GrapheneOS is the only Android OS providing full security patches

https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/115647408229616018

by akyuu • 8 months ago

793 432 8 months ago

grapheneos.social

komali2• 8 months ago

may i ask how you obtain the source? Are you registered as an OEM at Google?

Same question, how does Graphene get patches?

AlgebraFox2• 8 months ago

Yes. They've parterned with an OEM. In fact, they are making an official GOS phone with that OEM.

styanax• 8 months ago

Here's the discussion forum post going over it: https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/27068-grapheneos-security-p...

throawayonthe2• 8 months ago

afaict it's more like "making sure <OEM>'s next flagship supports graphene"

subscribed8• 8 months ago

They have partnership an OEM who provides them with sources.

Currently they're only permitted to release binaries of the patches due to the embargo, this is why these patches are in the parallel stream/optional (so people unhappy with being unable to see the sources won't have them shoved down their throats).

I don't have URLs at hand at the moment but all these questions have been asked many times and explained extensively on their discussion forum.

I, for one, feel safe. I was patched since late October (IIRC) for the vulnerabilities that Android-related outlets were warning about in early December.

It's quite surreal how unsafe the standard Android is. And how Google and the big companies pretend old devices (these running Android 11, 12, 13, not updated for several years) are safe and secure. While all it takes is the user stumbling upon one malicious we page or getting a WhatsApp message they won't even see.

yaro3303• 8 months ago

It's quite surreal how unsafe the standard Android

Well that's untrue. I'd even venture to say that with how many OEMs there are it's insane how safe Android is. Google for one updates their devices for 7 years since Pixel 6, they can't control OEMs who might have ~10 people working on their devices.

walterbell• 8 months ago

https://tbot.substack.com/p/grapheneos-new-oem-partnership

GrapheneOS has officially confirmed a major new hardware partnership—one that marks the end of its long-standing Pixel exclusivity. According to the team, work with a major Android OEM began in June and is now moving toward the development of a next-generation smartphone built to meet GrapheneOS’ strict privacy and security standards.

axelthegerman• 8 months ago

Oh that's one of the best news in the smartphone world in a long time.

It's impossible to escape the Apple/Google duopoly but at least GrapheneOS makes the most out of Android regarding privacy.

I still wish we could get some kind of low resource, stable and mature Android clone instead of Google needlessly increasing complexity but this will over time break app compatibility (Google will make sure of it)

Edit: I do think Pixel devices used to be one of the best but still I'd like to choose my hardware and software separately interoperating via standards

Kuraj• 8 months ago

You might also be interested in Jolla Phone https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46162368

tenthirtyam• 8 months ago

I'm not knowledgeable enough -- what would it take to escape the Apple/Google duopoly?

I'm imagining a future where you buy a smartphone and when you do the first configuration, it asks you which services provider you want to use. Google and Apple are probably at the top of the list, but at the bottom there is "custom..." where you can specify the IP or host.domain of your own self-hosted setup.

Then, when you download an app, the app informs the app provider of this configuration and so your notifications (messenger, social media, games, banking, whatever) get delivered to that services provider and your phone gets them from there accordingly.

Is there anything like that in the world today?

itissid2• 8 months ago

I have been trying to come off of google and cloud by building — quite slowly — my own nas server which has 2 nodes in two geographic regions where I am building certain services like cloud storage and backup, webhosting etc. But I think there are a few key things that need to be community driven to really get rid of this duoply.

0. A privacy first approach would be something like this:

`You+App --Read/Write-> f_private(your_data) <--Write only- 3p` and App cannot communicate your data to 3p or google/apple.

Think of Yelp/Google Maps but with no _read_ permissions on location, functions can be run in a private middleware e.g. what's near an anonymous location or ads based on anonymous data. You can wipe your data from one button click and start again for EVERYTHING, no data is ever stored on a 3p server. Bonus: No more stupid horrible permission fiascos for app development that are just plain creepy.

1. An opensource data effort that can support (0) with critical infra e.g. precise positioning, anonymous or privacy preserving functions that don't reveal their data or processes to 3p.

Here is my favourite open source effort: Precise Location Positioning. A high recall, opensource, 3D building and sattelite-shadow Data-Infra effort[3]. This world class dataset on shadows and sattelites are a must. Most geo-location positioning tied to Radio signals is just a bandaid and fraught with privacy issues — thought there are heroic privacy first efforts in this direction[1][2] which though amazing will be playing catch-up with google already deploying [3].

[1]https://beacondb.net/

[2] https://github.com/wiglenet/m8b

[3] https://insidegnss.com/end-game-for-urban-gnss-googles-use-o...

RandomThrow321• 8 months ago

Totally agree. Pixel devices are probably still the best Android offering, but I originally got into the ecosystem because it was less confined and that appears to be changing. While I'm likely not representative of most consumers, I would love it if I could choose both the right device and right software for my particular needs .

toastal2• 8 months ago

but still I'd like to choose my hardware and software separately interoperating via standards

This is why I can’t do GrapheneOS. Pixel devices do not suit my needs (& aren’t available). 2 of the big appeals for my going Android was 1) device options 2) ability to customize (appearance, apps from other sources, root access). Google has basically done everything to prevent #2 & GrapheneOS prevents #1. …This is why I also have a Linux phone to just leave these restrictions.

test1072• 8 months ago

Even if google breaks compatibility, still using some compatibillity mode it's possible to run such apps right ?

brightball• 8 months ago

I’ve been an iPhone user from the beginning but this would really tempt me.

sans_souse2• 8 months ago

Pixel phones currently have the additional benefit of a full Debian OS running via AVP. This is (imo) on par with or better than having Termux on a rooted device. It's still fairly off-the radar which makes it a really good time to be exploring it's uses.

matheusmoreira4• 8 months ago

This is excellent news. Google doesn't sell Pixels in my country for some reason. Hopefully the new phones will be easier to obtain.

DANmode4• 8 months ago

Have you considered using mail forwarding, or sites like Swappa.com with forwarding built in?

Hoping this helps you get your hands on a cheap Pixel!

