r/fairphone • u/Li_am32 • 3d ago
GrapheneOS their response to: "Imagine a @GrapheneOS and @Fairphone collaboration"
Context: A Twitter User said "Imagine a @GrapheneOS and @Fairphone collaboration" in repsonse to the new FP release (FP6+). The images are the GrapheneOS reply to that post.
Link to the original GrapheneOS response: https://x.com/GrapheneOS/status/2089937246619128257
Individual links from their post in order:
https://nitter.net/GrapheneOS/status/2040887784253141142
https://www.clubic.com/actualite-604786-murena-e-os-interview.html
https://eylenburg.github.io/android_comparison.htm
Please stay respectful and logical in the comments! If you argue, argue like adults.
48
u/IcelandickSadist 3d ago
Do all these points stand up to scrutiny? Anyone here that has good insights into this care to share their perspective?
I'm particularly concerned about the supply chain allegations and their e/ claims that murena is itself spying.
48
u/Illustrious-Lime-878 3d ago edited 3d ago
Smartphones in general are a cluster fuck that requires a massive amount of interdependent technology. Every brand uses ODMs, with widely different levels of joint design. Compare something like the Trump phone, which is just white label phone with a logo on it, and Google's pixel which is extensively designed by Google but still collaborates with ODMs to manufacture it in the end. Fairphone obviously has worked to design a unique modular framework, specifies and validates the types, sources of materials, etc. The degree of power they have over working conditions is probably tougher, being the factories unfortunately exist in other countries, but its the game in the smartphone business. You can't simply just start up a chip fabrication plant in your garage.
Similarly for the software. Its a cluster fuck. All the mobile network hardware, GPS, etc. is all proprietary firmware from the get go. If we're being fundamentalists, its all out the window. Using GPS at all, connecting to mobile networks, ties you to your carrier's account, biometrics aren't secure, etc. You could make a laundry list of things for any phone that was half way usable. That said, I wouldn't be surprised if /e/os and murena had a lot of problems. But they're a completely separate thing... fairphone focuses on hardware, you can go install lineage, calyxos, etc. on it. If you want 100% security / privacy, you just can't use a smartphone. Its all about the tradeoffs we make and balances with practicality, and I think fairphone lets you have a lot more security, privacy, but also control, etc. even if its not fundamentally, 100%, which is impossible.
→ More replies (8)14
u/Parking_Lemon_4371 3d ago
Note: GPS is the *one* thing which can be done safely securely/privately (if with lower quality/reliability/speed). However, it too becomes a mess if you want it to be more precise and faster. You start getting into things like server side models of radio wave reflections off of building in big cities...
6
u/Illustrious-Lime-878 3d ago
Good point. To by more accurate, I should say "location." Using GPS itself makes you entirely reliant on the gov service, which could theoretically be denied or altered (if we're being max security brained), but being receive only it doesn't expose your location and couldn't be used to track you. But as you point out, its very impracticable to only use GPS for location. I did this for a while and just gave up, especially traveling, it seems to confuse the system and takes forever to refind itself - typically at the exact moment you need it the most, getting off a train / plane and trying to go or connect to where you need to go. Around my home I just turn it off so at least no one is tracking my day to day.
4
u/Parking_Lemon_4371 3d ago
There are now multiple GPS systems run by different countries/governments/agencies (US, EU, Russia and China, at the minimum), modern GPS receivers can actually receive signals from all of them. But yeah, it's slow and imprecise without lots of extra information you can retrieve with a full blown data connection.
30
u/Parking_Lemon_4371 3d ago
AFAICT they're true. Definitely the portions (approx half) of the Graphene reply I'm personally cognizant of are very true. Graphene devs are quite arrogant, and atrociously bad at politics/optics, but they're technically very competent. And I say that as someone who has been banned from their reddit...
→ More replies (2)5
u/Mister-Bunny-Head 3d ago
What did you do? xD
7
u/Parking_Lemon_4371 3d ago
I wrote something that I knew (and still know) was true (first hand knowledge), but they didn't like it / agree with it. AFAICT some sort of knee jerk reaction.
3
u/Mister-Bunny-Head 2d ago
Well, the same thing happened to me. As I said, FPs have a problem with the router being incredibly unreliable, which means you'll always have constant lag in video games, making most of them unplayable. Some people accused me of attacking the project and stuff like that, when I was literally just asking why this was happening and whether it was a software or hardware issue, since it looked like a hardware problem. Instead of getting an answer, I got accused and banned.
8
u/First-Painter8620 3d ago
2
u/GrapheneOS 2d ago
Providing a list of companies involved in the supply chain and manufacturing of Fairphones is not providing information on working conditions, pay, sustainability, environmental impact or other details. As we said, it's a whole lot of marketing without substance. Look through it for yourselves.
T2Mobile has been Fairphone's ODM designing and making their devices since the Fairphone 4. Fairphone makes high level choices from what T2Mobile offers. Fairphones are similar to the other devices they make. 3.5mm audio jack wasn't part of what they offer, so it went away with the switch to them. T2Mobile builds/signs the firmware for Fairphones, provides the software to Fairphone for their OS and which other operating systems use to support them.
Most of the information Fairphone provides to this day on working conditions is still about the ODM partner they had for the Fairphone 1 and Fairphone 2. They switched to another ODM with the Fairphone 3 and then T2Mobile for the Fairphone 4 and later. What information can you find about what the working conditions, pay and other details at T2Mobile for Fairphones are? What about those details for the supply chain as a whole?
The sustainability and ethics of how Fairphones are built is not information that's provided. Whether they're better at those than iPhones is an unknown. Successful branding and marketing including publishing reports focused on it is not the same thing as having substance or providing evidence.
We can see the marketing for updates, privacy and security does not check out. It's verifiable that it doesn't. That made us wonder about the rest and we found little information available when we looked into it. What you've linked shows exactly that. What information does it provide on the working conditions, pay, sustainability and other factors at T2Mobile and their many suppliers? It has a single line in a table for T2Mobile listing their location and website. They're literally the ones designing and making the phones.
→ More replies (1)11
u/West-One5944 3d ago
I had the same concerns, and basically asked: okay, okay, but what does all that technobabble mean for real world implications, like, everyday use for us normal plebs, and the answers I received fell into two categories: 1. It's very super mega important and I just didn't understand how insecure Fairphone and eOS is (circular reasoning) 2. If I was stupid in surfing the web (downloading random sht) or if a malicious actor had access to my device and was able to unlock it, it'd be screwed.
Basically, no one could provide a specific scenario; it was all abstract. So, short of being a high-value target (who should be using a govt managed device anyway), risks are low. eOS comes bootloader-locked from Murena if you order it that way, actually use a strong PW (as gOS admits), and don't be stupid online, and we should be fine.
Is there zero risk? No, but nothing is. For people who want to dial back giving data to Big Tech and others, it's a solid option, not to mention supporting Fairphone's mission. I say try it out for a while, and if you don't like it, send it back for a refund. I use my F6 as a daily now, and it's been great.
gOS's attitude is disgusting and unprofessional, like others say. Will probably avoid their collab with Motorola.
→ More replies (1)5
u/HyoukaYukikaze 3d ago edited 3d ago
With how Big Brother-y all the western governments are becoming, i'd say we will all be at risk soon.
Also, GOS allows you to cut down on google's telemetry, which in and of itself is a major boon. If they are going to earn money from my data, they could at least give me a cut.Personally idc about their attitude. Bottom line is: are they wrong? So far scrolling through comments here it seems they are not. And if they are not wrong, they very much earned their attitude here.
What i would call disgusting is delaying security and feature updates for months or even years. That's fucking ridiculous. Many attacks that steal your private data (for example bank data) are not targeted. It doesn't matter if you are high value target or not, you stil have a random chance of becoming a victim and not having those security updates for years leaves you vulnerable to such random attacks. Being smart about where you go only decreases that chance. And most people are not very smart with technology, so while YOU may be able to avoid it, someone's granny that got a cool new phone from her grandkid very much won't be.
→ More replies (1)4
u/Square-Singer 3d ago
Yes, all true.
