[Elfener]

I like the android way of security, where "rooting" your device to install updates is insecure, but using a horrifyingly out-of-date android (because your manufacturer, the only one who can update your device, didn't bother) is secure.

[zx8080]

It's because "security" is not a user one, but a security of Google Play Services.

As rooting may tamper the google's telemetry (can we already call it "spying" please).

[3abiton]

Not to mention, play integrity is being used a some sort of "anti cheats" by bank apps and other essential services. Even some government apps in the EU, essentially forcing you to be spied on by google.

The worse part is that, you can do all of those functionality with a browser on linux (or Android), yet to use them as Android apps on a device without gapps (even if jt's not rooted and with locked bootloader) is not allowed. Make this make sense.

[Sophira]

There was a time when we did call it spying. Programs that had what we would now call telemetry used to be called spyware.

The term has fallen by the wayside and hardly ever gets used nowadays.

[goodpoint]

It's about keeping google's device secure *from* the user.

[atanasi]

It's the security of the ecosystem, where the interests of app vendors are fundamental: content distributors can count on enforcing DRM, and banks are relying on the camera used for KYC actually being a camera and not a virtual device.

[youhatetheleft]

Just accept being spied on, it’s not as if there are genocidal billionaires out there.

[digiown]

Android does have a meaningfully improved security over typical Linux desktop: the segmentation of data between apps. Imagine what would happen if people run all the proprietary crap they do on a typical Linux box. That's multiple spyware apps with full filesystem access.

Unfortunately, Google also uses it to abuse the user by also segmenting the user's access as well, "protecting" apps from the user, which is an abomination.

[zozbot234]

We have Flatpak/bubblewrap that can accomplish the same sandboxing on the Linux desktop, with no need for clumsy hacks like app-specific user ID's.

[realusername]

And yet, I keep all my important stuff on my Linux laptop and not on my phone. There's maybe a lesson here that security is also about trust.

[bfrog]

I think you had the wrong idea on security here, the security is for the device manufacturers benefit to obsolete the hardware and force you to buy a new one not for your benefit. All the data is already being shipped off to where the hell ever for building models of you for advertising and more.

[mrweasel]

The whole security of both Android and iOS is a joke at this point. We know now that plenty of apps/games have proxy services built in, allowing the publisher to monetize their users, by selling proxy services to AI companies. If that can happen, with all the "security" those platforms and store supposedly offer, then I fail to see the point.

We're being prevented from installing and updating software on the devices we own, but Google and Apple will happily approve and sign malware in their stores?

[plagiarist]

Android devices are enraging. ARM in general, why is there never a boot loader?

I have a little Android handheld game device that will allow me to dual boot a Linux from SD quite easily... but why can't I overwrite the existing install? I thought Android was more open and hackable than that.

[bpye]

Well there is a bootloader - on Qualcomm its even UEFI, but you don't have access to it.

https://worthdoingbadly.com/qcomxbl/

[opan]

I've got an Anbernic RG353M, came with a dual boot as you've described. I completely wiped it and only have ROCKNIX on there, a minimal distro based on LibreELEC, I believe. I actually maintained an Android + ROCKNIX dualboot at first, but it breaks the sleep function for some reason, and the ROCKNIX docs for this device say to remove Android, so eventually I did. I didn't actually use the Android side but had kept it around just in case before.

Not all these devices have the same level of support, so do your research on your model before trying to overwrite the install.

[kube-system]

They’re one in the same. You can’t exploit privilege escalation vulnerabilities unless you are vulnerable to them!