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Google is using the boiling frog method to exclude power users and custom ROMS from android.
A new feature in Android 8.0 Oreo, called "Rollback Protection" and included in the "Verified Boot" changes, will prevent a device from booting should it be rolled back to an earlier firmware. The detailed information is here.
As it rejects an image if its "rollback index" is inferior than the one in "tamper evident storage", any attempts to install a previous version of the official, signed ROM will make the device unbootable. Much like iOS (without the rollback grace period) or the extinct Lumias. It is explained in the recommended boot workflow and notes below, together with some other "smart" ideas.
Now, this might seem like a good idea at first, but let's just just imagine this on a PC. It would mean no easy roll back from windows 10 to 7 after a forced installation, and doing that or installing linux would mean a unreasonably complex bootloader unlocking, with all your data wiped. Add safetynet to the mix, and you would also be blocked from watching netflix or accessing your banking sites if you dared to install linux or rollback windows.
To add insult to injury, unlocked devices will stop booting for at least 10 seconds to show some paternalist message on how unlocking is bad for your health - "If the device has a screen and buttons (for example if it's a phone) the warning is to be shown for at least 10 seconds before the boot process continues."
Now, and knowing that most if not all android bootloaders have vulnerabilities/backdoors, how can this be defended, even with the "security/think of the children" approach? This has no advantages other than making it hard for users to install ROMs or to revert to a previous official ROM to restore missing functionality.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday September 06 2017, @05:28PM (6 children)
Yes, most of the Play Store apps are garbage, but that's true of everything: "95% of everything is crap". I'd say most smartphone users have a small handful of apps they regularly use and maybe even rely on (or at least use so much they'd really miss them if they were gone). Personally, I get a lot of use out of RealCalc, which AFAIK has no spyware and definitely no ads (it nags you to buy the full version occasionally though). This project talks about having a mobile Linux development environment, so basically they're hoping a bunch of volunteers will pop up and start making Free apps for their phone, but that's wishful thinking really.
(Score: 2) by gawdonblue on Wednesday September 06 2017, @09:12PM (5 children)
Double bonus with Gnome on the Phone: gnome-calculator. It's a real scientific calculator that doesn't nag you and doesn't come from no stinkin' pay-for-app store. And triple bonus: it's GPL so you can search the source and tell if it has spyware. And even a quadruple bonus, it already exists and is already usable on mobile screen sizes. Maybe you can try it right now on your device...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Wednesday September 06 2017, @09:45PM (4 children)
I just looked up your gnome-calculator, and it's completely unusable. It's not RPN.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Wednesday September 06 2017, @11:13PM (2 children)
So spin again, you do know how many calculators are on the Linux desktop, right? Galculator supports Algebraic, RPN and Formula Entry modes. Many, many more to pick from.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday September 07 2017, @03:21AM (1 child)
Those are for the desktop. You can't use a desktop app on a mobile device.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Thursday September 07 2017, @03:36AM
Sure you can. As long as it is usable on the screen. What do you think GNOME3 is, just gtk3 apps optimized for touch and with a eye to looking good and being usable on a small screen. The rest is in the window manager's defaults to force everything full screen. Rare to find a calculator app that paints so many buttons it won't run on the phablets everybody carries around now.
(Score: 2) by gawdonblue on Saturday September 09 2017, @10:33PM
Oh, sorry. I didn't realise that RPN was critical to your workflow. The requirements document skipped some functionality. "Completely unusable" might be a bit over the top, though.