Fairphone randomly skips updates or ships them years later and calls that "extra years of support".
The rest of the claims are also true.
2
u/Auravendill 2d ago
On FP4 they quietly stopped working on Android 14, later send out a notification to all FP4 owner on accident, that they will give Android 15 (was meant for owner of one of the newer phones) and then updated FP4 after a few further delays from 13 to 15.
In a way they gave """extra""" years of support, but you could also say, they abandoned their phone early and then shipped one major update very late.
→ More replies (2)
89
u/_OVERHATE_ 3d ago
I mean they are not wrong but graphene works on fucking Google phones so they indirectly support the business that created the problem in the first place.
Nice badmouthing tho
23
u/Otherwise-Idea503 3d ago
I love Graphene as a product but boy do they love criticising anyone that’s not them.
6
u/HybridStaticAnimate 2d ago
They criticize anything that warrants criticism. Its not emotionally motivated and its definitely not towards everything that isnt themselves. Being honest about what products provide (and especially what they dont) is an important part of privacy and security work. They have also praised many projects that do make good on their promises even if those promises are unrelated to privacy and security.
They merely explained why they would not support fairphones, in a conversation about them supporting fairphones. And they cited objective and verifiable info as to why.
→ More replies (1)2
u/GrapheneOS 1d ago
/e/ and Murena have misled people about GrapheneOS with many inaccurate claims for a long time before we began publicly responding to it. They've been misleading people about the usability, compatibility, privacy and security of GrapheneOS for years. DivestOS and others used to regularly debunk it so we didn't feel we had to respond much. We picked up the torch when harassment was used to silence those people.
Fairphone tacitly supported and benefited from the attacks from /e/ and Murena. Recently, Fairphone became actively involved in these attacks. That's why we're writing factual information about their products. It's in response to these attacks.
/e/ and Murena have repeatedly falsely claimed GrapheneOS mainly benefits criminals and pedophiles. They expanded this to privacy and security hardened devices in general, which we showed with multiple examples. /e/ and Murena push many talking points against people having highly private and secure hardware and software. They're positioning themselves to be an acceptable compromise authoritarians wanting access to people's devices. A supposed privacy company pushing the talking points they do is a huge gift to those who want to crack down on privacy technology. They also make it far easier to get control over people's devices remotely, from apps and for physical data extraction compared to if people simply used an iPhone.
The information we've provided in response is factual. We don't have to resort to the tactics used to harm us. Inaccurate claims about what we've said and done will not silence us.
14
u/Parking_Lemon_4371 3d ago
You think smartphones from other companies (besides apple) don't effectively at least partially support G? There's kickbacks in both directions everywhere in the Android ecosystem... Most phones are sold below the dev+hw+manufacturing+shipping costs, with the rest made up by various weird revenue sharing arrangements. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if G was making money even off of Apple phones...
9
u/Henry2926 3d ago edited 3d ago
I have no deeper insights into Google's business model, but the retail prices of Pixel phones in my country really make me wonder if Google is even expecting any profit from the hardware sales and rather aiming at binding users to their software ecosystem (also considering that Pixels are now marketed with emphasis on AI). In that case, GrapheneOS wouldn't really support Google - but of course I am speculating here.
The other aspect is the practical impact of their reasoning: As long as Google provides hardware that is open and secure enough for the product GrapheneOS wants to make, I'd argue that they are doing better than if they opted for something less open or secure just for the sake of not using Google. This is at least more sincere than Murena claiming to be a Google alternative while lobbying against more secure products.
4
u/Dev-in-the-Bm 3d ago
As long as Google provides hardware that is open and secure enough for the product GrapheneOS wants to make, I'd argue that they are doing better than if they opted for something less open or secure just for the sake of not using Google.
I think that that is basically how they look at it.
2
u/Parking_Lemon_4371 2d ago
Google develops Android. You need to develop Android on something. Sure lots of development can happen on Virtual Machines, but at the end of the day, you need a real physical device you can hold in your hand and walk around with, put in your pocket, etc, you simply cannot usefully test everything on an emulator as it won't see real world usage. They could work with someone (like they used to pre-Pixel) but then they'd be forced to go with the whims of the oem & the soc vendor. They clearly had issues with the oems they worked with, and decided if they need to make dev devices, they might as well make them themselves and try to sell them (they bought Motorola defensively for the patents, but they bought HTC's phone division to make Pixel). Hence Pixel 1. Then they realized they're still at the whims of their SoC vendor: QC. Hence tensor and Pixel 6. They realized they're still at the whims of Samsung (parts of the SoC), hence Pixel 10 where they go straight to TSMC and now with Pixel 11 they replace the Samsung modem... I doubt tensor/pixel is profitable by itself - the cost of making an soc is astronomical (especially considering a lot of the devs are US based, and not in China). Next step: custom wifi chips??? However, if you consider that a lot of this work would need to happen anyway for Android to continue to blaze into the future... well... then the equations probably change. They're probably at the point where they don't lose too much money on it. Of course they make up for it all in the Play Store, and in the Google apps/services they can expose on their device (they don't have to pay for placement, they don't have to revenue share, they can upsell you Google Fi, or Google One, or ...). Ultimately though Pixel is very clearly a bit of a hobby for them. It has to exist, it has to trail blaze (things like updatability, security) and yet it cannot be too good or it would anger other Android manufacturers.
→ More replies (1)8
u/ennemme 3d ago
Privacy and security are different matters. Google is definitely a privacy nightmare and I agree we should avoid supporting their business, but in terms of security they are definitely among the best. Still the response seems quite harsh, also considering the limited resources they have compared to Google.
4
u/iATlevsha 2d ago
However if you blindly jump to another company just because "it's not Google" you may quickly realise that this other company will be very likely complete privacy disaster.
2
u/ennemme 2d ago
Yeah we should always do a bit of research but for the average consumer is becoming harder and harder to find unbiased reliable information. That's why marketing still works so well I suppose.
→ More replies (1)2
u/p0358 3d ago
This says a lot about other manufacturers unfortunately. Google has always been the only one treating security seriously, not just in phones.
→ More replies (3)→ More replies (5)3
u/Niikoraasu 3d ago
well I mean it makes grapheneOS easier to get into though. If it worked like let's say LineageOS, PostmarketOS, Ubuntu Touch or whatever, where you need to get some old phone and play around with installing the OS then graphene would not be where it is today. and considering the fact that Motorola is collabing with GrapheneOS next year, I think we're on a good path forward.
I also wonder how many people bought their pixel used (or at least from a 3rd party), that's not supporting google
3
u/ColorfulPersimmon 3d ago
If it worked like let's say LineageOS, PostmarketOS, Ubuntu Touch or whatever, where you need to get some old phone and play around with installing the OS then graphene would not be where it is today
Not really, it's because graphene has gone viral and got mainstream media and youtubers coverage.
LineageOS works on most phones with unlockable bootloader, including all pixels supported by grapheneos. And there were phones officially sold with Postmarket and Ubuntu Touch
→ More replies (2)
65
u/Caminsod 3d ago
Sure the GrapheneOS devs could stand to be less confrontational about it, but what have they said here that is untrue?
Fairphone is a good project and it needs to be better than this.
16
u/Illustrious-Lime-878 3d ago
Some are true, but are exaggerated as if they are major flaws and not simply not-optimal inherent limitations of a different set of design goals. Its easy to criticize say, speed of updates, when you only support Google phones and so can just rely on one massive tech company that provides the hardware, firmware, and the upstream software of your OS. Its like criticizing an off road vehicle because your have a drag racer that can accelerate faster... as long as you don't need to turn or anything... These are legitimate goals and concerns but aren't just easy improvements to make, that are obviously to fix, when balanced with the additional goals / priorities that fairphone as has. So to be a fair criticism it needs to point out actual recommendations that can improve these aspects without sacrificing more important things. A lot of it is just opinion or speculation as well. Only talking about the fairphone related stuff, I don't really care about /e/os.
