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I want a phone I can actually fix, and Fairphone’s record growth shows the world does too (www.androidcentral.com)
submitted 9 months ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] 55 points 9 months ago (46 children)

I want GrapheneOS more than repairability, personally. I hope the Fairphone + GrapheneOS combination is possible some day...

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  • [–] 25 points 9 months ago (23 children)

    The Graphene devs explicitly only support Pixels. Sticking with Graphene means continuing to give Google the profits from your hardware.

    /e/OS is not bad as an alternative. The system wide ad and tracker blocking is nice.

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  • [–] 25 points 9 months ago (5 children)

    This is a big issue that the fairphone doesn't have its dtb open yet. It's not easy to build ROM for it. Despite their core claim of sustainability, without addressing the blobs, it remains just a tad more convenient for green minded people. We need a full Fairphone.

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  • [–] 9 points 9 months ago

    That's fair and all, and I see your point. A 100% "fair" phone is the end-goal.

    Butin the battle against corporate douche-baggery, if we keep making perfect the enemy of good, we'll never get anywhere.

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  • [+] -8 points 9 months ago (3 children)

    And besides that, fairphone is just greenwashing when it comes to repairability, good luck finding parts for previous generations.

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  • [–] 18 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    That demonstrably false by just going to the store...

    I don't know why people keep saying that.

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  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago

    I think it is because 90% of company sustainability is simply greenwashing.

    Fairphone also had the whole "fairbuds" thing where they released tws earbuds (and then removed the headphone jack) and supported them for under 2 years before throwing them away and they are completely non-repairable, then acted like they didn't exist.

    The new fairbuds are 10x better though, but I have heard the sound on both of their headphones is mediocre at best.

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  • [–] 11 points 9 months ago*

    You can still get cameras and screens for the Fairphone 2 from Fairphone. No they're not making more, but they also have never said "unlimited support forever".

    That the process doesn't require prying apart glue alone makes it significantly more repairable than any other mainstream phone.

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  • [–] 18 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

    /e/OS is not bad as an alternative. The system wide ad and tracker blocking is nice.

    I switched to e/os on a couple of motorolas that supported it and it's great so far.

    The comparisons to GrapheneOS are fair to some degree, but also not. Graphene is meant to be privacy and security hardened, whereas e/OS, while it is more secure than regular android, is more concerned with privacy hardening. The biggest misconception people have seems to be thinking that privacy and security are the same thing; and while that is true on the surface level, security (a la GrapheneOS) goes much deeper.

    So while my phone may not be as "hack resistant" as a GrapheneOS, it's degoogled and very protective of tracking, which is what I'm primarily concerned with. So I'm happy.

    I just wish I could afford a fairphone in Canada.

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  • [–] 13 points 9 months ago (6 children)

    I just bought a refurbished (as new) Pixel 9 to use Grapheneos.

    Saved ~50% and didn't pay Google.

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  • [+] -11 points 9 months ago (5 children)

    Genius! That is exactly how I buy my slaves

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  • [–] 3 points 9 months ago

    Agree, buying a used pixel made by slave labor wage is still morally grey. And buying them used increases their market value, therefore people can find buying a new pixel easier as they can sell it for more later.

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  • [–] 4 points 9 months ago (4 children)

    Sticking with Graphene means continuing to give Google the profits from your hardware

    GrapheneOS only supports Google Pixel because they are the most secure Android phones, with open-source images and 5+ years of security updates.
    You don't have to give money to Google. I got my Pixel 4a and my mother's 6a from second-hand sellers.

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago (3 children)

    Sure, but then you are also not funding Google's competition in order to help improve choice.

    Buying second hand might make you feel better because you didn't directly fund Google, but you're still helping them maintain their position.

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  • [–] 0 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    «Funding competition» means giving money to Chinese State companies, for most consumers.

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago* (1 child)

    Most of the american companies are using Chinese manufacturing for much of the devices. Fairphone is European, but same manufacturing sources.

    In 2026, as a Canadian... Choosing between a country that is adopting nazi practices and threatening us with annexation, and one who has a questionable history but is overall doing more for climate change and global stability right now than the other... The choice is easy. Anything but american.

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  • [–] 4 points 9 months ago (19 children)

    What maskes you want Graphene over e/OS? I’m not so familiar with how they feel.

