this post was submitted on 24 Feb 2024
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Privacy
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I believe the devs of GrapheneOS have tailored their requirements to target Google Pixel phones for one simple reason: there aren't enough devs to help them support other phones. They probably owned Pixels and started development on them, got specialized in them and didn't want to branch out as that costs lots of time.
There's nothing wrong with that. The only issue I find with their reasoning is all the claims they make of Google Pixels being the only secure Android phones in existence. It's detrimental because non-techies will just repeat that to death because they don't know better - just like Appholes repeating that iPhones are the most secure phones out there and Apple cares about privacy. It's free advertisement for Google. So people head out and give Google more money than their data would ever be worth and they do it repeatedly every few years because it's "common knowledge" that Google Pixels are the most secure phones out there.
The worst thing about that is that Google didn't have to do anything. Had Google made those claims, people would be wary, but this is an independent group and because of that, people give it credence.
Not saying GrapheneOS is a shit project - it definitely isn't, just the claims and free advertisement these devs are giving Google is bad.
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The issue is that Pixels are one of the only manufacturers that lets you install a custom ROM and re-lock your bootloader, which is an important security feature. Afaik only pixels and xaomi can do that, so they could expand it a bit, but tbh if those are my two options I'll take the pixel.
If you don't care about relocking your bootloader just use lineageOS or eOS, they aren't as secure, but if you don't want/need it to be as secure they do exist as options.
Edit: Relocking and https://grapheneos.org/faq#future-devices my mistake
I've relocked 3 different phones from Samsung, Nexus (was that the old pixel? dunno), and OnePlus 🤷♂️ Maybe it's because they were old (<2020) ? No idea.
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With your own key? Nope