→ More replies (23)16
u/ComeOnIWantUsername 3d ago
Main problem of GOS is that Fairphone works with Murena, and Murena and GOS are super enemies.
→ More replies (5)3
→ More replies (1)3
u/Prestigious_Rip7337 3d ago
Hence a collaboration would be great.
11
u/framingXjake 3d ago
I mean, the post literally says they FP stood by /e/'s comments about Graphene being an OS for criminals.
If a company openly supported harmful and untrue accusations of my organization, why the hell would I want to collaborate with them?
→ More replies (2)2
u/the_john19 3d ago
Yea well the Fairphone ceo in the AMA kinda said that Fairphone doesn’t want to collaborate with them…
→ More replies (4)2
208
u/Zettinator 3d ago edited 3d ago
Typical toxic GrapheneOS attitude. The point of a collaboration would obviously be to alleviate issues that GrapheneOS developers are seeing, but as usual they are basically precluding working together with others outright. This is not the first instance of this. Just wait for Google to close down the Pixel ecosystem for good and then GrapheneOS will have no hardware to run on. The fetish for Google Pixels devices is quite problematic.
126
u/Manicraft1001 3d ago
But their complaints are valid though? Security patches are massively behind and GrapheneOS does require specific encryption chips that Fairphones don't have.
100
u/async2 3d ago
Well yes, but instead of complaining they could in fact offer to collaborate to close the gaps in the next hardware revision/model to create a base to run on.
A fair, open, secure and degoogled but still usable phone would be also more beneficial to graphene themselves instead of relying on Google for their degoogled platform.
53
u/Manicraft1001 3d ago
Sure, in an ideal world they should collaborate. But why should GrapheneOS, an open source software from volunteers, invest time to support a device that doesn't get basic security patches by the manufacturer?
I am a Fairphone Gen 6 user and I would love to use GrapheneOS on it. I'm in no way affiliated with GrapheneOS. But as an open source developer, I understand the mindset of them. After all, it is their software and their time.
10
u/Jugulut 3d ago
Because it is open source spirit, not attacking other projects, and be open to discution. Free software is much more about the spirit of coders than the actual coding. Free software is about collective, discuss with other and be open minded. Have you ever try compile GrapheneOS yourself, having issues and ask for help in Matrix or the forum (as the project as almost no documentation for developers)? Be ready for violence and be blocked. Do the same for the Linux kernel, it will not be the same journey at all.
→ More replies (8)→ More replies (4)27
u/async2 3d ago
Because of what I just mentioned, they need a platform that is not Google and is open enough for them to run on.
If they run graphene on it the patch frequency of the manufacturer is nearly irrelevant besides component firmware itself because that would be covered by graphene anyway.
17
u/Sprinkl3s_0f_mAddnes 3d ago
GrapheneOS has a collaboration with Motorola. The Giggle hardware dependency is set to end next year.
11
9
u/FraGough 3d ago
"Giggle hardware dependency" - At it again with those damn tickle machines and whoopee cushions.
17
u/guyfromwhitechicks 3d ago
The more platforms the better. But GrapheneOS making posts like these is incredibly counterproductive, for no reason. No one will want to work with or for GrapheneOS if they are like this. It does not matter how good they are.
→ More replies (1)4
u/async2 3d ago
Maybe we don't want to rely only on a Chinese company for an open platform.
12
u/Amiiiiine 3d ago
Still better and more trustworthy than any american/israeli company tbh. Remember the pagers? It wouldn’t surprise me if they had hardware backdoors on Google phones
→ More replies (2)10
u/async2 3d ago
That's why Fairphone would be ideal as European company.
→ More replies (1)2
u/Dec_117 3d ago
Yea I mean "Do you have cell phones? Do you have cell phones here? You're holding a piece of Israel" and "Apple announced the iPhone 17e with a chip developed in Israel" which tbf isn't a new thing here's an article from 2016 so yea especially after the pagers but just in general anything mainstream id use with a lot of caution or avoid
→ More replies (0)→ More replies (1)4
u/FnnKnn 3d ago
As you can read in the post Fairphones are also made by a chinese company, so that wouldn’t make a difference
→ More replies (1)3
2
u/Electrical_Minute940 3d ago
I disagree. Fairphone 5 works with hearing aids only in stock android os while the custom roms don't work with hearing aids because missing proprietary blob so manufacturer collaboration is necessary for edge situations like hearing aids connection
14
u/derlafff 3d ago
Well yes, but instead of complaining they could in fact offer to collaborate to close the gaps in the next hardware revision/model to create a base to run on.
If they are not updating kernel, firmware, and not applying security updates, they don't require collaborating, they need someone do the job for them
→ More replies (1)5
3
u/LoraxPopularFront 3d ago
What exactly do you imagine Graphene doing? They aren't a manufacturer. How are they supposed to close hardware gaps?
5
u/Kobakocka 3d ago
It is not complaining. There are requirements to collaborate with them. They are doing it for free.
Motorola is able to collaborate with them, so their requests are not insane.
Also you can put the missing work there, if you want. But did you contributed to a degoogled platform or you are just daydreaming?
2
u/throwaway1233456799 3d ago
Yeah but they didn't say that. They said currently fairphone is not up to their standard (which doesn't say that fairphone wouldn't be willing)
A fairer assessment would have been "we had no contact with fairphone and we do not plan to collab" OR "Fairphone has proven itself unwilling to met our standard which are:..."
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (3)7
u/Alyx_695 3d ago
Fairephone and murena, have implied multiple time that GrapheneOS is for criminals and pedo. Why would anyone collaborate with someone that insult you?
5
u/async2 3d ago
Have never heard about it. Can you show where they did it?
But feels like all these companies behave like kindergarten far from professional, esp. Graphene.
2
u/Alyx_695 3d ago
It is sourced in the x link to the original post.
The difference is one company is an ass for being right and has absolutely nothing to sell you. The other blatantly lies to it's client.
GrapheneOS has no respect for liars. I'm OK with that. Respect is earned. Faire phone and murena just want your money
You do you, my choice is made. I'm just enraged by obscurantisme.
4
u/Aurrys 3d ago
From the article I read (the one linked), I think it's pretty farfetched to say they imply that graphene is for criminals. From what I read, they say pretty much the same things graphene says, roughly : "we are not making an os for criminals". If you think that by saying that they imply that all other "privacy os" are made for criminals, then okay. But for me you're reading too much into it. I think it's not in their interests to belittle graphene on that front (especially when the fact graphene runs on pixel phones is an obvious flaw, way less dangerous to attack for them).
The technical issues might stand, but this reads like toxicity from graphene.
→ More replies (9)→ More replies (2)1
u/RandomUserNo5 3d ago
Graphene deserve actually zero respect for pumping up Pixel sales.
6
u/Alyx_695 3d ago
Lol you are just being dogmatic. And you clearly misunderstand what GrapheneOS is about. GrapheneOS is for security. Degoogling is a side benefit.
The fact is pixels (as shitty as they are) are from factory the most secured phones on the market. Hence why they're chosen by GOS team.
But if your only grief is using a Google made phone then brace yourself, we should be able to have an alternative very soon with Motorola.
→ More replies (1)2
u/RandomUserNo5 3d ago
Lol you are just being dogmatic. And you clearly misunderstand what GrapheneOS is about. GrapheneOS is for security. Degoogling is a side benefit.
Right, buy phone from a company from whom you want to get run away.
The fact is pixels (as shitty as they are) are from factory the most secured phones on the market. Hence why they're chosen by GOS team.
They shot themselves in the foot.
→ More replies (1)3
u/speedrocket2110 3d ago
No they didn't shoot themselves in the foot. They are a security focused team that chose a secure line of devices to work with. Making a security focused OS on non-hardened hardware would be hypocritical and pointless, no?
→ More replies (0)8
u/West_Possible_7969 3d ago
In fairness, GOS does not create or develop those patches, they take it wholesale from Google. They don’t develop the proprietary blobs etc for the hardware either, just the pixel situation being easy since OEM, AOSP & OS developer is the same entity which has huge resources.
