Re:Ask HN: Stock Android phone free of bloatware?
by wilsonnb3 on Friday June 30, 2023 @10:01AM
(#36535069)
GrapheneOS stops supporting phones when Google stops releasing new firmware for them for security reasons, so you aren’t going to get longer term support from it.
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Re:Ask HN: Stock Android phone free of bloatware?
by kdklol on Friday June 30, 2023 @11:28AM
(#36536708)
They do have extra 2 years of partial "transitional" support, if I'm not mistaken. But yes, even they will not support them forever as it's not financially feasible without help in the form of first-party updates.
Re:Ask HN: Stock Android phone free of bloatware?
by tiberious726 on Friday June 30, 2023 @11:35AM
(#36536873)
To do anything else would be snakeoil at best: no open source project can support the radio firmware
Re:Ask HN: Stock Android phone free of bloatware?
by allarm on Friday June 30, 2023 @12:36PM
(#36538019)
Is it technically possible to write an open source firmware for the existing wireless chips?
Re:Ask HN: Stock Android phone free of bloatware?
by all2 on Friday June 30, 2023 @12:53PM
(#36538291)
Technically, yes. The big hangup is that spec sheets for these chips are often hidden behind NDAs, so devs are left reverse engineering existing firmwares. This extra barrier to entry hobbles further development for many phones.
Re:Ask HN: Stock Android phone free of bloatware?
by mschuster91 on Friday June 30, 2023 @12:57PM
(#36538360)
Not really, modem firmware even for wifi and BT is pretty much tied down "thanks" to regulations, you won't get far without an exploit bypassing the signature verification. Governments are apparently very afraid of people modifying their chipsets to be more powerful in range than allowed.
Re:Ask HN: Stock Android phone free of bloatware?
by whelp_24 on Friday June 30, 2023 @01:57PM
(#36539364)
Could you link me some of those regulations or a article on it. I am curious
Re:Ask HN: Stock Android phone free of bloatware?
by tiberious726 on Sunday July 02, 2023 @11:21AM
(#36562260)
https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-47/chapter-I/subchapter-A... basically, they use the firmware to enforce compliance with the regs on different regions. If you can load your own firmware, you could make the device no longer compliant.