 99% of phone chips are excluded because they do not support MTE.
The vast majority of users do not use a strong passphrase. The recommended high security setup is a strong passphrase and 2-factor fingerprint+PIN secondary unlock for convenience. Using a weaker PIN for secondary users for convenience is not our recommended approach.
MTE is required for the majority of the additional protection provided by GrapheneOS against memory corruption exploits. Nearly all remote exploits and most local exploits involve memory corruption. MTE is only going to become more important as we implement deeper integration for it.
As in: people who do care enough to understand the technical arguments tend to go for GrapheneOS when they can. But if you build a "degraded GrapheneOS", you are not targetting those. For someone who doesn't care about what GrapheneOS brings, why would they use your system versus /e/OS?
DivestOS was a thing at some point, which was technically very interesting. But there wasn't much of a differentiator since the people who already cared about what DivestOS was doing were probably already looking at getting GrapheneOS.
Devices are supported until end-of-life rather than being dropped when they no longer meet the requirements. Pixel 6 is nearly end-of-life and Pixel 7 will be end-of-life in a bit over a year. Both have 5 years of updates from launch as opposed to 7 years for the Pixel 8 and later.
We want to require 7 years of updates for new devices rather than 5 but have left it at 5 to help budget devices meet our requirements.
Most people expect to have decent encryption without a strong passphrase, at least 5 years of security updates and a lot more. Fairphone says they provide updates far longer than they do for many components, and those come with substantial delays. Fairphone 5 and earlier have end-of-life kernels without security support. That's a very bad situation and is widely ignored. The more recent devices are headed to the same situation for the Linux kernel and other components.
Citation needed.
Traditional desktop computers have atrocious privacy and security throughout hardware, firmware and software. That isn't a relevant comparison for GrapheneOS. Recent Mac hardware does support MTE and so will non-Mac devices using Snapdragon chips. Qualcomm has added MTE support for their latest flagship mobile SoC platform and will bring it elsewhere. MediaTek and Exynos have also added MTE support.
MTE does not have the substantial performance or battery life impact you're portraying it as having. It's also far more useful than you're portraying it as being. Apple would not have extensively integrated MTE if they had to give up significant performance or battery life. iPhones have a lot of focus on security but aren't willing to make significant sacrifices in those areas for it, at least for the default settings. Their Memory Integrity Enforcement entirely based on MTE is always enabled in the kernel and the large portion of userspace where they deployed it. It's not only used for Lockdown Mode.
Still only on my second smartphone, so I'm not worried about producing more e-waste.
Can't find it for sale in the online shops I usually use (Germany), either.
https://pine64.com/product-category/pinephone/https://pine64...
I have one. It's slow but the feeling of owning your hardware is well worth it. Also good software can make it fast, see SXMo.
https://pine64.com/product/pinephone-beta-edition-with-conve...
Looks like it's still in beta:
> Beta Edition PinePhones are aimed solely at early adopters. More specifically, only intend for these units to find their way into the hands of users with extensive Linux experience.
Also, if you include taxes it's not sub $200. My current phone was about $160 including taxes when I bought it. Looks interesting, though.
There is a $150 edition: https://pine64.com/product/pinephone-beta-edition-linux-smar...
It is forever in beta, because the company develops no software at all, only provides the hardware. All software is developed by the volunteers.
> Your first link, I had found myself, but it doesn't say a lot.
What does it not say? It also links to this: https://pine64.org/documentation/PinePhone/_full/
Except for the fact that Samsung is the 800 pounds gorilla in the smartphone space which you'll know will be around for some time. How long is Fairphone going to last? Maybe the founders want to retire early and sell to the highest bidder.
I'd much rather see them running GrapheneOS or /e/OS on it also.
As all too common
GDPR: "legimate interest"
EU261: "exceptional circumstances", no deadlines for paying compensation etc
yes yes, "no law is perfect" etc..nobody could foresee anything...downvote away
It doesn't allow spying though. It allows, e.g., to save your session if you intentionally logged in.
Typical "legitimate interest" section is about sharing data with 40 "trusted partners".
I opened Google News. First site I've seen is t3.com - some review of pebble wearable.
I was greeted by cookie dialog. I clicked "more info" -> "partners" -> "legitimate interest".
131 vendors, including among other "Adform - agentic advertising" who wishes to store laundry list of my data for 10 years.
After 4-5 years, on every phone I've ever had, user interactions begin to lag noticeably. Apps launch much more slowly. Intense graphical apps like maps become frustrating to use. At some point I can't take it anymore and replace the phone, long before its physical parts or battery have worn out.
Then I've decided that is worth either spending money on phones whose replacement parts doesn't cost half of the phone itself, or just buying the cheapest Xiaomi or similar chineese brand phone and when it breaks buy a new one or repair it (funny enough cheap phones are more repairable than expensive ones, so I usually repair them).
It happened to me when I was using shitty brands like Xiaomi that include a lot of malware and spyware in their official firmwares. Not anymore on grapheneOS (and /e/os on my daughter's phone).
For sure it isn't the snappiest, but my only real performance issue is loading gifs on Signal, which takes several seconds for some reason.