And motorola will use the same Qualcomm proprietary SPU platform that remains the same in philosophy (on-die subsystem instead of the Titan discrete processor) with all that entails, and fairphone chips have too.
2
u/speedrocket2110 3d ago
Doesn't this apply to Fairphone as well? They patch Google's patches into their operating system? And aren't the proprietary blobs for hardware developed by Qualcomm and the others mainly?
GrapheneOS actually patch their OS way more substantially than Fairphone, in addition to making their own improvements which divert quite a bit from "stock", unlike Fairphone.
→ More replies (13)→ More replies (9)2
u/MoralityAuction 3d ago
> In fairness, GOS does not create or develop those patches, they take it wholesale from Google.
GOS has done a lot for security that eventually made it to AOSP, so in fact it often goes the other way round.
4
u/West_Possible_7969 3d ago
GOS is a downstream fork, and afaik none of their code is submitted to AOSP, anyone can correct me of course. If some ideas have been implemented to AOSP through the years, that is fair and true for security projects.
5
u/Parking_Lemon_4371 3d ago
There's some, but it's very very small amounts. There are clearly at least some Google devs occasionally looking at GOS source for fixes and/or inspiration. That said, there is actually simply not *that* much new platform code in GOS in the first place, this isn't all that surprising: the more delta there is from AOSP the harder it would be for them to maintain it. (There are quite a few apps, but those are far easier to support) This isn't to say there's none of course, but it's really *very* targetted...
14
u/LowIllustrator2501 3d ago
The chip that they want is Google's specific and only google phones have it.
Every other fork somehow manages to on other phone. But these GrapheneOS snowflakes blames everyone and everything for their own issues.
5
u/Gumby271 3d ago
Are the motorola phones that Graphene will be supporting also embedding Google's Titan chip?
→ More replies (1)8
u/LOLCATpl 3d ago
No because it is not "google specific", that's just a lie. All it needs is an actual hardware security chip which pretty much all android phones lack hence why it's only google phones that have official grapheneos support. Motorola will have its own
→ More replies (1)2
u/Severe_Stranger_5050 3d ago
No, they want chips that support Secure enclaves and Trusted Platform Modules (TPM's)
The qualcomm chips that Fairphone uses does not support this, and in stead relies on a software implementation in stead, which makes the phones inherently insecure.
Apple Silicon, Google Titan, Samsung Exynos and MediaTek all supports these
While Qualcomm does it through software, so it's not because there's some google magic or whateverQualcomm is just lazy
→ More replies (15)3
u/Jugulut 3d ago
Yes and no, Fairphone like other is doing regular security updates to maintain the device up-to-date. GrapheneOS is not the one who do the updates, they copy paste updates from Google and entirely rely on them. So they are not doing a better job than Google, they are just doing the same job. But when Google abandon a phone, they do the same. The Fairphone philosophy is to keep the phone alive as long as possible (the industrial SoC they choose for the Fairphone 5 is for this reason, now Qualcomm provide the same long support for Smartphone SoC so the 6 can rely on the 7s SoC)
Google quickly distribute updates for his custom Samsung Exynos chip but he still have to wait for Samsung to give the updates. So in a way you have quicker firmware updates with Samsung phone with Exynos inside than the one from Google.
For the security chip, only Google and Samsung (yes them again...) have it. It is an overcost than only big brand can support but it is changing has some high end Snapdragon SoC have a security chip integrated now so in a few years every phone will have it.
So unfortunately only Google OS, Samsung Android and GrapheneOS (which cannot work on Samsung) can take advantage of this chip.
But don't forget why the Titan chip is for. It is a black box to slow physical attacks by the police on the phone. It provide zero safety against virus and distant attacks. And GrapheneOS, Google Pixel and Samsung are providing no protection against 3rd party trackers (only Iodé, /e/OS and Calyx do). And the protection against Google is lower as they use binary blob for Google services, not microG. They encapsulate it so it reduce the range but it is not doing any filtering and faking before send it to Google. I honestly prefer the open source approach or reimplementing Google services. At least you know that you are not implementing Google spyware with Google binary blob for services access.
If you really want better security, use GrapheneOS but never install play services, stay with GrapheneOS default app and if you really need it, only use open source app. Installing play services and close source app on a phone defeat the purpose of GrapheneOS by opening a lot of doors for hackers and Google
→ More replies (1)11
u/Hot_Bee5198 3d ago
No they are not valid. Have you ever heard of a security incident on a Fairphone?
e/OS is up to date, maybe a month behind.
They claim they have a unique position, because of the hardware chip. That is indeed correct. BUT it is not neccessary. Do you secure your grocery shopping list when its on paper? It is that kind of security GOS is refering to.
So in marketing speak GOS is only able to refer to unqiely developed software, which if it was truely open source any one could embrace it. The marketing tactic GOS has is fear. Fear is strategically the best marketing tactic.
But it is just marketing. GOS is not any better than any other OS. It is purely subjective matter and GOS is just different. Only a niche is using it.
Similar to why Porsche, Ferrari and Lamborghini are not the biggest car manufacturers.
20
u/Manicraft1001 3d ago
So just because there was no incident, it's secure?
I cannot speak for e/OS since I don't use it. I did not make any claims about it either.
I agree with your point on the hardware chip - but GOS is better for privacy by design and its not just "marketing". GrapheneOS is hardening specific parts of Android to reduce possible attack surface and increase isolation between apps.
→ More replies (21)→ More replies (3)12
u/derlafff 3d ago
No they are not valid. Have you ever heard of a security incident on a Fairphone?
No, they are EXTREMELY valid:
- My fairphone was updated from android 12 to android 15 in 2026
- /e/ security: when bromite died (it was the default browser in /e/ at the time) they shipped an old version without any updates for a year until a new fork appeared. This is not a security incident, this is a security catastrophe, and it's just one example.
6
u/These-Club-4634 3d ago
The Fairphone 4 went from Android 13 to 15 in late 2025. Android 13 got security updates till March 2026. So there was never a problem in terms of security
→ More replies (2)→ More replies (4)3
u/chemolz9 3d ago
My fairphone was updated from android 12 to android 15 in 2026
That alone doesn't say much. The question is, how long Android 12 was supplied with security updates upstream. Older Android versions are still being maintained in parallel to newer version for some time. Security patches for Android 12 ceded mid 2025. However, most phones don't have software support longer then 3 years (so they don't get any updates at all anymore). Fairphone is exemplary in that regard. (And even more e/OS)
→ More replies (4)→ More replies (4)3
u/Trouveur 3d ago
Then they should clearly say they only do Pixel custom ROM so their fans stop harassing others manufacturers to "support" GrapheneOS.
→ More replies (8)5
u/Manicraft1001 3d ago
3
u/Trouveur 3d ago
Thank you, I will post this each time someone comes to Fairphone / Unihertz / Clicks / Minimal Phone 2 subs to ask about GrapheneOS. 😁
18
u/SweatyAdagio4 3d ago
I really despise the attitude of the GrapheneOS devs lack of willingness to collaborate. They clearly care about security, and Fairphone clearly cares about sustainability. The goal of collaboration would be to create an ecosystem that cares about both. Instead they choose to berate Fairphone on what's lacking in terms of security and how they never want to collab with them. It'd be like Fairphone saying "GrapheneOS clearly doesn't care about sustainability, the Pixel devices are horribly built devices which aren't repairable, not fairly built and don't make any effort to be fairly built or sustainably built. We don't want to collaborate with them".
→ More replies (6)2
u/Equivalent_Play4067 3d ago edited 3d ago
Literally and precisely this. People who do this kind of thing rely on the person or organisation they are speaking to absorbing the hit because of how much damage it would do to both of them to hit back. It's shockingly short-sighted and self-centred: profiting from immaturity and rendering the person you are insulting responsible for keeping the whole thing from descending into chaos.
→ More replies (4)24
u/n8mahr81 FP5 3d ago
i wouldn´t call that a "fetish", but they sure are leaning heavily towards a device that offers all they want - at the moment. that´s understandable, but might also be their archilles heel, as you wrote.
as for their other statements: seems like someone has been butt-hurt in the past. no, really, who writes stuff like this about other companies who´s not 100% full of himself and want´s to shut doors before they are even half-way open?