YY876438726• 8 months ago

Has the OEM in question been revealed yet? Likely not one of the major OEMs because they all lock their bootloaders. I'm crossing my fingers it's Fairphone but that's because I love my FP5. The GrapheneOS devs have been pretty harsh towards Fairphone because of their slow updates.

moooo99• 8 months ago

They seem to refuse that they're working with fairphone, so it seems unlikely.

https://www.reddit.com/r/GrapheneOS/comments/1o3vmn5/comment...

My guess is that its either HMD or Nothing. Will probably still take a while until we learn about this

umbra072• 8 months ago

The most likely contenders are OnePlus, Motorola, and HMD.

"It is a big enough OEM that there is good chance you may have owned a device from them in the past."

I think this takes Nothing out of contention.

CommanderData3• 8 months ago

If you've run a open source project almost of any size, it's quite a task having to support it on various devices scenarios.

The GrapheneOS devs are doing the right thing for the longevity of the project. Focus on a small number of phones/hardware. It guarantees its long term success.

Excellent work I think, also the Pixel hardware design offers slightly better security with the baseband.

bloqs• 8 months ago

I literally just bought a pixel this week. Just my luck.

muyuu• 8 months ago

probably good timing

this will take a while and RAM prices will be out of control for a while as well

palata20• 8 months ago

Pixel with GrapheneOS is still great. And it may take 1-2 years before GrapheneOS gets on this new device.

Now if you just bought a Pixel, it will be supported for 8 years, so by this time hopefully GrapheneOS will be available on many different devices :-).

getpokedagain• 8 months ago

I guess my 8a is gonna have to do for a bit longer. This one is very exciting.

joelthelion2• 8 months ago

This is really cool, but, longer term, what happens if Google makes android closed source? I feel this is a very real risk.

worldsavior6• 8 months ago

They won't because they literally control the mobile market by having Android open source.

palata20• 8 months ago

Not sure if the big manufacturers would want to depend on a proprietary Google OS. Samsung does make a lot of changes to the OS, for instance.

ysnp6• 8 months ago

Well, in the much longer term they have usually mentioned they would like to use a more secure/private foundation (more in the direction of Qubes/Redox/Fuchsia) with a compatibility layer for Android apps if they have the resources to do so.

jhasse2• 8 months ago

Then Android gets forked.

hamandcheese• 8 months ago

I wonder if a real OEM supports graphene if that would solve device attestation for things like banking apps.

rl3• 8 months ago

Never underestimate stupid, especially for that sector.

rjdj377dhabsn3• 8 months ago

Non-Google attestation is still a bad thing.

I'd much rather GrapheneOS continue to get popular enough that banking apps are forced to support phones without attestation.

speakspokespok• 8 months ago

I'm writing this on a grapheneos pixel 5. I have the app for very-large-USbank and a few others. With 'exploit protection compatibility toggle' enabled they works fine. In what regard this applies to device attestation I couldn't say.

jhasse2• 8 months ago

GrapheneOS has device attestation support on Pixel devices, i.e. it passes SafetyNet. It's just that some apps (e.g. Google Pay) explicitly exclude it.

czernobog• 8 months ago

Damn, I just got a Pixel 10 pro XL for installing GrapheneOS. I hate how below average Pixel's hardware is and I wouldn't have minded waiting a couple of more years for this.

Mond_• 8 months ago

Pixel hardware is below average? Since when? That sounds like a flagship phone to me.

ottah• 8 months ago

We will see how that goes. I love GrapheneOS, I've used it for years, but the details matter. An OEM partnership might promise a lot at the start, but a lot can change between now and delivery.

preisschild7• 8 months ago

Worst case scenario we still have Google Pixels.

nanomonkey• 8 months ago

As a LineageOS user, I'd be interested in the disparity between GrapheneOS and LineageOS.

worldsavior6• 8 months ago

https://eylenburg.github.io/android_comparison.htm

uneekname• 8 months ago

This is a great resource! Thanks

the_biot• 8 months ago

That comparison shows "Deblobbed? Yes" for GrapheneOS. That implies they've replaced (most of) the blobs for wifi, bluetooth, 5g chips etc.

Is that actually true? It's such a big deal, and I see little to no work being done on this front.

Anyone have any idea what GrapheneOS actually deblobbed?

rolandog• 8 months ago

Nice! Thanks for the link. I noticed they didn't mention MOCOR OS (for the new Nokia 3210), but then I remembered that that's not an Android version. I'll see if they can add it somewhere else.

Unrelated, but this led me to find gnuclad, which may be somewhat externally maintained and is used to create the cladogragms.

mcsniff• 8 months ago

If you care about security above all else and you have a Pixel, GrapheneOS should really be your only consideration.

LineageOS has a place for those who care less about security and more about features, "freedom", compatibility, community etc...

I was a LOS user and maintained my own forks for devices, but switching to GrapheneOS was a good decision and I don't really miss anything.

subscribed8• 8 months ago

It might be important to mention, that Lineage OS is available on a number of the devices abandoned by their original vendors, so sometimes it may be a much better solution to get a Lineage OS onto their former "flagship" which stopped getting updates 18 months after the release.

So if the bootloader can be relocked and not passing Play Integrity scam is not a problem, Lineage may be a better option. Better than nothing, that is.

zekica• 8 months ago

They have different goals:

GrapheneOS wants to make a FOSS Android with the security model that makes it hard for any bad party to break into the phone.

LineageOS wants to make a FOSS Android that respects user's privacy first and foremost - it implements security as best as it can but the level of security protections differs on different supported devices.

Good news is that if you have a boot passphrase, it's security is somewhat close to GrapheneOS - differing in that third parties with local access to the device can still brute-force their access whereas with GrapheneOS they can't - unless they have access to hardware level attacks.

akimbostrawman• 8 months ago

that is simply wrong.

GrapheneOS is both in terms of security and privacy the best but currently only supports pixel phones.

LineageOS is trying to support as many devices as possible still with lot of google connections and missing security updates.

