i’ve been using graphene os for about a decade now and my second pixel (6a) is approaching it’s end date. i am not a techy person. i am, however someone concerned with digital privacy. when enough people who i find trustworthy endorse technology like graphene, i take a leap of faith because the alternative seems so much worse.
to get to my point, i’m wondering how the fairphone compares to graphene. my understanding is that most fairphone users run lineage os. does the security compare? does the repairability of fairphone compromise its security? i’d really appreciate an expert opinion or two.
Fairphone’s mission is about fair resource extraction, longevity and repair-ability. Security is not part of that. GrapheneOS refused to make their OS work on Fairphone, as some hardware security features apparently don’t exist on Fairphone. Most Fairphones come with stock Android. That said, there is at least one other OS that is purpose-built for Fairphone. I have not looked into how secure the Fairphone can be made.
E/os is the os for fai$phone that got a few security and privacy features. Works well, I am using it because fair and repairable is more important to me than the best security/privacy. Got shelter running, in my work profile I got all the asshole apps like whatsapp and google services (thats frozen most of the time). Its not perfect but good enough for me
Just out of curiosity, can you see which Android security update /e/os is on? It should be in settings somewhere around android version or software info or something like that, it’s a date like “October 5, 2026” or similar.
September 5, 2026 according to mine. Sometimes they’re quite quick to update, other times it seems to take a few weeks.
Nice, it’s the most recent available at the time of release as far as I can see. Android security updates are currently a bit of a mess everywhere, including on official android on pixels, because Google has been overwhelmed and there’s been layoffs etc.
i love the mission. if i have to carry a phone to exist i’d rather buy one more and fix it forever. and as i mentioned, i don’t really want to patronize google just to have a degoogled experience. thanks for the info, strongly leaning that way.
I’m using Fairphones since v3, all of them on /e/OS. I don’t know for security per se but degooglisation is up to the max and I’m very happy about it. And if you really need a google service, microG is installed, configured and sanboxed so the UX is very smooth
I started my journey with the FP6 with e/os and am loving it!
Same. Have been using mine for almost a year now, and you may count me as a happy user.
Here is a comparison table of the android distros.
thanks for this. i have some terminology to look up, but this looks very helpful!
Really happy with my 2nd hand pixel 9a and graphene
Do you use stock aosp camera or a 3rd party camera?
What made you switch to Graphene a decade ago? I did not know it was a thing then. I have been curious but cannot get past the insane devs.
not sure it was a solid decade, but it’s been a while. my first pixel was a 4a. anyway, just hearing about it from tech privacy influencers i was following. i’ve not followed any of the drama, but if it’s bad all the more reason to switch.