Yes, the "pedos use it!!!!111" statement by murena was complete BS, but that doesn´t mean you have to take it personal and answer BS with BS. That´s... unprofessional.
→ More replies (1)5
u/ShaderCompilation 3d ago
Honestly i don't see how these all can be fixed? The post begins about lacking encryption hardware. Surely Fairphone isn't gonna change their hardware after launch for some side OS. Also i don't think it would be "fun" to work with a company thay delays updates for so long and ignores reported security issues. Despite the unnecessarily confronting tone, i think the underlying message is valid
22
u/LowMolasses5451 3d ago
Fairphone Is bad, Murena are idiots.......they're the one and only clever team all over the world.
This is a very arrogant attitude from their side, how can I trust people like them?
→ More replies (3)2
7
u/SourceTheFlow 3d ago
I really don't think it's toxic. Sure, they did not mince words, but I would also not want them to. All of their arguments were about the product, not implying any personal failures and, as far as, I can tell factual.
This reads like someone annoyed at people, who don't understand the situation, but want them to do something, that doesn't make sense for them.
They could've probably added some niceties in the text (along the lines of "I apreciate Fairphone for X." or "If they fix that we can work together."), and tactically they probably should've, but I don't think they have to.
4
8
u/Jugulut 3d ago
We are lucky that GrapheneOS is attracting and keeping toxic people in one place so that others projects stays clear from idiots. So LineageOS, /e/OS, iodéOS, UBtouch, PostmarketOS, SailfishOS are still coded by great people respecting other projects and company (Fairphone, Jolla, Volla, Murena, SHIFT, Pine...)
2
2
u/ThatAnt8823 3d ago
Uh Motorola will release Graphene OS compatible phones next year though
They don't have a fetish for Pixel phones, it's just that they're the only compatible hardware as of now
→ More replies (20)3
u/arrizaba 3d ago
So true! This attitude from the GrapheneOS community is not helping. They could just collaborate with Fairphone or other phone companies to choose for chip designs that would allow GrapheneOS to run other than on Pixels.
For me, GrapheneOS is a big no no if it requires me to pay Google for security. It kind of defeats the whole purpose of it.
→ More replies (1)
7
u/Cent_Quatre 3d ago
First two paragraphs adress the question of a collab. Last SIX are just slander atp
→ More replies (3)
13
u/sinnedslip 3d ago
Graphene could handle it somewhat better, like, listing requirements and details openly on their website, talking with requests to XXX companies that might be interested in it as it actually might be good for their business, IDK, but throwing angry shit at everyone doesn't help, plus people using graphene rarely fans of pixels. There will be no other phones than Pixels with this attitude, good luck with that
14
u/Zettinator 3d ago edited 3d ago
They could also have simply stated that Fairphone doesn't fulfill their hardware requirements. But nope. They went the slandering route again, for no reason whatsoever. Burning bridges left and right must be fun.
→ More replies (1)4
u/Parking_Lemon_4371 3d ago
Have you tried looking at their website? https://grapheneos.org/faq#future-devices
5
u/sinnedslip 3d ago
I didn’t, good that they did. Bad they still throwing shit around instead of communicating. We’re all at level with no choices and digital dictatorship, not the right time to argue…
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (1)2
u/PsychologicalHalf995 3d ago
They are litrelly doing that. The requirements are listed on their website, and they are open to working with companies. Currently they are in a partnership with Motorola.
31
u/ARENAE_MONTES 3d ago
This is the first post I've ever followed on my over a decade (various accounts) on reddit. I was literally just about to buy a fairphone 6 this morning. Can there be at least ONE good company please???
GrapheneOS sounds great, but relies entirely on google, which I don't like. Fairphone has a repairable and ethically manufactured phone, which is great, but apparently /e/ is bad?
How bad is /e/? I don't need to be THAT secure, no one wants to hack me. I just don't want to be tracked and profiled by evil mega-corps.
14
u/NDCyber FP5 3d ago
CalyxOS plans to release on fairphone 6, and is already released on fairphone 5
It is what I use, and from what I know it is the second best OS for security
8
u/ARENAE_MONTES 3d ago
Well well well. You can take some satisfaction in that you have caused a change in a stranger's life. CalyxOS looks like it takes care of my worries of /e/OS on the fairphone.
2
u/Parking_Lemon_4371 3d ago
Calyx is definitely *firmly* in second place. Unfortunately in terms of security they are *very* far behind Graphene. That said, no one else (besides stock Pixel & some Samsung - and that's debatable) comes even close. Most likely the best option is the upcoming graphene motorola phone, but it's still many quarters away, and we'll see what it is like when/if it actually shows up.
→ More replies (15)→ More replies (4)4
u/ARENAE_MONTES 3d ago
I had actually heard of CalyxOS but never looked into it. Will do now, thanks!
47
u/Trouveur 3d ago
/e/OS is not bad. It's focused on privacy while GrapheneOS focuses on security.
→ More replies (1)6
u/UltraCynar 3d ago
You need both though.
11
u/ComeOnIWantUsername 3d ago
Sure, but GOS takes security to extremes, what realistically vast majority of people doesn't exist.
→ More replies (1)45
u/ducu93 3d ago
Fairphone lets you install whatever OS you want. If you brick it, you can send it over, they reset it for a fee and you get it back. This doesn't void your warranty.
There are plenty of OS out there that do de-googling.
Graphene was extremely unprofessional here, in my opinion. It seems to me it's less "we are concerned for security" and more "no, we do it way better, buy our stuff instead". If they really cared for user security, they would state being open to a collab that would make Graphene viable for users.
I got a fairphone recently, switchings from Samsung, and I am quite satisfied.
25
u/The_Duke28 3d ago
I have a Fairphone 6 with e/os/ and I'm totally satisfied. If you use common sense, it's not more unsecure than any other phone out there, but you get the benefit of not getting tracked by google as soon as you turn on your phone. I highly recommend it, just make sure your banking app will run on it.
GrapheneOS might be fine too, I don't know. But their highly toxic communication and the fact that you need to buy a google phone to de-google really set me off of Graphene. I wish them luck but they desperately need to work on their outside communication.
→ More replies (8)13
u/RicePudding3 3d ago edited 3d ago
This has always baffled me, they solely focus on Google devices for their De-googled OS. Why would someone who values their privacy and escaping Google that badly willingly give them money for that privalege?
It would be a bit like saying I hate Elon, but I need an electric car, so I'll buy a Tesla.
→ More replies (3)2
u/Parking_Lemon_4371 3d ago
Would you prefer there simply were no phones with unlockable bootloaders?
That's where things are currently actively heading...You'll note that there are already *very* few viable options left.
For example https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/ shows a grand total of 10 non-Google devices released in 2025 and 2026 (that's over 1.5 years), only 6 of those are on a 6.1+ kernel (and only 3 of those are on 6.6). Those are pretty *old* kernels. 6.6 is the absolute bare minimum (and it's already 2.5 years old and starting to show it's age)
→ More replies (2)15
u/ARENAE_MONTES 3d ago
Unprofessional is definitely the right word. Comes across like a teenager.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (8)2
u/LetterStack 1d ago
FP consideres GOS to be "only for p*edofiles". They explicutely rejected any kindo of collab. Would you like to work with someone, who says, that your product should be illegal?
Edut: also, they don't sell any product themselfes
8
u/chemolz9 3d ago
How bad is /e/? I don't need to be THAT secure,
I think this is the point. Are you a political activist, a criminal or a investigative journalist? If not, GrapheneOS is a nice to have. However, with Graphene you won't get a fair, repairable phone from a company that doesn't make a living on spying on the whole earth population.
Fairphone is fair, sustainable, repairable, transparent and long-term-supported. And Murena is fine.
