I don’t like smartphones. I use a dumbphone.

But this is a wonderful initiative.

  • @[email protected]
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    259 days ago

    I really want this to come to the US as well…

    Is this phone also more secure?

    The problem we are running into right now is Apple and Google are colluding with the US government over fascism and they are supporting their Nazi regime

    They have all the power and they can change all of these services overnight, they can track you and everything and you will have no idea and no way to get rid of it

    We really need an open replacement. Phones are now used for everything

    • ArchRecord
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      209 days ago

      Is this phone also more secure?

      Probably not.

      Apple & Google have spent considerable amounts of time building out hardware security infrastructure for their products that I find it extremely unlikely Fairphone would have been able to match.

      For example, the popular alternative Android OS GrapheneOS only supports Google Pixels, because: (Emphasis added by me)

      “There are currently no other devices meeting even the most basic security requirements while running an alternate OS. GrapheneOS is very interested in supporting a non-Pixel brand, but the vast majority of Android OEMs do not take security seriously. Samsung takes security almost as seriously as Google, but they deliberately cripple their devices when unlock them to install another OS and don’t allow an alternate OS to use important security features. If Samsung permitted GrapheneOS to support their devices properly, many of their phones would be the closest to meeting our requirements. They’re currently missing the very important hardware memory tagging feature, but only because it’s such a new feature”

      If even Samsung, the only other phone brand on the market they consider close to meeting their standards, doesn’t support every modern hardware security feature, and deliberately cripples their security for alternate OS’s, as a multi billion dollar company, I doubt Fairphone has custom-built hardware security mechanisms for their phones to the degree that Google has.

      • @[email protected]
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        48 days ago

        Well yeah, because why would phone companies care? Consumers buy devices based on camera and display quality, not for security, privacy, etc. I just had a chat w/ a coworker about a Chinese device with an incredible camera and big battery, and I highly doubt it does anything but the bare minimum for security. It’s a cool piece of hardware, but a no-go for anyone that cares even a little about security updates.

        I have a Pixel device because it has a long SW support cycle (Google promises at least 7 years), and I use GrapheneOS because it removes Google’s spyware crap. I’m not married to GrapheneOS or Pixel devices, I just need something where the software support will last at least longer than my desire to keep the device (about 4-5 years for me). I’ve ditched each of my last phones largely because they ran out of security update support, and that sucks.

        I’d prefer a Linux phone w/ decent security features, but they don’t meet my minimum standards for things working (just need phone features to work properly, don’t need apps). The moment a Linux phone comes out than actually works properly and has reasonable security, I’ll switch. The FairPhone could be that, but it’s not, so I don’t have one.

        • @[email protected]
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          28 days ago

          how is pixel with graphene os ? does it completely remove all google spyware shit? or do they have some sort of hardware backdoor?

          the reason I ask is because i have a motorola right now and it pisses me off immensely … there is this notification they keep pushing, “Activate Live Lock screen” which i don’t even know what it is, some background pictures crap. I uninstalled this app, but the notification remains. Like it’s not there always but keeps coming back every few days. this has been going on for months and i got so pissed i decided to contact support and complain there. they said, something along the lines of, we can connect remotely and do it for you. ( like disable, but they can’t disable because i went through every option on the phone, it cannot be disabled, it’s just bloatware) but their “we can do it for you remotely” got me thinking, backdoors, backdoors everywhere.

          now i want a new phone lol and one that can support a custom firmware but installing custom firmwares on pretty much all phones is a nightmare.

          but i also hate buying anything google, hence my question.

    • @[email protected]
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      89 days ago

      I used a Fairphone 4 with /e/ and it was good. Not great, but useable. I expect the hardware bugs I ran into (using the camera only worked like 20 times before the phone needed a restart, Bluetooth randomly not working) to be ironed out by now. Currently on an old Samsung and it is more solid, but I also liked the environmentalism with the fairphone. Anyone with a Fairphone 5 and something like a glucose sensor thats in constant use?