Good news is that if you have a boot passphrase, it's security is somewhat close to GrapheneOS

its not anywhere close https://grapheneos.org/features

Itoldmyselfso4• 8 months ago

How can LOS's security be somewhat close to GOS if it's worse than OEM? LOS lacks verified boot, hardware security features, it's often behind is security patches.. With "advanced protection" enabled stock OEMs are even more secure, but GOS is even more secure still. When it comes to EOL devices, LOS may be more secure than OEM depending on your threat model.

https://eylenburg.github.io/android_comparison.htm

xxmarkuski• 8 months ago

Graphene OS provides advanced security capabilities and a thorough defense-in-depth approach including a hardened supply chain. GOS aims to provide mechanisms to protect against 0day attacks. For example Celebrite can not open up GOS. GOS relys on hardware support provided by Pixels. Graphene OS works on getting their developments upstream.

For a list of security features see here [0].

[0] https://grapheneos.org/features

ForHackernews5• 8 months ago

GrapheneOS is a locked-down, security-hardened system that's good if you need absolutely maximal security (e.g. journalists, activists, folks targeted by state actors). LineageOS is a more of an open system for tinkerers who want to play outside Google's walled garden.

You can have root to control your own device on Lineage, but not Graphene.

arcanemachiner• 8 months ago

I believe you can root GrapheneOS. It just breaks the security model, so it's not recommended to do so.

jasonvorhe3• 8 months ago

It's not really locked down. You can toggle or enable some of the more activist-orientated features. The only limitation I'm aware of is that some apps requiring the strongest Play Integrity setting (ChatGPT, some banks, very few airline apps) just won't work on GrapheneOS.

drnick15• 8 months ago

If you have a Pixel -> Graphene, if not -> Lineage.

I personally don't care about "security" all that much, my main reason for using Graphene is freedom to use my hardware in any way I wish. This means unrestricted ability to run any program on the phone from any source. Sideloading restrictions don't apply to Graphene, and it is also impossible for state actors to impose things such as client-side scanning of text messages. It's also immune to unwanted AI anti-features.

I use my own "cloud" infrastructure with my phone and I am not interested in using Google's. My Graphene device is configured to route all traffic through Wireguard tunnel and my DNS server. I also use exclusively use my own email server and "cloud" storage for all non-work related purposes. Graphene makes this easy by not leaking any information to Google.

blurker• 8 months ago

That sounds amazing. I aspire to get a setup like yours. I am on a Pixel with the stock OS and I can't stand the way Google is pushing AI into everything on my phone.

I haven't switched it to Graphene OS yet because I read that there are issues with NFC and a few other things. I assume this new phone won't have those problems so I think that will be my catalyst to do a big overhaul.

user2722• 8 months ago

Don't understand your statement about avoiding client-side scanning of text messages. I've always assumed it would be done by the apps themselves, e.g. WhatsApp, Telegram, etc..

preisschild7• 8 months ago

Here is a good comparison among the major open source android distributions

https://eylenburg.github.io/android_comparison.htm

SubiculumCode2• 8 months ago

Why was it that in the early PC days, IBM was unable to keep a lid on 'IBM compatible', allowing for the PC interoperability explosion, yet today, almost every phone has closed drivers, closed and locked bootloaders, and almost complete corporate control over our devices? Why are there not yet a plethora of phones on the market that allow anyone to install their OS of choice?

idle_zealot• 8 months ago

Why are there not yet a plethora of phones on the market that allow anyone to install their OS of choice?

There are technical reasons, but as ever the real underlying causes are incentives. Companies realized that the OS is a profit center, something they can use to influence user behavior to their benefit. Before the goal was to be a hardware company and offer the best hardware possible for cost. Now the goal is to own as large a slice of your life as possible. It's more of a social shift than a technological one. So why would a company, in this new environment, invest resources in making their hardware compatible with competing software environments? They'd be undercutting themselves.

That's not to say that attempts to build interoperability don't exist, just that they happen due to what are essentially activist efforts, the human factor, acting in spite of and against market forces. That doesn't tend to win out, except (rarely) in the political realm.

i.e. if you want interoperable mobile hardware you need a law, the market's not going to save you one this one.

fmajid4• 8 months ago

Most ARM devices don't have UEFI or a standardized hardware abstraction layer as x86/x64 does, a prerequisite for having a choice of OSes.

photochemsyn• 8 months ago

I generally agree, but as a caveat sometimes it's cheaper, more robust and more efficient to build an integrated system without having to worry about interoperability. BYD's electric vehicle chasis for example, seems to greatly cut manufacturing costs, even if it makes swap-in repairs harder down the road.

But, I'd guess this accounts for a relatively small fraction of corporate decision on lock-in strategies for rent extraction - advanced users should be able to treat their cell phones OS like laptops, with the same basic concepts, eg just lock down the firmware for the radio output, to keep the carriers happy, and open everything else, maybe with a warranty void if you swap out your OS. Laws are needed for that, certainly.

AnthonyMouse5• 8 months ago

So why would a company, in this new environment, invest resources in making their hardware compatible with competing software environments?

Because that's what customers want to buy. People are paying premium iPhone prices for hardware with mediocre specs and then the hardware sells out when someone like Purism or Fairphone actually makes an open one. How many sales would you get if you did the same thing on a phone that was actually price/performance competitive with the closed ones?

Meanwhile all of that "profit center" talk is MBA hopium. Nobody is actually using the Xiaomi App Store, least of all the people who would put a different OS on their phone.

The real problem here is Google. Hardware attestation needs to be an antitrust violation the same as Microsoft intentionally breaking software when you tried to run it on a competing version of DOS and for exactly the same reason.

piyuv• 8 months ago

Cory Doctorow answers this in his book “The Internet Con”. IBM fought with DoJ for years. Today, it’s a felony to mess with anything locked down (anti circumvention)

subscribed8• 8 months ago

I don't think it's a felony to root/jailbreak one's own phone.

mattmaroon• 8 months ago

The only thing proprietary in the early PC architecture was the BIOS. Everything else was pre-existing architecture from third parties, there was nothing to keep a lid on.

Since a PC was a big box of parts anyone could manufacture one. A modern phone is much more complicated.

