Is it still safe to use as long as apps continue to be updated and is supported by the play store?
How long would you say someone could safely use an Android phone that no longer gets security updates for?
I believe this is highly dependent on 2 things:
- The user’s internet habits and knowledge
- Who is targeting you
For someone like me a tech savvy person who practices good internet habits and is targeted at worst by crypto scammers and advertisers, I would say secure enough and looking at my circle of relatives and colleagues I would say it is still secure enough for the non techie people as I never heard of any of them getting hacked
My phone stopped receiving security updates from the vendor I believe in 2021 (running a custom ROM rn)
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“Your” phone belongs to some overseas crime ring and they’re letting you borrow it. That’s how insecure it is.
Doesn’t even matter if you install apps or not. Plenty of RCE vulnerabilities crop up that require zero user intervention to exploit.
Very, very safe. Android security levels are very high. Much higher than iPhone for example, because Google have a dedicated Security team testing it all the time. They even host Hackathons where people are invited to find holes and vulnerabilities.
In any case Google can send important security updates via the Play Store as well. But most vulnerabilities found are never actually used in reality. They normally require physical access to the device, some kind of computer, complicated techniques. In other words nothing the regular person ever has to worry about.
If you hear of anyone having a malware issue it’s because they went to a dodgy site and downloaded an APK and installed it manually.
If you use your brain and only install apps from trusted sources, you’ll be fine.
(Trusted sources: Google Play Store, F-Droid, uptodown.com)
How is uptodown a trusted source?
To expand on this, most vulnerabilities that require the vendor to actually participate by providing security updates are specific to your hardware configuration. These kinds of vulnerabilities are less attractive to most attackers because of their specificity. Attackers would much prefer to have a vulnerability that applies to many different victims, not just a specific kind. Android has gone to great lengths to update these commonly targeted components regardless of your vendor support status. Unless you believe you would be specifically targeted, the risk is fairly low.
I’m not sure it’s fair to put iPhone down. They do take security very seriously, especially physical security with their formally verified bootloader. Not seeking a flame war. I just didn’t think it was accurate. Are we so sure they don’t have individuals focused on iPhone security at Apple? Compromised devices impact their brand image while the same bugs can be used for jailbreaking. I’m sure it’s very important. I interviewed with a team up there that I believe specialized in just that. Just recently Apple implemented an emergency security patching system for their devices to get security updates out even faster.
Full disclaimer: I use both devices for software development. I have no special preference.
I’m really stubborn about updating my devices and it’ll perhaps bite me in the ass one day but so far it haven’t. My phone has been trying to force the Android 13 update on me for 6 months now and my laptop I’m not going to update any further from MacOS Catalina even though there have been several updates after that.
Why? I don’t fix stuff that’s not broken.
Not updating desktop OS seems pretty crazy to me. Is the reason because it might break some applications you use?
It will break some applications and I don’t like the UI on the new MacOS.
I’ve always used old devices that you often even can’t get updates for so this has always been the norm for me. I know it’s not the smartest thing to do but my great luck has brought me this far so lets see how long it’ll last.
Sounds like Linux might be way. Last OS that a lot of my devices ended up getting have been Linux with how well they run once the majors OS start upping the system requirements.
My next laptop is probably going to be the Framework one so Linux definitely is an option. I’m interested in it but seems a bit tricky to deal with so we’ll see.
Not if but when it bites you, it likely will not be pretty.
You’re rejecting dozens of not hundreds of ways to avoid having bad things happen, just a couple examples being having your identity stolen or losing data. These risks already exist no matter what you do, but they are several times more likely with every few months that you go without security updates.
Besides that, you will eventually be forced to update, either because your device dies and has to be replaced or because of something like software you require refuses to run on your 8 year old OS. When you get that new OS, the jarring effect will be much worse than if you just allowed your devices to evolve as designed. Updates are not a bug, they are an extremely valuable feature.
Your reasoning that it ain’t broke so you don’t fix it leads me to believe you have never written software. All software is inherently broken. Products under development for 30 years still have flaws so fundamental it’s hard to even imagine. I say all of this as someone who has had his hard drive wiped accidentally by software bugs, had email and other accounts randomly hacked, and personally worked with broken ass software from the world leading giants. And as a software developer I can say for sure: all software, no exceptions, is barely working. No matter how solid it it seems, some random weird edge case can cause complete failure
Update your shit. It’s not even that often that stuff breaks in (non Windows at least) OS updates these days
Pirated software breaks almost every time I update.
But it is broken, old software is usually riddled with security vulnerabilities
Yeah. That’s why I said it’ll might bite me in the ass one day.
Other than that it all works just fine so I don’t want for fuck with it. My experience with software updates is that they always break something and slow down my devices.
It has already bitten you in the ass. You just don’t realize it yet.
