I’m thinking of getting a fairphone in the future. I like that they are modular and last a while. Are they easily customizable to where I can flash a different ROM? Is the default configuration private?
The stock Fairphone runs the stock full-blown Google spyware stack. Privacy isn’t Fairphone’s selling point: it’s repairability.
You can install CalyxOS very easily on it however. That’s what I’m rocking on my Fairphone 4, and it’s great. I have no issues with it.
As others said, it’s pretty stock android so… Bad. But you can buy it from Murena pre-flashed with e/os and then have a stock phone with a locked bootloader running a decently private OS. The bootloader is unlockable if you so wish.
Is the bootloader relockable with my own keys?
Yes, it’s relockable. You are welcome to Google for more, I had done some research a while ago.
I plan to brush up and switch my own FP4 to e/os during the holidays.
Edit: Google it on any search engine you like ;-)
The CalyxOS installer does that AFAIK, so it should be supported
fairphone offically supports /e/OS as a private option
also unlockable bootloader if you want to run linage for example
The gold standard for privacy is still Pixel with GrapheneOS tbh
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Green washed. If they cared about sustainability they wouldn’t have removed the headphone jack for longer-lived headphones—and instead started selling their own branded Bluetooth earbuds like the rest of the manufacturers.
Fairly private.
Sorry, couldn’t resist.
It’s not tho…
I’m curious, what’s your use case that you need that kind of a phone? just visited their site, says $550 for a somewhat mediocre phone. it’s repairable, but with expensive, fairphone-only sold parts. the OS on it needs removing, as stated multiple times ITT.
a 5 year old phone has comparable tech specs, costs like a 10th of that, you can open it and replace battery and parts. you also need to flash an alternative OS, so what justifies a 10-fold price hike?
edit:
it used to be cheaper, and with an audio jack. Add some environment and social consideration and I see many reasons to buy it.
Or you can buy a Google phone from Amazon and text about privacy or freeing Palestine while sipping your Starbucks coffee in your Tesla car.
Not everything has to be about how much do you personally get for the money you give.
I am so glad I could get the Faiphone 3 while it still had an audio jack. At that time the hardware was not too far behind, still too much for my use which is mainly scrolling through obscure left-ish forums and YouTube channels (thanks newpipe) and startups late-stage capitalist hacker news (I don’t know any better about tech).
what’s your use case that you need that kind of a phone?
I repair my phones when they break and the easy repair of a Fairphone is in no way comparable to the absolute pain it is to remove the display on a phone released in the last 5 years.
Especially considering they provide a 5 year warranty, source fair materials, 8 years of security updates and many more years to come with full access to replacement parts.
I bought my Fairphone for similar reasons to you.
I had a second hand mid-range Samsung for about 6 months and then the USB port got destroyed. I was unable to replace the USB port so the phone is useless.
I bought a Fairphone 5 thinking that, if anything similar happened, I would NOT need to replace the phone and would save money in the long term.
Kids not dying in cobalt mines is also a bonus: https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2023/02/01/1152893248/red-cobalt-congo-drc-mining-siddharth-kara
Fairphone also at least tries to create / source their phones fairly. Not important in terms of privacy, but somewhat explains the higher price tag.
The default Android on them is pretty standard including Google Play services, so it is not great in regards to privacy (but could be worse, like an Apple device or so).
But for most of their models you can find good alternative Android roms or even mobile Linux distributions like PostmarketOS.
Fairphone’s support of PostmarketOs shows me that they actually care about their mission.
Why would I think that Apple would be worse than Google when Apple is predominantly a hardware company and Google is predominantly an ad company?
Apple also runs an ad business these days and their devices collect more types of data than stock Android does. And contrary to many Android phones there is very little you can do against that in Apple devices.
Finally a good, nuanced article on this topic, thanks for sharing. Only drawback is that the author doesn’t seem to be aware that degoogling your phone is a viable alternative, especially with manufactures like Fairphone offering this out of the box.
Lots of people (including myself, previously) fall for the narrative that Apple can financially justify not spying on their users because their hardware is expensive. Versus Google, who have always been about ads and data mining.
This logic unfortunately fails to consider that a publicly trading company will always use all methods at their disposal to keep up profit so shareholders are happy. Expensive hardware was probably enough a decade ago, but the golden rule is: as long as a company can fuck you over in a way that increases profits, they absolutely will, given enough time.
We need federal privacy law in the U.S. and we need it fast.