As to why there aren’t a plethora: the market doesn’t demand it that much. The people doing it aren’t wildly successful. Perhaps that’s changing (I hope so) but I know very few people outside this community who have ever thought “I wish I could have a third party version of Android”.

mcny3• 8 months ago

Even the batteries are not interchangeable on phones. You'd think all phones should have the same exact battery, that this kind of standardization is beneficial for phone manufacturers as it helps them bargain with their parts suppliers but no for whatever reason we can't have that.

Edit: I am not saying just user replaceable. I mean standardized so the same cells in a 2024 phone also works on 2025...

shagie2• 8 months ago

The company making a device that is licensed by the FCC has to do everything that they can to mitigate the risk of an unlicensed broadcast on their devices.

https://www.fcc.gov/oet/ea/rfdevice

INTENTIONAL RADIATORS (Part 15, Subparts C through F and H)
An intentional radiator (defined in Section 15.3 (o)) is a device that intentionally generates and emits radio frequency energy by radiation or induction that may be operated without an individual license.
Examples include: wireless garage door openers, wireless microphones, RF universal remote control devices, cordless telephones, wireless alarm systems, Wi-Fi transmitters, and Bluetooth radio devices.

https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-47/chapter-I/subchapter-A...

Other countries have similar regulations.

PCs don't have that restriction.

You might be able to get to the point where you have a broadcast license and can get approved to transmit in the cellphone radio spectrum and get FCC approval for doing so with your device... but if you were to distribute it and someone else was easily able to modify it who wasn't licensed and made it into a jammer you would also be liable.

The scale that the cellphone companies work at such liability is not something that they are comfortable with. So the devices they sell are locked down as hard as they can to make it clear that if someone was to modify a device they were selling it wasn't something that they intended or made easy.

AnthonyMouse5• 8 months ago

I see people saying things like this all the time and then when I ask them for the specific text requiring them not to e.g. publish source code, nobody has been able to show me.

And a huge reason it seems like BS is this:

PCs don't have that restriction.

There are obviously PCs with Wi-Fi and even cellular modems, so this can't be an excuse for a phone to not be at least as open as a PC.

fooqux2• 8 months ago

The company making a device that is licensed by the FCC has to do everything that they can to mitigate the risk of an unlicensed broadcast on their devices.

Where do you see this in the rules? The only thing I see that even comes close is the following sentence:

"Manufacturers and importers should use good engineering judgment before they market and sell these products, to minimize possible interference"

Maybe it's because I don't routinely deal with the FCC but to me, that language doesn't imply anything close to your ironclad rule you posted.

I'll also point out there are plenty of other devices that get sold that seemingly break your rule. SDRs, walkie talkies with the power to transmit for miles, basically every computer motherboard made since the year 2010, the Flipper, etc. At most, they simply have some fine print in the manual saying "you should probably have an FCC license to use this".

jabl• 8 months ago

Other companies saw that IBM effectively lost control over their platform (and thus lost a large revenue stream), and are determined to not make the same mistake.

That's a long running effort, going all the way from lobbying (DMCA and their ilk), to all kinds of hardware root-of-trust, encrypted and signed firmware, OS kernels and drivers etc etc. And yes, today we have the transistor budgets to spend on things like this, which wasn't an option back when the PC architecture was devised.

chasil• 8 months ago

The systems and software were vastly less complex and powerful in the 8088 days.

Very little of it was open, including the headliner apps of WordPerfect and 123.

Google had the benefit of three decades to study IBM's loss of control to prevent it with Android. Aside from China, they have been largely successful.

cwyers2• 8 months ago

Because the original IBM PC was designed to be cheap and built in a hurry. IBM had a mandate for the original PC to use off the shelf components as much as possible. They also neglected to secure an exclusive license from Microsoft for DOS. 95% of building an IBM PC clone was buying the same parts and getting a DOS license from Microsoft (which they were very happy to sell you). Everyone saw what happened to IBM and just didn't do it that way again.

cwyers2• 8 months ago

You can actually look at history and see what happens when IBM tries to wrest control of the PC platform back with the PS/2, which was a flop with consumers because it wasn't backwards compatible enough with IBM's own previous PCs or the wider PC market that developed. A bunch of PC clone manufacturers got together and came up with the EISA bus standard so they wouldn't have to pay IBM license fees for MCA, and made it backwards-compatible with ISA cards people already had. It was successful enough that IBM ended up adopting EISA for some of their PCs.

The other notable thing about the situation is that three companies ended up simultaneously responsible for a large part of the PC platform, originally -- IBM, Microsoft and Intel. They all worked in various ways to encourage competition to each other -- the reason we see OS competition on the PC platform is that IBM and Intel both found it in their interests to allow other OSes on the platform to reduce Microsoft's leverage over them. IBM in fact created one of the competing PC OSes out the gate, OS/2, which was originally an IBM/Microsoft joint project until they started feuding. Now, OS/2 is dead, but IBM's interest in being able to support their own OS instead of Microsoft's is a big reason the PC platform was built in an OS agnostic way. People criticize UEFI for locking down the PC platform more than the previous BIOS implementations, but UEFI is still _way_ more open than basically any other platform, most of which don't have a standard for bootloaders at all. It's really the absense of a standard for bootloaders that keeps most Android phones locked down. Two Android phones from the same OEM might have different bootloaders, much less two phones from different manufacturers. We've yet to see an alternate OS with the resources to support implementing their own bootloaders for a majority of Android phones.

masklinn• 8 months ago

Why was it that in the early PC days, IBM was unable to keep a lid on 'IBM compatible', allowing for the PC interoperability explosion

IBM didn't think to lock it down, the BIOS was the main blocker and was relatively quickly reverse-engineered (properly, not by copying over the BIOS source IBM had included in the reference manual). They tried to fix some with the MCA bus of the PS/2 but that flopped.

almost every phone has closed drivers

Lots of hardware manufacturers refuse to provide anything else and balk at the idea of open drivers. And reverse engineering drivers is either not worth the hassle for the manufacturer or a risk of being sued.

Why are there not yet a plethora of phones on the market that allow anyone to install their OS of choice?

