How good is /e/ privacy based LineageOS fork?
How good is /e/ privacy based LineageOS fork?
I'm looking to get a custom ROM that has good compatibility with my device. Would you recommend /e/? I couldn't find a tutorial on how to install it with Linux but I don't think it should be that hard to figure out.
I used it for a few years on Oneplus Nord, and a few days ago switched to pixel7 with LineageOS. First impressions are that e/os was much more usable out of the box.
I surely have worse experience with banking: Revolut and SmartID app just refuse to work due to rooted phone (worked well on e/os). Other bank app is somewhat more broken - on e/os it didnt fully load but at least showed notificatioms on each transaction, now doesnt and is useless.
Could be due to newer android version on LineageOS though, I didnt investigate that./e/ has good but not perfect privacy. It still contains connections to Google and they added a tracking parameter to their update calls.
Their update cycles are very slow. You are usually one to two months behind monthly security updates. Full bulletins are a year behind and Webview is a problem as well. They ignore this point and do not realize, that Insuffizienz security is a privacy risk AS well.
So if you want good privacy with a convenient user experience and without thoughts about security, here you go.
Im using it for a couple of years. I flashed my fairphone 3 by my self back then, before the easy installer. It was the first time i did something "advanced" with a phone, but it worked quite well. After my fairphone 3 died, I bought a Fairphone 4 via murena. So everything was already installed etc In total I am happy with the Os. Their goal, the release of privacy oriented OS for everyone (so f.e. even my parents could use them) is quite of a utopia I suppose. But still, the team and community are doing a good job.
Yeah I already heard about grapheneOS, but its not working well with fairphone right? So murena it is for me :) And I would recommend to people, who are aware of the downsides and are little enthusiastic :)
After my fairphone 3 died, I bought a Fairphone 4 via murena.
wait you didn't buy a replacement battery? 🤨
It wasnt the battery, sadly. Some Fairphone3 have the issue, that their mainboard(?) is breaking down after a couple of years without any clear reason - and I was the lucky one. Its the only "unreplaceble" part and kind of phone breaker. Sure, you can replace this too, but it would somheow be like buying a new phone. At this point, the fairphone 4 was alreasy released, so I took the upgrade. Fairphone 4 and 5 have now a waranty of 5 instead of 2 years. So at least on this point ill be save for 3 years more :>
/e/os is often behind on Android monthly security patches (sometimes up to a month or more!) and the apps they fork I have heard also often lag behind upstream. It also doesnt do much to deblob the ROM if proprietary binary blobs.
Comparison table of Android ROMs: https://eylenburg.github.io/android_comparison.htm
Came here literally to comment this. Hooooly fuck, I would not trust /e/ as far as I can throw a Fairphone. Good thing they're compostable, becauze that's the only up they have on a Graphene flash.
Until I can take a basic actionable step to ensuring my information is safe like LOCKING MY BOOTLOADER... I am good over here.
It’s pretty solid. I use it daily and don’t have any big problems. Install is simple. Just install adb and fastboot from your linux repository. This should cover the most of the installation requirements.
I don't know if installing from the repositories is such a fantastic idea. I've had instances where I've almost fucked up a device because I installed the ones from the repositories and they weren't new enough. I would recommend downloading the ones from Google directly.
Edit: the cli platform-tools
Sounds pretty straight forward. What is compatibility like? Have you tried any banking apps?
I have ING app, it works seamlessly through microG but I don't need it for basic use of the app. I don't use my phone to pay for stuff.
Haven't had any major apps not work on it. Except one banking app for a while in the beginning, but works now
I have no banking apps on that phone, sorry. So I don’t know if they work.
Their easy installer is why many people I know installed it, but it only supports 21 devices and mine wasn't one of them, so I can't say much about usability or security. If yours is one of them, there's also a Linux guide on their website: https://doc.e.foundation/easy-installer
Yeah. I love the idea of the easy installer. Mine isn't listed either.
