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.
This link is also important.
https://grapheneos.org/faq#device-lifetime
Generally speaking, the answer is 7-15 years by combining these two sources.
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”.
They offer several years of “extended support”
From the link:
GrapheneOS aims to provide harm reduction releases for devices which only have a minimum of 3 years support. Extended support updates at minimum will be done until the next Android version.
Emphasis mine. That quote does not imply they will provide an additional 3 years of support, only that they will offer the harm reduction updates from the end of official OEM support until the next version of Android is released.
I have personal experience with this, as my quite old Pixel 4a received harm-reduction updates from GrapheneOS for an additional few months into 2024 until the next version of Android was released, but that did not result in years of support. It is now completely unsupported, and has a warning on every bootup that says as much.
Further along they then say:
It is likely that we will make a decision around harm reduction releases for other devices with longer lifetimes in Q4 2024.
This implies they may actually stop doing post-support harm reduction updates for the newer devices that have longer support lifetimes from Google.
The following devices are end-of-life, no longer receive firmware or driver security updates, and receive extended support from GrapheneOS via a legacy branch based on Android 14 with only the Android Open Source Project security backports, certain other security patches, and other minimal changes to keep them working:
- Pixel 5a (barbet)
- Pixel 5 (redfin)
- Pixel 4a (5G) (bramble)
The following devices are end-of-life, no longer receive firmware or driver security updates, and receive extended support from GrapheneOS via a legacy branch based on Android 13 with only the Android Open Source Project security backports, certain other security patches, and other minimal changes to keep them working:
- Pixel 4a (sunfish)
- Pixel 4 XL (coral)
- Pixel 4 (flame)
As an owner of a 4a, I can tell you with confidence that my device has not received an update in any form for many, many months now. It is effectively unsupported, and certainly is insecure in comparison to a Pixel 6 or newer.
The GrapheneOS developers themselves have stated in their forum that they will no longer provide extended support beyond the Pixel 5a, and that the extended support it has is already effectively insecure:
You should already be treating it as if it’s not receiving updates anymore, since that’s largely the case already.
Providing extended support doesn’t fit with the way we do things at all and is ending after the Pixel 5a. It’s a temporary compromise for harm reduction through existing users at least getting some of the patches despite not moving to a secure device. When this topic comes up in this way, it hints to us that we may be doing more harm than good through people continuing to use an insecure devices. We’ll certainly stop doing it with the 5 and 7 year support devices.
A day ago, a GrapheneOS dev said of the Pixel 4a:
It’s unsafe to continue using the Pixel 4a. It lacks basic security updates. Pixel 4a was launched August 2020 so it’s at the 5 year point. It was a budget device, not a flagship. It was launched with 3 years of support, unlike 8th/9th gen Pixels with 7 years of support from launch or the prior 6th/7th gen Pixels with 5 years of support from launch.
So for the Pixel 4, it effectively received about an extra year and half of tenuous support. The Pixel 5 will receive a few more months of tenuous extended support, then there will be no extended support for any future devices, meaning users will have to upgrade at the end of Google’s official support cycle for each device.
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”.
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.
This has not been my experience, at least on a 4G device. My internet/data still work fine on a 5 year old device.
Its very carrier dependant for how much gets invested in infrastructure, but in the US carriers seem to be updating frequency bands almost every generation model of phone.
Go look at a few models of the same phone for instance pixel 6 vs 7 vs 8 vs 9. Carriers are phasing out antiquated cellular bands. They try to keep the most widely used bands like n71 or other most common 4 or 5 bands but then tweak or change another 10 bands inside the phone sometimes 20 bands in all.
But I assure you this is the case. Cellular bands change as towers get serviced and replaced.
*source phone repair tech for the past few years.
Not a pixel owner but I have a one plus 7 (so 6 years old phone) and I don’t experience any problem with internet or data. Why would the frequency band change so often ?
Because carriers and manufacturers together are trying to find bands that work how we want during life conditions. For instance inside hospitals with multiple floors of concrete we need high frequency bands to keep the speed we want and need for today’s uses especially with multiple devices are in the same vicinity. We need the high frequencies to get through barriers and connection quality in dense urban areas. But high frequencies don’t travel far.
On top of health laws and regulations.
Lower frequencies travel further but the speeds aren’t as fast and any barriers in between the device and tower or transmitter for low frequencies will interfere with objects. Which is why 2g is good for rural areas but it’s insecure and antiquated for modern speed and usages like we expect.
*phone repair tech for the last few years.
Nope. 8 years after release, mine still has network service and still works well.
The US? I’m using my Redmi 4x (2017 model).
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 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.
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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.
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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
I see the point, but there’s a certain dignity in being able to go out with your secrets instead of having some spill them for you without so much as a fight. Unless they whip out the truth serum, idk what I’d do then.
Yeah, this is so sad that most phones do not follow good security practices.
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.
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.
Well, divestos was cool while it lasted. Now I have to use lineage.
The biggest problem will be that depending on the country you live in, you simply won’t find the battery to replace it and there is simply no reliable parallel brand for the Google Pixel. iFixit sells the original battery but does not ship to any country