Incentive. Specifically its complete lack of existence.

acomjean• 8 months ago

IBM was in a hurry.

From triumph of the nerds part 2 ( worth a watch.. they also explain how IBM ended up getting and operating system from Microsoft)

https://www.pbs.org/nerds/part2.html

https://youtu.be/_cMtZFwqPHc

“In business, as in comedy, timing is everything, and time looked like it might be running out for an IBM PC. I'm visiting an IBMer who took up the challenge. In August 1979, as IBM's top management met to discuss their PC crisis, Bill Lowe ran a small lab in Boca Raton Florida.

Bill Lowe:

Hello Bob nice to see you. BOB: Nice to see you again. I tried to match the IBM dress code how did I do? BILL: That's terrific, that's terrific.

He knew the company was in a quandary. Wait another year and the PC industry would be too big even for IBM to take on. Chairman Frank Carey turned to the department heads and said HELP!!!

Bill Lowe Head, IBM IBM PC Development Team 1980:

He kind of said well, what should we do, and I said well, we think we know what we would like to do if we were going to proceed with our own product and he said no, he said at IBM it would take four years and three hundred people to do anything, I mean it's just a fact of life. And I said no sir, we can provide with product in a year. And he abruptly ended the meeting, he said you're on Lowe, come back in two weeks and tell me what you need.

An IBM product in a year! Ridiculous! Down in the basement Bill still has the plan. To save time, instead of building a computer from scratch, they would buy components off the shelf and assemble them -- what in IBM speak was called 'open architecture.' IBM never did this. Two weeks later Bill proposed his heresy to the Chairman.

Bill Lowe:

And frankly this is it. The key decisions were to go with an open architecture, non IBM technology, non IBM software, non IBM sales and non IBM service. And we probably spent a full half of the presentation carrying the corporate management committee into this concept. Because this was a new concept for IBM at that point. BOB: Was it a hard sell? BILL: Mr. Carey bought it. And as result of him buying it, we got through it.

cons0le• 8 months ago

You're getting a lot of indirect responses. If you've ever tried to mod your android phone the answer is simple. Its google play services and hardware attestation for things like banking websites.

Its really easy to make a custom rom but hard to do serious "real life" stuff; companies don't want to make it easy. To most regular users, if they cant download apps from the google play store, and they can't use venmo\cashapp, then the OS is dead in the water from day 1

SubiculumCode2• 8 months ago

Yeah but lots of phones you can't get ROMs for from a reputable source, and I sure as heck don't have the know how or time to build one, even if possible, which a lot of times is not due to locking down bootloaders, drivers, etc.

charcircuit10• 8 months ago

This just shows that the barrier of entry of a new phone OS is more than $0. You can pay app developers to port their apps off of play services, you can pay developers to add support for your attestation keys. Considering how many billions of dollars Android makes for Google, there is a room for a return on investment for an alternate OS to enable investments into a new OS.

HPsquared• 8 months ago

The business world learned from their mistake.

flomo2• 8 months ago

Nobody gave you the actual answer. IBM was under an antitrust decree and had to openly license their technology for a nominal fee. (Supposedly about $5/PC.) So yes, they were in a hurry and used generic parts, but they still had tons of patents on it. When they got out from under this, they came up with Microchannel.

treyd2• 8 months ago

This and also cryptography technology was not nearly as sophisticated and easily accessible as it is today, and where it existed it was pretty slow on the hardware of the time.

fainpul• 8 months ago

I guess antitrust is the keyword here. Something that is considerably weakened in today's USA.

fpoling• 8 months ago

The hardware was evolving way faster 40 years ago and in much consequent ways than these days. Plus number of users grew exponentially. So a company spending too much efforts on software could loose its edge on the hardware side. And locking hardware would be counterproductive since as it would limit new users.

These days things are way slower and the are no exponential growth in users. Plus fast cellular networks made the speed of local hardware much less relevant. So the software became way more important and so its control.

fsflover18• 8 months ago

Why are there not yet a plethora of phones on the market that allow anyone to install their OS of choice?

Here you go: https://puri.sm/products/librem-5 and https://pine64.com/product-category/pinephone/

killerstorm• 8 months ago

Well, back in the day many of the people making buying decisions were tech enthusiasts who like the idea of upgradeability, etc. Computers were quite expensive, and people didn't want to waste money on a box which can only do one thing.

Besides that, "app store" was just not feasible with tech of the day.

When vast majority of customers do not care, you can ship a locked down device.

You can buy a hackable phone, but it's a niche

jMyles• 8 months ago

Obviously this situation can't go on.

If neither of the two major players can make an open, secure, _simple_, easy-to-understand, bloat-free OS, then we somehow need another player.

Presently (and I confess, my bias to seek non-state solutions may show here), it seems that a non-trivial part of the duopoly stems from regulatory capture insofar as the duopoly isn't merely software, but extends all the way to TSMC and Qualcomm, whose operations seem to be completely subject to state dictates, both economic/regulatory and of the darker surveillance/statecraft variety (and of those, presumably some are classified).

I'm reminded of the server market 20ish years ago, where, although there were more than two players, the array of simple, flexible linux distros that are dominant today were somewhere between poorly documented and unavailable. I remember my university still running windows servers in ~2008 or so.

What do we need to do to achieve the same evolution that the last 2-3 decades of server OS's have seen? Is there presently a mobile linux OS that's worth jumping on? Is there simple hardware to go with it?

akyuu• 8 months ago

Take a look at Jolla and Sailfish OS.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46162368

https://sailfishos.org

nextos• 8 months ago

FWIW, Jolla just announced a new phone: https://commerce.jolla.com/products/jolla-phone-preorder

frogperson• 8 months ago

https://liberux.net/ looks promising as well.

Klonoar6• 8 months ago

One comment mentioned Jolla. Another currently available option is [FuriLabs](http://furilabs.com). It runs atop Hallium/etc but you are effectively still able to daily drive a mobile Linux shell and contribute to the ecosystem if you want to see it grow.

