I was secretly hoping they'd stop supporting the Pixel 4a so I would have a reason to get a new phone, but no, still there in the list of supported devices. So I guess I'll just keep using that thing another year... Anyway: big thanks to the Lineage maintainers, keeping so many phones from landfill!
If you need a reason, the modem and the baseband firmware have several unpatched vulnerabilities on that model, which is not something that an Android update can resolve.
I have yet to find a banking app that refuses to work on LineageOS. The only problem is if you root your phone, in which case you'll have to use Magisk to hide root from those apps, which also works fine so far.
Revolut is notrious in this regard. If memory serves, they explicitly check the build string for LineageOS and block the app if it matches. The workaround at the time was to build the ROM yourself with a new build name string.
This is the problem: it was a cat and mouse game always. I managed even strong integrity with keybox stuff and so on. Yes it is possible. But if you really need to do send money or e. g. want to pay with NFC, it gets rather stressful. Yes, I got everything working (Note 10 pro on LOS 23), but never longer than a few month.
I just decided to completely stop paying with NFC. I always carry a few cards with me and Wero is already working in a few spots, which requires just your banking app and a working camera.
I don't even have Google Wallet installed anymore.
Good to know. I'm using N26 and they work just fine in Graphene OS. What I do is I create a private space for the apps needing play services, which I keep locked most of the time. This acts as a separate profile and when locked, the apps including play services are completely off. My main profile uses only open source apps and no play services.
I actually called N26 (I'm a Metal customer with my own phone support) and asked will they support Graphene OS or no, and they said to me they will and gave me instructions what to keep in mind when installing the app.
In Germany that would be market places like eBay or Amazon (i.e. non-originally replacement parts). Original ones go for around 45 EUR (iFixit). But I guess you wouldn't care too much about original parts at that age.
I bet sprinkle beside the bath is ok, but toilet plop is not ( I have seen the second one, I suggest grabbing it without any delay, better grab it working because you have to grab it anyways)
I replaced battery in mine for like 90 EUR and several months in dropped it and broke the screen. Would still use it instead of 9a, love how light and compact the phone was. At least now I have a spare phone to root and do stuff with that I couldn't on my main one.
Would be interesting for x86-based tablets/convertibles, like for instance an old Lenovo X1. I tried using these with Linux with various different distributions, including PostmarketOS, and it was not a good experience.
I bet soon most of the apps you can only get on a smartphones are gonna require some kind of attestation that is unlikely to be given to your laptop running an "unsanctioned" version of android.
Though it might have some use if you at least can run linux userland inside android, including a whole desktop session, without any performance degradation.
It can be complicated. I don’t remember the whole story, but I think on the older Xperias you’d have to take care to reinstall the proprietary drivers and there were keys that could be permanently lost and then you’d be out of some of the enhancements.
I’m not sure that as a casual user that this fact would bother me very much, especially the kind of user who is using LineageOS as an alternative to replacing an old phone that has lost software support entirely. Getting security updates on a 3 month lag is a lot better than not getting them at all.
I also think amount of times a 3 month lag would have any significant likelihood of affecting me personally with an active exploit seems low.
A lot of CVEs don’t have widespread active exploits and a lot of threat actors aren’t sufficiently motivated. A lot of exploits require the user to interact with something sketchy or for the attacker to have a specific reason to target you.
While not great, a private space or work profile with Shelter can work in a a pinch. I use it e.g. WhatsApp, where I just need three people, but which is almost unusable if you don’t give it the permission.
It’s a bit more annoying but also isolates stuff like photos etc. by default, so you don’t have to think about it.
GrapheneOS actually feels just like LineageOS, except that it has faster upstream updates, better security, and greater usability...
I don't understand why it took LineageOS so long to update to AOSP 17, while GrapheneOS managed to update to 17 in just 3 days. LineageOS really should be based directly on GrapheneOS.
> I don't understand why it took LineageOS so long to update to AOSP 17, while GrapheneOS managed to update to 17 in just 3 days.
Here's a hint: GrapheneOS has paid developers working on it full-time, while LineageOS is done by people in their spare time. Also, GrapheneOS has a collaboration with Motorola and through that gets for instance early access to security patches, and probably other things as well. And lastly, LineageOS supports roughly 10x the number of devices. It's significantly easier if you restrict yourself to Pixels.
Absolutely love this project for keeping my OnePlus 6T alive.
Such sad state of affairs for Android. They dropped the ball on making any working edge deep learning inference framework. iOS is way better at this of all things. For being an OSS platform the amount of rigidity in not letting users customize to the fullest without rooting is just tragic.
Just see out of touch with reality this section is compared to the insanse community work on Apple Silicon across whisper.cpp/mflux/llama.cpp/MLX/Exo & way more
The only reason I have been switching phones is banking apps: so much for Europe's right to repair..
I don't even have Google Wallet installed anymore.
I actually called N26 (I'm a Metal customer with my own phone support) and asked will they support Graphene OS or no, and they said to me they will and gave me instructions what to keep in mind when installing the app.
It requires a sim card and cannot be used from multiple phones. So they put you to this endless face scan loop and then lock you out.
>While it’s still in experimental state, it has successfully booted on:
>Common x86_64 PCs
>Apple Silicon Macs
>NVIDIA DGX Spark
>Qualcomm Snapdragon X Series Laptops
That actually sounds awesome! Refurbishing old laptops with Android would be a nice choice alongside with Desktop Linux.
Though it might have some use if you at least can run linux userland inside android, including a whole desktop session, without any performance degradation.
With this attitude it's almost inevitable. Politics can stop the corporate-OS attestation apocalypse. If it happens, it's on us.
App consistency
Upstream app availability and release cycle
Security.
(@0xcafebabe: ADHD high-five, I've got almost the same target list, except I'm playing with their NPUs)
Is this still the case? My guess is that Lineage doesn't get the drivers necessary for better quality maybe.
A sufficiently motivated threat actor will have them (the exploits) too.
I also think amount of times a 3 month lag would have any significant likelihood of affecting me personally with an active exploit seems low.
A lot of CVEs don’t have widespread active exploits and a lot of threat actors aren’t sufficiently motivated. A lot of exploits require the user to interact with something sketchy or for the attacker to have a specific reason to target you.
It’s a bit more annoying but also isolates stuff like photos etc. by default, so you don’t have to think about it.
I don't understand why it took LineageOS so long to update to AOSP 17, while GrapheneOS managed to update to 17 in just 3 days. LineageOS really should be based directly on GrapheneOS.
Here's a hint: GrapheneOS has paid developers working on it full-time, while LineageOS is done by people in their spare time. Also, GrapheneOS has a collaboration with Motorola and through that gets for instance early access to security patches, and probably other things as well. And lastly, LineageOS supports roughly 10x the number of devices. It's significantly easier if you restrict yourself to Pixels.
GrapheneOS does not have circle battery.
> LineageOS really should be based directly on GrapheneOS.
What would that achieve?
LOS => most security, most usability, breadth of support
Such sad state of affairs for Android. They dropped the ball on making any working edge deep learning inference framework. iOS is way better at this of all things. For being an OSS platform the amount of rigidity in not letting users customize to the fullest without rooting is just tragic.
Are you running unofficial builds right now ?
What even is there in Android 17 to talk about, same old UI, no non-google AI features to run on-device without root
Just see out of touch with reality this section is compared to the insanse community work on Apple Silicon across whisper.cpp/mflux/llama.cpp/MLX/Exo & way more