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Fairphone 6 Teardown: Proof Phones Don’t Have to Be Disposable (www.ifixit.com)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/technology@beehaw.org
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[–] 22 points 1 year ago (13 children)

Approaching the point where I need a new phone. Curious what would be better. A fairphone 6 with calyx or /e/ os. Or a new pixel with graphene. I've heard graphene is the best but the fairphone is very tempting

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  • [–] 14 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

    You shouldn't expect the next generation of Pixel phones to have GrapheneOS support out of the box. Google has stopped publishing device tree data, so custom ROMs for Pixels may not be a thing come the Pixel 10.

    We're all hoping this is reversed.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (6 children)

    Not in the market to change phones now, but always considering options in case I urgently need to replace it due to catastrophic failure (and fear of making an uninformed choice due to urgency).

    With that said, I have an iphone 11 right now with lockdown, stolen device protection, cloud encryption, and FIDO keys enrolled and it feels very secure whilst still letting me use banking apps normally etc. How does /e/OS compare to something like that and how vulnerable is it to being plugged in and downloaded or wormed by malicious actors, zero-click SMS attacks etc?

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    I don't have any of these devices, but Android devices do have lockdown and stolen phone protection if you use a Google account. Same, there is anti-phishing FIDO, etc..

    The alternative ROMs for Android devices are based on Android, but there are users that do no want any Google in their phone and that takes away a few functions (like find my phone stuff [correct me if I'm wrong here]).

    GrapheneOS is the strict option and locks the bootloader. e/OS can relock the bootloader on official builds. An unlocked bootloader is a security risk.

    Different ROMs have different issues when it comes to banking apps or biometrics.

    I don't use an alternative ROM, but I use an Android phone without a Google account. The most concerning missing function is find my phone, but there is an app for that.

    If someone has your phone and it isn't locked, they can potentially connect it to a computer and extract info. A locked Android device, like a locked iPhone, increases friction for whoever is trying to access the device. Relying solely on what I've read, iPhones are far more annoying to gain access to.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    Thanks this is very detailed! Don’t feel compelled to answer any follow-up questions (but you are welcome to!). Just wanna discuss with whoever has opinions and knowledge about it.

    One question about lockdown mode on Android though. This means you can’t unlock using biometrics, so you can’t be forced to unlock? On iOS it means it won’t render a lot of scripts and images with tracking on websites, emails, SMS, apps etc. as to make it much harder to exploit anything remotely. I’m wondering if such a feature exists on Android too. I don’t care that lots of websites look janky, I just feel safer knowing most exploits won’t work.

    I used LineageOS before my last phone crapped out on me. Ironically I needed to root my phone and use Magisk to hide root in order to make banking apps work. Because the bootloader had been unlocked it failed some google checks or something. Original software support was a pitiful 18 months, so kind of had to go custom rom too.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    Not who you were talking to, but I use GrapheneOS on a Pixel 9. I don't know if there's a "lockdown" mode, but I have my phone set up where I can't use biometrics to unlock the phone, but can use biometrics to log into my apps. As for the website/email based attacks, these are mostly rendered useless with the GrapheneOS subproject Vanadium, which is their security-hardened web browser, that I use by default. (https://grapheneos.org/usage#web-browsing)

    I have a bunch of banking apps (chase, discover, american express, citi bank, ally, and my local bank) and while I did need to turn off some of the more extreme safety features for some of those apps (GrapheneOS has a toggle for them on a per-app basis), all of them work without Google Play Services, something I don't have installed. Some of my other bills apps don't work even with that setting turned on (student loans, local utilities, home loan, etc.) But I just add a link to their website to my home screen and it doesn't really change my experience much. Also all my work apps (Slack, proprietary apps) have worked without Google Play Services. However, a bunch of apps do require google play services, and for my use cases most can be replaced with the website link, some can't. Google Maps is the biggest one, and while I have devised a way to get the great search from Google Maps anonymously through TOR and import the coordinates into CoMaps (FOSS alternative map app), that's the last part of my phone use that is still a pretty significant inconvenience.

    Any app that needs the stricter security turned off gets put in a separate user on my phone, that can't run in the background, to prevent any shenanigans there as well.

    For all my security needs, I haven't found a mobile OS that does everything I wanted as low-hassle as GrapheneOS, and I've tried a bunch.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

    Wow, thanks for sharing. I appreciate all the practical info. So you tried Calyx, Copperhead etc. too?

    The biggest thing turning me off most of these security-oriented roms is having to buy a Pixel. I kind of don’t want to go from one American big tech phone to another.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    I haven't tried copperhead due to the small list of officially supported devices, but I did try calyx. Calyx is honestly pretty close in terms of overall experience, and continues to get better. However, being newer, it lacks the overall polish/stability of Graphene. Also, at the time I tried it, it was lacking the web installer which makes moving to a new OS much simpler, but it has it now. As mentioned before, Graphene has their own web browser, which simplifies startup. Most of my other preferences are pretty nitpicky. Honestly, if I hadn't already had a pixel phone it probably wouldn't make too much of a difference, but having the pixel means it's kind of silly to turn down the extra base-level security Graphene provides. Honestly, given that I won't need a new phone for at least 5 years, there's a real chance of me getting the latest fairphone and calyx next, hoping that over that time they tighten things up.

    I totally understand your sentiment, and your best bet is probably the fairphone 5 when calyx is released for it, especially since they are committing to 8 years of security updates compared to pixel's 7.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    /e/OS looks interesting too and can be delivered from Fairphone with it pre-installed. I'm kinda lost since there are so many privacy-focused OSes based on AOSP. They could probably achieve more by merging some projects, but I imagine there are different philosophies separating them like in most OSS.

    In any case, lots of great info here. Cheers again for the insight.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Better for what ?

    For repairability ? The fairphone win easily

    For privacy ? Graphene OS has a small edge, but e/os or calyx are still way better than stock android.

    For not giving your money to evil corporation ? Fairphone is better.

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