still deciding to fully degoogle with GOS or muddling through with what I have (proprietary, data grabbing and bloated).
To understand the question, compare with my main hardware with debian on it: a regular notebook I bought in 2016 and I’ve used heavily for all kinds of stuff: working, writing papers, downloading and playing media including AV1, editing audio, torrenting…
One of the best investments I ever made, considering what I paid and how prices nowadays are. Debian offers regular upgrades and I don’t have to check if my hardware is going to support the software on a level comparable with android devices (GOS only runs on pixels, other open-source, privacy focused Android operating systems have similar hardware restrictions).
I want this kind of ROI for the device I buy and the software I use, but I don’t know if that’s possible:
GOS drops support for older pixels but I don’t know how many years any particular device is supported by GOS: 3 years? not enough. There’s no way I’m buying a new pixel every 3 years. I’d even consider 6 years restrictive.
GrapheneOS supports a phone model for as long as Google officially does. You can see the support lifetime of each model here: https://endoflife.date/pixel
If you want to keep an updated phone constantly, you’d have to upgrade every 7 years.
Just an FYI for those who think like this. I DID TOO.
Your cellular chip and network carrier will often phase out your frequency bands 2 to 3 years before the 7 year mark. Thus your service (internet/data) will not work long before your device loses updates. You will get fed up with your device and buy another pixel roughly every 3 generations to keep with reliable internet connectivity.
Nope. 8 years after release, mine still has network service and still works well.
This link is also important.
https://grapheneos.org/faq#device-lifetime
Generally speaking, the answer is 7-15 years by combining these two sources.
7-15 years by combining these two sources
What? How are you getting to the 15 year number?
I read the “supported android” (version) as “supported android years”.
There’s nothing in that link to indicate 15 years. OEM support means Google’s support, not graphene’s. GrapheneOS does usually offer a few harm reduction releases beyond the official support timeline, but that’s a few months of extra time, not years.
I read the “supported android” (version) as “supported android years”.
Not on Graphene, but on Lineage i keep my devices around 7 - 8 years. Then they are too behind to care for a cracked screen.
Same as stock , a bit extra with minor updates. After that either upgrade if you want a secure device or install calyx, lineage etc otherwise. It’s in the FAQ https://grapheneos.org/faq#supported-devices
New pixels have 7 years official support.
Imho pixels fucking suck. Repairability is really bad, so as soon as anything has issues you need a need phone. I would say the answer to your question heavily depends on your daily battery life requirements. If you wanna stretch the phones overall life, set a 70-80% charging limit to damage the cells less. (If that is even possible with the new models idk, you didnt specify yours…) If you treat it well and turn off all the battery sucking toggles to extend the time before needing to charge, then 4-5 years might be doable.
I tried Graphene for a bit but ultimately couldnt put up with pixel devices anymore and went to calyxos on a fairphone. Not having a swappable battery or extendable storage is just not fun. If you want a 10 year phone get a fairphone. The 6 just came out and is very well priced in the EU.
Some of the mentioned things are real issues, but normal users dont care about physical security. If your physical security is threatened, then your failure point will be a pipe wrench.
This meme doesn’t really apply to Graphene OS when you can just give the duress password which permanently wipes the phone.
thats true, but also a great way to get pipewrenched.
You’d give the duress password before you get pipewrenched.
And once it’s wiped there’s no point in them pipewrenching you because its too late.
no need for one when you have a pipe wrench and the smartass you are interrogating just wiped their phone.
maybe you can make them squeak out something useful that was in there?
By then they’re just pipewrenching you for the sake of pipe wrenching you. It no longer has anything to do with the phone. Graphene OS did its job.
Counterpoint: Yeah, but if ICE kicks in your door would be comforting to know that powering your phone off prevents it from being cellebrighted. GrapheneOS with a supported Pixel device is one of the few smartphones that they can’t exploit from BFU.
The federal government isn’t using wrenches (yet)
No, not wrenches, they just stuff you in a camp, starve you and degrade you until you give up and then deport you to an even worse camp.
Yeah, but they won’t know which waifu is my favorite
Yeah, this is so sad that most phones do not follow good security practices.
GOS is limited by upstream support. Newer devices can be up to 6 years.
imho lineageos is ok enough for privacy and older android versions still remain usable. so I still have a 2013 phone that does everything I need.
sure it might be insecure but I just do less with it.