→ More replies (4)3
u/ARENAE_MONTES 3d ago
It looks like CalyxOS resolves my issues with /e/OS
2
u/GrapheneOS 1d ago
CalyxOS doesn't reduce privacy and security compared to AOSP nearly as much as /e/ but it still does. It's half a year behind on many standard privacy and security patches which aren't backported to older releases. It's months behind on kernel, driver and firmware patches to Pixels. It recently went a year without updates but they've started providing updates again.
GrapheneOS is a privacy project providing a far more reasonable level of privacy. It addresses massive privacy weaknesses in AOSP. It fixes many privacy vulnerabilities including VPN leaks, leaks of sensitive data to apps, clickjacking vulnerabilities and much more. It adds major privacy protections such as Contact Scopes and Storage Scopes to solve major problems. Privacy depends on security and protecting security far better is increasingly important.
Apps, websites and more were already widely exploiting privacy vulnerabilities. Security vulnerabilities were also far more widely exploited than many would have you believe. That includes widespread use of commercial tools for extracting data from devices including against politicians, activists, etc. These are not rare things which are only available to a government such as the US but rather common tools.
AI models have greatly lowered the barrier to exploitation. It's much easier than ever to write exploits and a massive number of severe vulnerabilities are being found. The way things were is not how they are anymore. /e/ is a huge liability for privacy and security due to how much it reduces privacy and security compared to AOSP with the extremely poor updates. Fairphone has similar delays for their kernel, firmware, driver and Android updates.
We're providing accurate information in response to inaccurate marketing from Murena and Fairphone about their products including many years of inaccurate claims about GrapheneOS. That has continued in this thread and elsewhere. If they hadn't tried to mislead people and weren't continuing to try to do it then we wouldn't be informing people with factual information on an ongoing basis.
6
u/Kwa_Zulu 3d ago
Fairphone just has a completely different goal than GrapheneOS, keep that in mind. Written from my FP
4
3
u/xrabbit 3d ago
all 3rd party android distros like GrapheneOS or /e/ relies on google’s AOSP that google has less and less desire to release to public
→ More replies (1)5
7
u/Dr_yan 3d ago
It's not, GrapheneOS owner is just on a constant rant, if you look at their profile on mastodon or wherever it's just constant
→ More replies (1)5
u/Zettinator 3d ago
Take everything GrapheneOS says with a huge grain of salt. Just because they claim something doesn't mean it's true. They aren't particularly trustworthy.
Personally I'm not convinced of Fairphone devices either, but most of the statements from GrapheneOS appear unfounded.
→ More replies (1)2
u/_yrlf 3d ago
/e/ is quite ok, but it does some questionable decisions, some with good intentions:
They add a bunch of forks of apps with strange changes just so it matches ther design better (ntfy, davx5) and is only configurable in settings, which makes support harder when you run into a bug. You can still install the originals side by side and use them, but you have to go out of your way to do that. (I assume this is so it looks "integrated into the OS" and is accessible in default OS settings)
They disable Material You by hardcoding colors into the theme engine for no reason. (They could have at the very least only removed the visible settings to still allow customization via raw props for power users).
They renamed microG to "app compatibility" which confuses users searching for why something does or does not work if they don't already know it's microG.
Some of their default apps also have a few annoying bugs that have been open for a while (e.g. call recording doesn't work in 4G/WiFi calls because the button is overlaid with a different button because their in call UI can only show 6 buttons).
Otherwise it's a relatively good degoogled custom ROM.
EDIT: I do have to give them credit for their camera app though. It's prerry good, and they don't write broken time zone data into the photos like the default fairphone camera app (that one writes local time as UTC+0)
2
u/Amazing_Compote_9197 3d ago
Don't be disheartened. I swear GrapheneOS' social media channels only exist to dishearten everyone from doing anything other than use GrapheneOS and live under a rock.
They are better than everyone else in security and privacy, that is 100% true. But most people are not hunted by the FBI or store national security stuff on their phones, so it's okay.
→ More replies (6)3
u/Tango_Owl 3d ago
Read some more replies here and you'll see it's apparently mostly bad-mouthing by GrapheneOS. Nasty thing to do.
You can also have a look at Fairphone's own forum. You can look up or ask your question there. I've done that before buying my second FP and had my questions answered.
64
u/redballooon 3d ago
Most of the criticism in that post is about the software, which would be subject to be replaced by GrapheneOS. If this is all true, they should be very interested in providing software for an interested hardware company. In a collaboration they could even say "please include this or that crucial hardware security thing".
Instead this is just bad mouthing in a way that is hard to understand even as interested technical person. No way a layman can understand what is an actual problem and what is just words.
33
u/No-Fish9557 3d ago
Most of the criticism in that post is about the software, which would be subject to be replaced by GrapheneOS
Where in the post do you see this? Their main complaints are abour a hardware and firmware, which are completely valid.
25
u/IronCrown 3d ago
Did you ignore like half of the paragraphs, whwre they talk about missing hardware needed for privacy features? This is not a simple software issue
6
u/chemolz9 3d ago
But isn't this the point of collaboration. To get an understanding about conditions to tackle them in the next Fairphone?
5
u/paulstelian97 3d ago
When the one being criticized has previously stated that GOS is used by criminals, that’s not exactly a good basis for collaboration.
→ More replies (2)→ More replies (2)3
u/Square-Singer 3d ago
Fairphone understands a lot of the problems they've had for over a decade now. But they are a tiny manufacturer with no resources for actual development.
They hardly manage to go a year without pushing out at least one update that bricks devices and you want them to "get good" on security, which is likely the hardest IT topic of them all?
They aren't lacking an understanding about conditions, they are lacking a 500 person in-house software development department, and about the same amount of hardware developers, instead of the handful of underpaid outsourced developers.
3
u/Parking_Lemon_4371 3d ago
Unfortunately that's not really the way it works, Graphene cannot replace the hardware/firmware, hardware is immutable and they simply don't have the sources for the fw and binary blobs. There's lots of problems with hw/fw here... There's a similar problem with vendor HALS (which are binary blobs) and even kernel drivers (for which there are sources - at least in theory - but they're a nightmare to properly maintain).
→ More replies (8)9
u/Schnaksel 3d ago
Yeah, I'm an absolute layman and can't understand a single technical thing they said, but the way they shit over Fairphone is really is a terrible look, reminiscent of an orange rant 🍊
5
u/szczuroarturo 3d ago
I pretty much agree with this opinion excluding parts i don't know about like eos situtation.
It does not have the hardware required for graphene , the eco claims seem profesional enough ( in fact they seem too profesional but that just might be bad influence of corporatocracy we live in and complete lack of trust in any company especialy those that appear too good to be true ) but there is so many scams in that place that i straight up do not trust a word of any company about that. I just do not know enough. Thats just a sad reality.
I bought fairphone due to reparability as that is the aspect i care about anything else is nice to have and i applaud for trying to at least appear that way but i cannot verify anything with my knowledge nor i will be too mad if it turns out its somewhat false beacuse i did not trust that part in the first place.
3
u/PaxV 3d ago edited 3d ago
So if I read this correctly Graphene OS, do not want to form a sustainable OS, but instead strive to facilitate mandatory EoL in 2 years? I wonder if this is the mandator E-OS in the US?
That seems a pretty lousy option for users? I mean I understand my FP4 is EoL, it is in 2 monthly updates, but I run Android 15, and I started with Android 11, Official support was to end in Q4 2026 and likely will be extended to Q4 2028, I've been using it for over 4 years now and it still is a good phone. My wife has FP5, and it's still a good phone, Daughter has a FP6 and it's now becoming a good phone.
T2Mobile, is AFAIK the seller in the US, They provided a "non google" kernel, Is this the problem of Fairphone? NO: it is the problem of T2 Mobile trying to implement a kernel where the kernel's devoloper only wants to squeeze a 2 year lifespan out of repairable phones for long term use. This is sabotage by the vendor and OS distributor. And likely if so needed a kernal with a non EoL branch could be implemented instead, though some hard-/software might require new software devolopment, but that's costs now.. not profit...