Now with that said: so much work has gone in to Android (and by extension, Graphene) to improve on power usage/security/etc that I'm not sure I'd bother to actually run a mobile Linux device. The juice just doesn't feel worth the squeeze.

aaravchen4• 8 months ago

Furilabs was just in the news here because they discontinued their device models from a few years ago, and released a new device for a big price bump with _significantly worse_ hardware.

I know I would love to give them a try, but a 720 screen is an absolute non starter for me. It would be hard for anyone to sell me on just a FullHD (1080) screen in the era of QHD (2K) being industry standard. Additionally, I believe their FAQ even admits that their already low power devices only get a few hours of battery life.

fsflover18• 8 months ago

GNU/Linux phones exist and can be used as daily drivers, if you put enough effort in it. Sent from my Librem 5.

palata20• 8 months ago

If neither of the two major players can make an open, secure, _simple_, easy-to-understand, bloat-free OS, then we somehow need another player.

I really hoped that Huawei would go for a fork of AOSP (they could even pull the changes from Google :-) ), but they chose to go with their proprietary HarmonyOS.

y-c-o-m-b• 8 months ago

Graphene has really caught my eye in the last several months, but unfortunately I couldn't find a good deal for Pixel phones (>128GB storage), used or new. That's the biggest bottleneck for adoption it seems. I just finally switched from an S10E to a S25Ultra (black friday deal brought down to $820), but not being able to use Graphene in the future hurts a bit for sure.

gruez• 8 months ago

Graphene has really caught my eye in the last several months, but unfortunately I couldn't find a good deal for Pixel phones (>128GB storage), used or new. [...] I just finally switched from an S10E to a S25Ultra (black friday deal brought down to $820),

There are plenty of deals for pixels under $820: https://slickdeals.net/search?q=pixel&searcharea=deals&searc...

morserer6• 8 months ago

Goodness, friend, where were you looking?

A used 256GB Pixel 8 in good condition is $320. https://swappa.com/listings/google-pixel-8?carrier=unlocked&...

whitepoplar2• 8 months ago

One caveat--you have to be certain that you get a Pixel with an unlocked bootloader. There are a lot of Pixels (mostly sold by Verizon) that are unlocked for use with any carrier, but whose bootloaders remain locked. If you have one of these ex-Verizon phones, there is no way as of now to unlock the bootloader.

jacooper• 8 months ago

Just wait for the new OEM to drop their phones with GrapheneOS support. Pixel hardware is garbage tier.

sgt• 8 months ago

Samsung Androids are not safe? Big surprise there! /s

jimjimwii• 8 months ago

Given what they choose to ship with their phones in some regions, id say that Samsung absolutely doesn't care about the security of their customers of they can get away with it.

mrbluecoat• 8 months ago

GrapheneOS goes even further by allowing you to opt in to pre-embargo security releases, bypassing the vulnerable window between vendor disclosure and OEM patches. Awesome!

einpoklum2• 8 months ago

... maybe, but it also drops support pretty fast, and not supported on most phones :-(

charcircuit10• 8 months ago

It supports devices just as long as the OEM does, which for modern Pixels is now 7 years, which is more than what Apple advertises for the iPhone. Considering people upgrade phones every 2 or 3 years, this is over double the amount of time of support than one would use the phone for. I disagree the support is for a short period of time.

einpoklum2• 8 months ago

An important motivation for a FOSS OS for phones is not having to buy a new phone just to have up-to-date software.

Also, "people" who buy a Google-Pixel-level phone every two years are likely among the richer... let's say 10% of the world's population? Probably even less. The rest - don't do that.

CommanderData3• 8 months ago

Pixel's design makes a good candidate for GrapheneOS or a secure OS in general.

The baseband hardware is not integrated the same way like other phones are.

ysnp6• 8 months ago

I don't think that is a consideration for the project. Their OEM partnership also includes supporting a current generation Snapdragon SoC which seems to feature an integrated modem.

A component being on a separate chip is orthogonal to whether it's isolated. In order to be isolated, the drivers need to treat it as untrusted. If it has DMA access, that needs to be contained via IOMMU and the driver needs to treat the shared memory as untrusted, as it would do with data received another way.

from https://grapheneos.org/faq#baseband-isolation

immibis12• 8 months ago

You can tell it's truly secure and private because the Cellebrite leak says they can't break it (one of very few!) and some governments assume you're a drug dealer if you use it. My next phone will run GrapheneOS.

bnjms• 8 months ago

Does the Celebrite leak say out can break recent iOS?

wepple• 8 months ago

Have a link to the source? And have they said they can’t break it, or haven’t yet? I’d imagine from a business perspective it would hardly be worth it

holysoles• 8 months ago

There more sources if you google, but someone leaked a Cellebrite meeting.

https://www.androidauthority.com/cellebrite-leak-google-pixe...

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/10/leaker-reveals-which...

cherryteastain• 8 months ago

https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/14344-cellebrite-premium-ju...

fluidcruft3• 8 months ago

It could also just mean they haven't bothered try

array_key_first2• 8 months ago

I would imagine it's a very high priority if you have powerful targets. They're not gonna be running an off-the-shelf android phone.

Itoldmyselfso4• 8 months ago

Their marketing slides include GOS, and they have since 2021 I think was just said "can't access that".

preisschild7• 8 months ago

Considering they mention it on their marketing materials, they definitely did bother

raggi4• 8 months ago

Understaffed gift product wants 1 week cycles.

OEMs want 2-4 month cycles.

This is a perfect representation of the state of the software industry.

luca0204002• 8 months ago

I don't think that's a fair comparison.

OEMs have quite a lot of extra steps before releasing any build to the public.

They have to pass xTS, the set of test suites required before getting certified by Google, possibly carrier certification, regulatory requirements and more depending on where the build will be released.

There are "quicker" release channels for security fixes, but I don't think it's common for OEMs to only ship those without any other change to the system.

I don't think Graphene does anything of sort, they take what's already certified in the Pixel builds and uses it. Not like they could do much aside testing on the public part of xTS.

yaro3303• 8 months ago

Yep. And GrapheneOS's changes to the kernels of devices they ship are laughably small, 20-30 commits at most. I don't think they even do any basic CVE checks on any of the source code.