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  • [–] 18 points 9 months ago (18 children)

    Graphene modifies AOSP for much more security.

    E.g.

    • you can disable USB data at a hardware level
    • Receives Kernel updates even faster than Google's phones
    • uses a different memory allocator, hardened_malloc
    • changes the way zygote launches apps, so ASLR actually works
    • doesn't allow apps to ptrace themselves
    • disables JIT per-app
    • disable network access per-app

    I dont think e/OS is as security oriented, more privacy oriented

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  • [–] 3 points 9 months ago (17 children)

    Thanks for sharing. For someone who is not so well versed in these technicalities, what does that mean for the user? That you’re more susceptible to fraud and hacking and malware?

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  • [–] 7 points 9 months ago* (10 children)

    From a user's perspective, when you install an app, you can:

    1. Determine if that app is allowed to access the internet.
    2. If it needs access to your contacts, you can share which of your contacts, it can see (or none at all)
    3. If it needs access to your files, you can determine which files/photos/music it sees (or none at all, but the application still believes it has access to everything)

    There are a bunch of other, security features it provides, but from a "normal user" experience, the ability to take control of your data is probably one of the most impactful.

    It is possible to do similar things with other CFW, but AFAIK, graphene is the only one to cleanly integrate it as a polished feature of the ROM.

    edit: fix formatting

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  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago (9 children)

    I see, and it can’t be installed on Fairphone?

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  • [–] 3 points 9 months ago (6 children)

    No, currently only on Pixels. Plans to support another future platform exist.

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  • [–] 3 points 9 months ago (5 children)

    Hmm, in mean time I prefer buying Fairphone over supporting Google.

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  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    I prefer secure systems. Buy used/refurbished for not supporting Google.

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  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    I think it still supports Google. If someone wants a Pixel and one less is available second hand, thats one more person buying it in store. Probably not 1:1 relationship there, but still.

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago

    Precious few people bother with alternative ROMs. GOS users are a small subset of that. The impact on new Pixel device sales is very close to zero. In future, there is the promise of a new OEM. I wouldn't sweat it.

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago

    If I've got my story straight. (and if not, someone here will surely correct me)

    For Graphene to deliver the advanced security provided by their OS, they need features found on newer processors and want more timely firmware updates. Google currently delivers on both needs.

    FP is behind on hardware, prob cost cutting to make modular costs more affordable.

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  • [–] 6 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    Basically GrapheneOS is for people worried about law enforcement or some state actors trying to access their phone using some commercial tools or 0 day exploits. It's useful for journalist, lawyers, activists and so on.

    Average users don't really have to worry about those things. It's unlikely that someone will try to hack you using such tools, you most probably don't have any data wort protecting and it's quicker and easier for you to just unlock your phone than to spend days/weeks/months in jail trying to protect your data.

    What average user should care about is removing Google from their phones and blocking trackers. Other ROMs like iode also come without Google and have better tools than GrapheneOS for blocking trackers. They are as secure as any other Android phone.

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  • [–] 6 points 9 months ago

    Average users don’t really have to worry about those things.

    That's true, until it isn't. What's legal and moral now can change in a flash. Having a phone that's resistant to software infiltration isn't a bad thing.

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  • [–] 5 points 9 months ago* (3 children)

    A big thing is gOS not using JIT compiling. So, app updates are pretty slow but this kills a lot of malware exploits.

    https://grapheneos.org/features#exploit-mitigations

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  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    So if I were to choose graphene over eOS it would mainly be to be more protected from malware?

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  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago

    That and privacy, you also have a lot of control over what each app can do with gOS's permissions settings vs standard ROM and most of that is enabled by default. Can break some apps, especially banking related. I have 122 installed, of that three gave me a little bit of trouble where I had to disable some protections to get them functional. DeGoogled by default, I use microG for some limited Play services to get stuff like Youtube Revanced working.

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  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago

    Fairphone is the sort of phone for people who think LineageOS with an unlocked bootloader is secure made by a company who has sincerely promised to make things better but hasn't substantially improved security (especially in how often they push security patches). Grapheneos is not a brand name you can just apply to give a phone more reputation, its an OS that represents the highest standard of security.

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