Comment on I want a phone I can actually fix, and Fairphone’s record growth shows the world does too

• ozymandias117@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Graphene modifies AOSP for much more security.

  E.g.

  • you can disable USB data at a hardware level
  • Receives Kernel updates even faster than Google’s phones
  • uses a different memory allocator, hardened_malloc
  • changes the way zygote launches apps, so ASLR actually works
  • doesn’t allow apps to ptrace themselves
  • disables JIT per-app
  • disable network access per-app

  I dont think e/OS is as security oriented, more privacy oriented

  source

  • atcorebcor@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Thanks for sharing. For someone who is not so well versed in these technicalities, what does that mean for the user? That you’re more susceptible to fraud and hacking and malware?

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    • ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Basically GrapheneOS is for people worried about law enforcement or some state actors trying to access their phone using some commercial tools or 0 day exploits. It’s useful for journalist, lawyers, activists and so on.

      Average users don’t really have to worry about those things. It’s unlikely that someone will try to hack you using such tools, you most probably don’t have any data wort protecting and it’s quicker and easier for you to just unlock your phone than to spend days/weeks/months in jail trying to protect your data.

      What average user should care about is removing Google from their phones and blocking trackers. Other ROMs like iode also come without Google and have better tools than GrapheneOS for blocking trackers. They are as secure as any other Android phone.

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      • rumba@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

        Average users don’t really have to worry about those things.

        That’s true, until it isn’t. What’s legal and moral now can change in a flash. Having a phone that’s resistant to software infiltration isn’t a bad thing.

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    • LedgeDrop@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      From a user’s perspective, when you install an app, you can:

      1. Determine if that app is allowed to access the internet.
      2. If it _needs_ access to your contacts, **you** can share which of your contacts, it can see (or none at all)
      3. If it _needs_ access to your files, **you** can determine which files/photos/music it sees (or none at all, but the application still believes it has access to everything)
      

      There are a bunch of other, security features it provides, but from a “normal user” experience, the ability to take control of your data is probably one of the most impactful.

      It is possible to do similar things with other CFW, but AFAIK, graphene is the only one to cleanly integrate it as a polished feature of the ROM.

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      • atcorebcor@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

        I see, and it can’t be installed on Fairphone?

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    • BurgerBaron@piefed.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      A big thing is gOS not using JIT compiling. So, app updates are pretty slow but this kills a lot of malware exploits.

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      • atcorebcor@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

        So if I were to choose graphene over eOS it would mainly be to be more protected from malware?

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