Fuzzing, actual security analysis - all those things are done by Google.

raggi4• 8 months ago

I don't think that's a fair comparison.

Fair?

OEMs have quite a lot of extra steps before releasing any build to the public.

AIUI updates are less stringent and burdensome than initial certification. Regardless much of the process is automated. Graphene has CI too. 3PL's taking 4 weeks to run automated tests is also absurd. There are some "manual steps" to run CTS-V but they shouldn't be weeks level burdensome either. This is the point, this is an industry problem.

The reason that the OEMs even have to deal with this 3PL test mess is for GMS certification, so again this is a policy decision that enforces a poor process. The bad properties of the process are not inherent to the problem space of validating builds against requirements. An industry problem.

There are "quicker" release channels for security fixes, but I don't think it's common for OEMs to only ship those without any other change to the system.

Seems like a decision that is not user-centric.

I don't think Graphene does anything of sort, they take what's already certified in the Pixel builds and uses it. Not like they could do much aside testing on the public part of xTS.

Private test suites for software are a toxic idea, it's in the same box as "SSO tax", and other such "pay for security" models. Given the software industry can't be trusted not to do this, I'm almost keen to see legislation to explicitly ban this practice.

ysnp6• 8 months ago

Hopefully you don't mind me asking this question, but didn't you work with people who managed to do exactly what you are suggesting with a fairly small team at Essential for a few years?

strcat13• 8 months ago

We'll have the same update pace for security updates and major releases with the devices we're working on with our OEM partner. That's not specific to Pixels. It will in fact be easier to support the devices with the OEM partner due to them planning on doing most of the device support work including getting MTE working properly. For Pixels, we have to do a lot of work on device support, while for non-Pixels that work is going to be done for us. Our OEM partner is actively getting what's needed from Qualcomm including getting them to fix things. We're in direct contact with Qualcomm ourselves and plan to deploy new security features they've developed which are not yet available elsewhere.

Samsung and Google ship a small subset of the security preview patches early while we're shipping all of them. We're doing a lot of work to integrate and test those. We also have to port them from Android 16 to Android 16 QPR1 and now Android 16 QPR2. It seems they might start providing them for Android 16 QPR2 themselves but for now we had to port them for our QPR2 releases.

We also have to test and fix all the issues caused by us having much more advanced exploit protections including full system hardware memory tagging with a more advanced implementation. We uncover MANY upstream memory corruption bugs we need to fix. Features like Contact Scopes, Storage Scopes, 2-factor fingerprint authentication, etc. are not always easy to port to new versions. We still don't have early access to upcoming quarterly and yearly releases but we'll get it and then we can have day 1 updates for those instead of it taking days for an experimental release and around 1-2 weeks before it reaches the Stable channel. We intend to do much better than we are now, we just need the same early access OEMs have but don't actually use to make day 1 releases for major OS updates.

p0w3n3d• 8 months ago

The problem with custom android ROM is that the kernel is built with proprietary drivers, and porting them to other custom android is really hard

strcat13• 8 months ago

GrapheneOS doesn't have any proprietary kernel drivers. There aren't any for the supported devices. Firmware and a subset of userspace driver libraries such as the Mali GPU driver library are what's proprietary.

lima• 8 months ago

Great, so this means that the only way to get an Android release that's up-to-date on security patches is a binary-only distro - either Google Pixel, or the GrapheneOS preview channel.

Just wonderful. Google should know better than this, shame on the other OEMs that forced this mess.

morserer6• 8 months ago

If it's any consolation, preview builds are reproducible at the point that the embargo ends. A bit better than the definition of binary that we're used to.

https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/27068-grapheneos-security-p...

t1234s• 8 months ago

I notice my battery life is much better switching to graphine from the stock google rom.

drnick15• 8 months ago

Yes, but keep in mind individual apps like Signal need to run in the background at all times if you want to receive timely notifications on Graphene, because they cannot rely on the Google backend for that. If you have enough such apps, you may well find that battery life is shorter than on the stock OS.

0xC0ncord• 8 months ago

This is true if you opt not to install Google Play Services.

morserer6• 8 months ago

https://unifiedpush.org/ fixes this for a number of apps. Self-hostable.

Battery life is still better than stock in my case, and it's just as reliable as sandboxed Play. Highly recommend.

hobberhaven• 8 months ago

So this is interesting, they release the patched binaries several months before anyone else does and several months before the source code of the patches is released?

This implies that anyone can download GrapheneOS firmware images and use binary diffing techniques to find what are still 0-day vulnerabilities on every Android other than GrapheneOS.

Useful! Thank you GrapheneOS developers.

shaky-carrousel• 8 months ago

You can extend your thanks to Google, as what you said is also easily done with Google's own updates.

agentifysh• 8 months ago

which pixel model is best for grephene? I strongly prefer long battery life.

will other phones be supported? why only pixel?

mac-attack• 8 months ago

https://grapheneos.org/faq#recommended-devices

eks391• 8 months ago

The OS is not very relevant to the Pixel. Compare the Pixels you like that are new (GrapheneOS drops support as models become older flagships, I think for security reasons) and get that one. IIRC, currently only Pixel is allowed, because the bootloader can be opened without rooting the device.

https://grapheneos.org/faq#device-support

morserer6• 8 months ago

Unrelated to bootloader or rooting. Pixels are the only phones that adhere to the device requirements that are listed in the FAQ.

https://grapheneos.org/faq#future-devices

lucyjojo• 8 months ago

damn, an upgrade path from my pixel 5.

singpolyma34• 8 months ago

The GrapheneOS obsession with picking a fight with everyone else is the most unfortunate part of the project.

bubblethink• 8 months ago

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”

RGBCube• 8 months ago

That's actually one of the best parts.

timschumi• 8 months ago

Not for the ones on the receiving end.