I love the idea of the easy installer.
looks at GrapheneOS installer.... Literally just 3 buttons on a Website you have to click, all of the steps easily written with clear instructions for Linux as well as windows
looks at /e/ installer
- finds 5 Websites with installers for /e/, all of them apparantly official ones, decided to use https://e.foundation/installer/
- Site dosent let you view this instructions without JavaScript.
- enabled JS
- Cant even use fcking Firefox to view this installer because a fcking pop-up Blocks my sight
- goddamn privacy oriented Android Rom Website recommends using Microsoft edge or Opera (both of which are privacy nightmares, especially opera)
- smashes pillow against the wall
I give up. If you call that bloated peace of dierrhea an „Easy installer”, you could just as well say that gentoo is easier to install than mint.
I've used it for almost five years, flashed it myself on my FP3. I disabled microG and I'm very careful & strict about what I install on my phone, also their Advanced Privacy set of tools is pretty good. For my threat model is more than enough and I am very happy overall. Never had any serious issues, or even mildly serious ones tbh, despite people yelling about Android security updates arriving late. There was an outage in their cloud services in October that required a complete revamping of their server infrastructure and that took months but I don't use their cloud so I wasn't affected at all.
What phone do you want to flash on? Is it in this list? https://doc.e.foundation/devices
Doesn't support Galaxy phones unfortunately.
I think it supports Galaxy S9
I kinda took out my old phone (Sony) and flashed on that.... And running parallel while I degoogle myself.... Takes some time to change all email registrations from govt. And tax authorities to other external services like docs, banks and stuff....so doing dual phone for a fee weeks and then dropped main phone (fairphone5) to fully shift on e/os phone (sony).. And then will reset the ex-main phone (ff5) when degoogle is complete... I am too busy these days so it's taking very long. (Also clean up Google inboxes and then back up vs. Backup and then clean up old inboxes is a struggle for me). Once fully complete I will flash ex-mainphone FF5 with e/os as well and switch to it And then use the 2nd phone to shift my partner and kids slowly. And in a year or next upgrades I think I might buy my family older pixel phones and flash e/os on them.
Maybe you should also get a side phone to start the project.
Here is a good comparison. As a reminder, there is no privacy without security, so if you live in the US (or anywhere that illegal searches happen regularly), I'd argue a less secure solution is by definition a less private solution.
Depends on how far you want to go. From what I've been able to tell, they pedel a lot of flashy metrics and still had a bunch of google calls. Some of which you can manually remove, same as LOS. I would avoid buying into their cloud and keeping an eye on things yourself, if you want to install it. I saw them rebrand a bunch of OSS tooling as their own products back then. Don't know if things changed since then, but I don't trust the marketing.
A couple of my coworkers use it they are pretty happy with it and it works good from what I’ve heard :)
On the surface. DivestedOS has a whole laundry list of bugs and defects that /e/ hasn't patched in yeeeeaarrs. Including how many holes their so-called 'IP scrambler' actually has.
Your coworkers would be safer with stock. Or Lineage. Or literally anything else.
Personally I hear it had been a mixed bag. Hopefully time has refined this... Old stories about digging up old LOS images, bare minimal patches, and release under e branding with no consideration for security/hardening. Buuut that was info from a grapheneos vs eos forum, or something. Do your research, you know what sub you're in.
Hard truth: outside of GrapheneOS there is very little security and privacy gains from a custom Android OS over stock.
From best to worst:
Graphene OS
iOS
Stock Android / non rooted custom OS
Branded stock android
Rooted phones of any type
EOL phones
It's hard to compare the security of systems. Also how is IOS number2!? Theres a lot of research put into finding holes in hardware and software since they are so popular, also they have backdoors for the government baked in along their walled garden.
Speaking about privacy, there are alot of gains from passing from a closed source ROM to a open sourced one. Or even better to an open sourced phone running Linux(yes I know very few can daily drive them).
On security it's complicated and depends on many factors.
very very bad
very very bad
Care to elaborate?
/e/ greatly reduces security vs. AOSP via added attack surface, weakened security model and slow patches.
https://eylenburg.github.io/android_comparison.htm
https://privsec.dev/posts/android/choosing-your-android-based-operating-system/