Just tried maps now, actually still fairly fine for me.
Sent from my Galaxy S10 running LOS
There's no additional DAC involved, the analog audio is already on a USB-C pins.
My main problem with USB-C headphones on my Android phone is how unreliable they are. But if the USB-C port can just pass through an analog audio connection, that should work much better, I expect.
Edit: This feature is apparently deprecated (removed?) in newer versions of the USB spec! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB-C#Analog_Audio_Adapter_Acc...
https://ae-pic-a1.aliexpress-media.com/kf/Sfa5566c711b14a4aa...
I've tried those dongles and they are all a huge hassle compared to just having a headphone jack built in.
https://images.thalia.media/-/BF2000-2000/939d34e30a3d4f6587...
> to fit other features in
what exactly, one would ask. If there are tradeoffs, if would be nice if the customers can decide what to have, in a modular product.
Only issue is some very cheap ones are actually bluetooth headphones in disguise where the usb-c connection only exist to power the bt recepter inside the headphone. I find this completely stupid.
A "modular product" has tradeoffs in and of itself (such as size, price, water resistance, …), which presumably would not fly for a majority of customers.
On that note, I remember reading how some phones were able to use the headphone jack as a serial debug port, which is pretty neat.
https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Serial_debugging/Cable_sc...
That is how your car radio could display the name of the current track.
You always have the right to a minimum 2-year guarantee from the moment you received the goods. However, national rules in your country may give you extra protection.[1]
[1] https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/shopping/gua...
There is also nothing precluding them from dropping Android in the future and putting effort into something like Sailfish OS.
Unlike AOSP, SailfishOS has a largely closed source user interface and application layer. They still have their own UI and application layer so it's strange to portray Android using a different one than desktop Linux as a problem and a closed source alternative to it as a solution. SailfishOS drastically reduces privacy, security, usability, battery life and app compatibility compared to simply using AOSP. It's not possible to build a project like GrapheneOS on top when so much of the OS code is closed source rather than only many mainstream apps people want to use.
How can we verify all those claims?
Search online and see reports updates slow down cause they're busy. Maybe newer phones get faster updates for a year then slow down to every few months. I found that by googling.
Found a post on the FP forum. FP4 was released with support for 5 years but SoC was only going to be supported for 2 more years so no firmware updates for 3 of them.
idk why you ask GOS these questions. They know their stuff and shouldnt have to do research for people like a LLM. I didn't know and used Google and found enough to believe what they say.
It's called a discussion forum. This isn't GOS' personal press release website. They can use their own website for that.
> They know their stuff
They can link to sources then to show their confidence, as any decent academic would do
The hardware and firmware for those devices is closed source. It's strange to claim users demand something which is not the case. GrapheneOS users want open source hardware and firmware too, but it isn't for any of these projects.
Phones that are repairable have superior engineering, not superior morality.
I applaud the concept but to see how well this actually holds up in the real world, let's check the Fairphone web site.
Where are the parts to repair any version prior to Gen 6? I don't see them listed anywhere.
So it would appear that "longevity" is actually pretty limited.
Fairphone 5 (2023) parts: https://www.fairphone.com/shop/category/spare-parts-4?catego...
Parts for the Fairphone 2 (2015) and Fairphone 3 (2019) aren't available anymore, but I suppose that's not all that surprising after 11 respective 7 years.
Afair, they started running out of some Fairphone 3 spare parts around 2024 and kept the ones they still had for warranty repairs. Source: I own one (and switched to the Fairphone 6 early this year).
So "longevity" is actually about 5 years. Or less if you live in the USA.
Not even Fairphone can repair your phone if it's out of parts.
Generally with Apple, you can: https://support.apple.com/self-service-repair
https://www.ifixit.com/Device/Fairphone
Reminds me of the cold steel throwing axe that I bought that specifically has replaceable handles in case you break one. No one actually sells the handles though!
I bought one a few years ago. Good device, too big for my hands (back then, there were still smaller options so I bought one of those smaller ones in second-hand). Not having spare parts available would make me hesitate since that's like 50% of the point (fair sourcing being the other half), but besides that it's a (big) phone like any other
Here are the ones for the fairphone 4: https://www.fairphone.com/shop/category/spare-parts-4?catego...
I however couldn't find the ones for the fairphone 3. The fairphone 4 is from 2021, which is not that old.
For the American piece, the FP6 was the first available from OEM in the US.
Yes, that goes against most of Fairphone's own advertising, but it was consistent with my experience of the phone and discussions on the forum: security updates frequently so far out of date that some software could not be run, flimsy components inconsistent with advertising (yes, the battery was nominally swappable, but the snaps on the back would break easily, and support would claim that it was not intended to be removed regularly), parts that were frequently out of stock, and of course, whole new phone designs every generation rather than Framework-like component upgrades.
It seems like they may have improved since then, but those problems, along with the atrocious security (FP4 used AOSP's public test signing keys, with publicly-available private keys, for its firmware) and sketchiness around specs, standards and openness (especially for the camera), generally turned me off the company.