Itoldmyselfso4• 8 months ago

It doesn't seem to be the entire project, just one dev (afaik) that's quite outspoken and does make accusations that they don't always seem to back with evidence. Also insofar as the actual "product" remains completely untouched by any spats it shouldn't be a dealbreaker for anyone wanting to use GOS, but of course it isn't ideal to have any drama attached.

worldsavior6• 8 months ago

He never shows any evidence. Always accusing without any images/links. I love the project but it looks not normal.

strcat13• 8 months ago

You're making libelous claims without evidence while falsely claiming that I'm doing it. This typically goes along with baseless claims that I'm insane, delusional, schizophrenic, etc. with links to extraordinarily dishonest content filled with obvious fabrications from a couple serial harassers. One of those serial harassers has an identity verified Kiwi Farms account and was the one who involved them in targeting me (kiwifarms . st/members/larossmann.132201/). We've provided a large amount of evidence. Here's the leader of Murena and /e/ linking to libelous harassment content towards me on a conspiracy site this week: https://archive.is/SWXPJ + https://archive.is/n4yTO and we have dozens more examples archived for him specifically. You target us with libelous claims, bullying and harassment then claim we're creating drama for defending ourselves from it and documenting it. If you want the 'drama' to stop then stop engaging in harassment.

Avamander• 8 months ago

When have they been wrong?

strcat13• 8 months ago

The attacks on GrapheneOS from Copperhead and their supporters including within other projects were not a fight we picked. You're pushing a false narrative in support of years of libel, bullying and harassment towards us. Your project's team has regularly engaged in very underhanded attacks on ours despite us never doing anything to you. We have archives of it.

Here's an example of what you support by the founder of Murena and /e/ who you support linking to libel and harassment on a neo-nazi conspiracy site (check out the site for yourself):

https://archive.is/SWXPJ https://archive.is/n4yTO

The video that's linked there is an extraordinarily dishonest character assassination video filled with very blatantly false claims. The person who posted the video is unsurprisingly friends with a bunch of neo-nazis. Copperhead failed in their attempt at filing a baseless lawsuit against us and is on track to pay years of our legal fees.

A typical approach you folks take is linking to Kiwi Farms adjacent harassment content based on fabricated stories and spin targeting myself and the rest of our team. One of the two main people orchestrating harassment towards us has an identity verified Kiwi Farms account and was the one who involved them in targeting me (kiwifarms . st/members/larossmann.132201/).

singpolyma34• 8 months ago

Listing a bunch of projects I've not heard of and attacking me for "supporting" them is exactly the kind of behaviour I'm talking about :P

ysnp6• 8 months ago

Your project's team has regularly engaged in very underhanded attacks on ours despite us never doing anything to you. We have archives of it.

What team are you talking about? JMP/Cheogram? This is the first I've heard of this.

grokx• 8 months ago

That is also my feeling, at least from a part of the GrapheneOS community. I have seen them despising and bullying /e/OS, Debian, F-Droid, the Linux kernel... Too bad for this project, that is amazing, to have such toxic folks.

Open source communities should help each other, and work together, not fight.

tranq_cassowary13• 8 months ago

You can't equate actions from a part of the community with actions by the project. If you would see any bigotry by a GrapheneOS community member, please report it to the moderators. Bullying, toxcity and misinfo are not allowed. Action will be taken.

I havent noticed a lot of that in the community myself, in which im very active. Its exceptional in my eyes. Common though is technical criticism on other projects when people ask advice about it or want a comparison with alternative. Also common is people being fed up by harassment by other projects.

The founder of /e/OS repeatdely attacks GrapheneOS in random internet threads that are only mention GrapheneOS. This contrast with the approach of GrapheneOS where they will only do a comparison with /e/OS in reponse to posts where both are mentioned and compared by others. Or, in reponse of wrong comparisons in the media or harassment (personal attacks etc.) stemming from them.

F-Droid does also have some maintainers that engaged in personal attacks against the GOS founder. And anyway what do you expect the project to do if people ask whether to get apps from Play Store or F-Droid? Pretend there is no technical security difference? If people ask questions, the project and community try to inform.

There is big conflict with Debian or Linux kernel at all. They also dont mismarket themselves or spread misinfo about GrapheneOS. They are concerned though that both heavily used projects lack a security focus.

Sparkyte• 8 months ago

AI can't work if the OS isn't secure... lol... I'm doomed.

chiph• 8 months ago

I absolutely loved my Moto X with the walnut back. I switched to an iPhone when it stopped getting security patches.

It was built back when Google owned Motorola, before they sold off everything but the patent suite. And was intended to be their flagship phone - which the Pixel later became. Looking at the GrapheneOS FAQ, it doesn't look like I have a prayer of installing it on such an old device as it doesn't have the needed security hardware. Is there a lightweight Android install available?

AstroNutt• 8 months ago

I've rooted and installed a few custom ROM's on phones back on the day, nothing recent though.

Here is a good place to get started with your Moto X. https://xdaforums.com/c/moto-x.2449/

cappuccinooo• 8 months ago

i like graphite its nice and blcack and conductive

CommanderData3• 8 months ago

Although I don't use it I will be supporting the project. I'm quite proud of what they've achieved so far.

dackdel• 8 months ago

who is the android oem they are partnering with

tranq_cassowary13• 8 months ago

Not yet disclosed. We know its a top 10 Android OEM though that cares about security for their future devices!

emsign• 8 months ago

Is this supposed to be a joke? The best security of GrapheneOS is useless to people who don't own Don't-be-evil-hardware.

tranq_cassowary13• 8 months ago

It is sadly not a joke. Its sad that OEMs outside Google and Apple currently dont make hardware and firmware with reasonable security.

rurban• 8 months ago

For Google Pixel 6-9 phones only.

https://grapheneos.org/faq#device-support

Jemm• 8 months ago

There are millions if not billions of older devices. What we need is an OS that support those.

tranq_cassowary13• 8 months ago

That would become a meaningless effort security wise as time goes on. The drivers and firmware will become outdated. OS updates are necessary but not sufficient. I get the e-waste / enviromental argument, and I think its very warranted to criticize OEMs for not providing long support times in the past. Apple and Google do this well in recent years, luckily.

mayukh_cube• 8 months ago

This is long needed! a lot of big tech giants, even some authorities are trying to convert mobile phones into a spying gadget.

GrapheneOS is the only Android OS providing full security patches

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