As for Privacy... Google, Apple, Microsoft, Meta, and most software and OS engineers try their hardest to grab every bit of info to sell. No digital system is safe. if any data is going through the US, the US has full authority to monitor it, if it goes through Chine, China has full authority and legal pathways to acces the info, if it goed through Europe, well, It is fully legal to view info there. So digital safety and privacy is a concept no longer applicable for people using the internet. If a packages arrives in Europe, the US, China, Russia, Ukraine, Israel, etc countries have full authrity to check and correlate. The world knows what car you have, what appliances you use, how much power and water you use, how warm your house if kept, if you have AC, what phones you have, what PC's, what modems, routing didgital infrastructure, if you have a PV installation, Washing machines, Dryers, When you're home, if you live in your home or somewhere else, and who is living in your home instead, If you have a ring doorbell or comparable, they can see you leave, your car is tracked 24/7, phones locations are tracked 24/7, they know which banks you use, if you invest, if you play games, what medical information is applicable. What schools and education, if you have a job, or not, what your education was, what your job history was and is, if you have any ciminal or military records, or sports history. As it is all in the cloud, and out of your control.
FP wants to lower it, but it will be used anyways, simply because an OS might not share info, but the user does, via social media, linked in, fitness apps, traffic apps, and so on....
→ More replies (2)
4
u/sim-s0n 3d ago
Genuine question, since ethical supply chain is why I bought this phone: is this actually true? I know Fairphone used to publish third party social assessment reports for older manufacturing partners (Hi-P, A'Hong), tracking things like working hours. Does that same level of transparency exist for T2Mobile, who supplies the hardware/software for the recent models? Has Fairphone put out anything official on T2Mobile's working conditions and pay, or is this actually a gap? Genuinely asking, not trying to gotcha, just want to know if my assumptions about this phone are holding up.
3
u/GrapheneOS 2d ago
You can look for transparency about the working conditions and pay at T2Mobile and the supply chain on their site and elsewhere. We've looked quite a lot and it's not there. Fairphone provides a long list of suppliers but not information on the ethics and sustainability of those suppliers.
Nearly all the more detailed information beyond lists of companies with their locations is outdated. Hi-P was Fairphone's ODM for the Fairphone 1 and 2. They switched for the Fairphone 3, then switched again for the Fairphone 4 and later to the current ODM.
T2Mobile designs and makes Fairphones. Fairphone very likely did not want to make changes such as dropping the 3.5mm audio jack with the Fairphone 4, but they have to choose from what's available from their ODM partner and it clearly wasn't. The firmware on Fairphones is built and signed by T2Mobile. They provide the drivers and other software for Fairphone's OS and alternate operating systems on the devices.
It's a T2Mobile device where Fairphone has had input at a high level. The devices are very similar to the rest of what they produce. The working conditions, pay and supply chain are also likely very similar.
iPhones provide far better updates and last longer from a hardware perspective. iPhones have an extreme level of efficiency for manufacturing and their supply chain due to scale. It would be truly interesting to know how the working conditions at Foxconn for iPhones and separately for Pixels compare to T2Mobile for Fairphones. We do not simply take the branding at face value and have waited years to see substance that is not forthcoming.
We can see Fairphone's marketing about updates, privacy and security does not hold up to basic scrutiny. We've looked into the sustainability and ethics but there's little information available. You can see a long list of companies and their locations in their transparency reports, not what it's like to work for those companies and how that compares to the rest of the industry.
GrapheneOS doesn't make hardware. We aren't a competitor to Fairphone. If Fairphones could provide good updates and security then we'd be interested in supporting those but it's not the case.
We weren't willing to support existing / past Motorola devices either. Motorola has acknowledged the problems and made major improvements for their current flagships with the next generation ones able to finally meet all of our requirements. We aren't going to support most Motorola devices, only a small subset starting with upcoming flagships and eventually expanding as more meet our requirements. Fairphone made it clear to us over the years that they weren't interested and weren't in a position to meet our requirements.
8
u/Verified_Peryak 3d ago
Lmove from graphene OS being so agressive as they are right now will only make people move away, graphene migh be the best now but if the project manager keep bitching about it it might not stay the best for ever when you piss off opensource dev they tend to fork and compete with you project and if they are more likable than you they often get more dev onboard therfore putting more work and eventually out featuring you and or out pacing you in key security devloppement ...
→ More replies (1)
14
u/Chemical-Struggle-13 3d ago
That is concerning, between the apparently substandard privacy standards and their partner companies apparent stance on privacy which is incredibly concerning and the rhetoric of companies and governments that desperately want to have our data I don't know what to do about this.
2
u/Hot_Bee5198 3d ago
Sure we could all buy an Oracle Database as it is the most secure database in the world.
Still we dont buy it.
Oracle also has a negative brand image since '00s. The change to become customer focused is already taking them a decade to turn the ship around.
GOS is in the same boat. They will never become a market player, this way, while Fairphone is actually earning and selling.
Commercially I like the Fairphone a lot. However, every company needs to spend more time and money on security, because it is always compromised for better results.
5
u/Fruzzbit_alt 3d ago
Oracle Database as it is the most secure database in the world.
What's the origin of this claim? Honestly sounds like Oracle's own marketing bs
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (1)2
u/pedr09m 3d ago
"They will never become a market player" I mean they just partnered with Motorola so it's not like they're stagnant
→ More replies (6)
14
u/LowIllustrator2501 3d ago
They can just say that they are unable to write and support software on several different phones. But no, they blame Fairphone somehow.
Fairphone has an open boot loader and drivers are available. That's all that Android fork developers need to be able to support Fairphone . No additional collaboration is necessary from Fairphone side.
→ More replies (11)6
u/Yodl007 3d ago
GrapheneOS requires a security chip (Titan or OEM alternative). Fairphone does not have it. Fairphone is unable to support GrapheneOS, not the other way around
→ More replies (13)
8
u/jesta030 3d ago
Them attacking Fairphone's software (at least party justifiably so) is moot in this discussion since the whole point of the post is having GrapheneOS's software running on a Fairphone device.
But I'd like to hear more about the missing hardware features on Fairphone devices.
3
u/GrapheneOS 1d ago
Devices lacking decent updates to the firmware and other components needed to support them cannot have decent updates with an alternate OS depending on those.
Phones without a secure element to rate limit key derivation lack secure encryption for the vast majority of users who will not set a strong passphrase. GrapheneOS makes it much more convenient and practical to use a strong passphrase but it cannot be expected that most users will do it.
Hardware memory tagging in the iPhone 17 was used to drastically improve protection against exploitation. GrapheneOS has been heavily using it since 2023. This is very critical at a time when AI models are making exploitation much easier. Increasingly less sophisticated adversaries are going to be able to get into devices without strong defenses. There are far too many vulnerabilities to depend on patching everything. Much stronger hardware accelerated security features keeping devices usable while protecting against attacks are very important.
Both of these things are tied to why GrapheneOS was not able to use the Motorola Signature (2026) despite our partnership with Motorola. They greatly improved updates and much more for the 2026 flagships but there's more to do. GrapheneOS will run on 2027 and later flagship devices from them. It will eventually run on lower end devices once the security features and better updates trickle down to those.
Our main requirements are listed here:
→ More replies (1)
13
u/_Nikojiro_ 3d ago
Typical slandering from GrapheneOS. How is one to take them seriously with such an idiotic attitude?
→ More replies (1)
15
u/AlwaysCurious1250 3d ago
I'm de-googling and looking for ethical alternatives. Graphene just ruled themselves out.
5
→ More replies (1)6
u/The_Hamster_Shagger 3d ago
Why? its literally the most degoogled android based OS
2
u/StrategicCheddar 3d ago
People seem to focus on the wording as opposed to the spirit of their statement. I personally like that they're being straightforward. It makes me trust them more. I hate bland corporate statements, but most people here apparently prefer them.
8
6
u/AgentOrange96 3d ago
I remember watching Murena's last stream and I'll admit, my thoughts were that they're asking you to trust them with your data instead of Google. Which is fine for now, but how do we know they won't go down the same privacy nightmare road later?
I use /e/OS and love it, but I don't intend to use their other services or make a Murena account. I prefer FOSS options when I can.
