172
Google decides to significantly harm Android security to please lazy OEMs β OSnews
(www.osnews.com)
Linux phone, when? Please...
this post was submitted on 15 Sep 2025
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Android
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TL;DR: google is moving from monthly to quarterly security updates
While at the same time clamping down on sideloading.
Pick a fucking lane dickheads.
Noooooo but it's for your security bro trust me!
My Linux laptop gets an update almost every other day. Why can't Android?
AOSP versions of android can get them every other day. The issue is that since almost everyone is using custom versions of android, those updates break their stuff, so they cry. They need time to make sure the updates don't break their shit. (Looking at you Samsung)
My understanding is that Android has shitloads of out of tree modifications to the open source projects it relies on, then every single device manufacturer has even more out of tree modifications to Android and aligning all of these modifications of modifications of modifications of open source projects whenever the mainline project gets an update takes a ton of time and testing, and ultimately managing to get all of that done within a few weeks of an upstream update is a massive headache.
Basically it all comes back to the original sin where Google decided not to force hardware manufacturers to open source their device drivers and let the drivers exist out of tree. And while Google could still make it happen, they choose not to likely because a truly open ecosystem can lead to devices running forks of Android with Android app compatibility (like Amazon's FireOS) which then might reduce Android market share and therefore app store recenue
Because it is an embedded system
Also that would be hell. Hell, it is hell on desktop
But also sharing the exploits with OEMs ahead of time
And malicious actors all over the world. Don't forget that they are also sharing exploits with malicious actors all over the world, several months before deploying fixes for those exploits.
What could possibly go wrong?!
And specifically prohibits releasing any sourcecode which means that FOSS custom roms cant release updates unless they want to ship binaries.
Ughhhhhh.