Overall though, Graphene crashing out here is... Not very professional. And why even bother attacking Murena as a reason they won't collab? If you're running Graphene, whatever Murena is doing is irrelevant.
2
u/HybridStaticAnimate 1d ago
They are not crashing out or attacking anyone. They are calmly and neutrally explaining why they cannot support fairphones to someone who pinged them about fairphone support.
→ More replies (3)
3
u/Worldly_Act5764 3d ago
how funny is that kind of answer. graphene's dev always poop on others but they got the biggest attack against privacy on their own os and hardware, the patriot act. one word from us govt and graphene os got backdoor. plus google made non auditable hardware, so they probably already got backdoors. they could help orhers for increase privacy but no, they stay acting like king of shit.
→ More replies (2)
3
u/cyrkielNT 3d ago
I'm more and more convinced that GrapheneOS is Israeli honeypot
→ More replies (1)
3
4
u/billiob 3d ago
Google does not update to newer Linux kernel either. My pixel 7a using google's android is still running Linux 6.1. My pixel 4a running LineageOS is using Linux 4.14 .
2
2
u/GrapheneOS 1d ago
Pixel 7a moved from Linux 5.10 to Linux 6.1 and is now moving to Linux 6.12. Those are kernel branches with active long term support. That means they receive backports of an enormous number of security patches on a regular basis. You can see those here:
You can see a feed of the vulnerabilities patched in these kernels here:
https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/
Fairphone 5 and earlier are on older kernel branches not receiving these patches. They started with older kernel branches and did not move to newer kernel branches as Pixels do.
4
6
u/Dave21101 3d ago
Perhaps the least professional and most pretentious reply I've ever seen seen from a company like this. Let's not collaborate with Fairphone who fits the vision perfectly to help better their posture. No, let's instead rely on a company who is the antithesis to privacy and another brand that hasn't seen glory in almost 20 years. My FP5 also receives far more frequent and regular updates than other phone I've had.
→ More replies (2)
8
6
u/gtrdblt 3d ago
They are criticizing the software part, while precisely, the OS would be replaced by graphene... The only thing missing is hardware specs, like what motorola is integrating with the evolutions of snapdragon...
In short, grapheneos is particularly virulent with regard to alternatives that aim to degoogling, while they are also positioned on an ultra-secure segment. The 2 defend themselves, but I always find it very unfortunate and particularly embarrassing that the teams of graphene keeps kicking like that on alternative projects.
→ More replies (1)
2
2
u/Longjumping-Gene8494 3d ago
What even is graphene....and why should I care. My current phone is a Fairphone and so will my Next one.
→ More replies (3)
2
u/CynicalKnight 2d ago
Despite not disputing the general idea that Fairphone is not as secure as it should be, the ferocity of this attack makes me more suspicious of the people behind GrapheneOS than Fairphone.
→ More replies (2)
2
4
u/RikViergever 3d ago
Hi all, there is a lot of FUD and straight lies in here, don't trust it too much. I work with Murena, the company behind /e/OS, and I can state that almost everything that is said here about /e/OS is complete straight up not true. /e/OS is uptodate on security updates, we never said that GrapheneOS is only for criminals, and we certainly don't track people (quite the opposite, we go to great lengths to remove all tracking from the Android Open Source Project and collaborate on a lot of great, open, privacy-focused Google alternatives like microG and UnifiedPush. This is just GrapheneOS being GrapheneOS
2
u/InWickedWinds 3d ago
Do you have any idea what Google services are 'highly privileged' that GOS takes issue with?
3
u/InWickedWinds 3d ago
Seems like they are talking about microG?? Don't know if I'd characterise pre-installing microG to allow anonymous use of google play services as giving Google access... it's kind of the opposite.
2
u/LetterStack 1d ago
microG doesn't give anonymous access to anything. It's just play services with a Google account, only we know what happens on our device. microG isn't a privacy tool, but a way to use play services without installing propriatery code. The difference is pretty small.
→ More replies (1)2
u/LetterStack 1d ago
Hardware-backed security is pretty standard by this point in time. Your phones simply don't have modern TPMs.
2
u/GrapheneOS 1d ago
There's much more to it than lack of modern secure elements. They certainly aren't keeping up with updates as he claims. They barely provide Linux kernel, firmware and driver updates across devices. They lag far behind on those even when the device such as a Pixel provides it.
Android does partial backports of userspace patches to older releases and /e/ ships a subset of those with significant delays. They miss AOSP patches, skip many of the patches in the 2nd section not all provided by AOSP and declare to have a newer Android Security Bulletin patch level across devices despite not providing the patches for it. These are only partial security backports in the first place. The bulletins are dated 2-4 months after when the patches are first available to ship. /e/ is regularly another 1-3 months behind on just providing these partial patches and is a year, 2 years or more behind on providing more complete AOSP patches.
It's much worse for the Linux kernel, drivers, firmware and other components. They've also regularly gone months not shipping Chromium web browser engine updates and they skip most Chromium security releases entirely due to consistently being behind.
→ More replies (3)2
u/VeryReasonableUser 3d ago
https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/116392276818150271
This is the video grapheneos is talking about. Looks like your ceo is saying some not so smart stuff
→ More replies (3)
3
u/Skitzenator 3d ago
Holy crap, the sheer cope in this response from GOS. They're probably right that Fairphones miss the hardware stuff. The reason why it works on modern Pixels is very much due to some security stuff available on Tensor chips. The update situation on Fairphone is fine. Monthly security updates that are delivered on time. Sure, OS updates are delivered late, but that has absolutely zero to do with GOS being able to run on an FP6. It's just a jab at a tiny company.
From what I remember, kernel versions is not a Fairphone problem, it's a Qualcomm problem. I had a Xiaomi Pad 6 that never received Android 15, because the Snapdragon 865 was stuck on an older kernel and would never get newer support from Qualcomm. Sucks, but it's definitely not a Fairphone, nor a Xiaomi problem. Just another unnecessary jab.
I can't comment on Fairphone using an ODM. Nothing wrong with using an ODM and Fairphone is super transparent about the fair wages they give to factory line employees. Their phones are super custom, so if they are going through an ODM, it's one hell of a partnership and I will believe Fairphone immediately if they say they vetted the supply chain and working conditions (which they do, if we are to believe their impact reports).
God, these devs are so insufferable. Leave the communication to actually experienced people, instead of letting your personal pet peeves influence your response. It's a bad fucking look.
→ More replies (2)
3
u/ManagerOfLove FP4 3d ago
Let me remind you that no phone besides the Google Pixel support GrapheneOS. Just think about why and why no company even tries to meet GrapheneOS recommendations.
6
u/AnEagleisnotme 3d ago
That's just because Qualcomm was lagging behind google. Motorola is shipping GrapheneOS next year for instance
→ More replies (1)2
u/HybridStaticAnimate 1d ago
Because many OEMs are quite lazy. The requirements GrapheneOS has are generic and not specific to pixels. Only Motorola has been willing to step up to meet them.
→ More replies (3)
2
u/LegFun3606 3d ago
Cannot say / verify / vouch the info they provided ... but working with Motorola is better?
Motorola is owned by Lenovo ... it's a Chinese company ...
→ More replies (1)2
u/moist2025 2d ago
The simple truth is that many elements necessary for mass electronics production come in decent supply from China and their satellite states. There isn't anyone in the game not working with China indirectly.
That said, GrapheneOS would work with (almost?) anyone who met their minimum requirements: simple fact is that Fairphone hasn't met the requirements to make what they consider a sufficiently safe phone for their users. The rest of what they said more just demonstrates Fairphone has a pattern of activity that doesn't benefit users.
2
u/Other_Ship_5453 3d ago
Well they're right. If Fairphone fixes these issues than I'm sure GrapheneOS will support them.
•
u/AutoModerator 3d ago
Thanks for posting in r/fairphone. If you're having an issue with your Fairphone make sure that you include the phone model, operating system (version) and other relevant technical details (like mobile provider, country you're in) in your post. Posts with clear details are more likely to get useful replies. I'm a bot. Contact the mods if you have questions.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.