• 0 Posts
  • 13 Comments
Joined 3 years ago
cake
Cake day: March 20th, 2022

help-circle








  • The core of Android is open source and named AOSP for short, it is built on top of the Linux kernel which is also free and open source. However Google have made AOSP not usable by abandonning most of the free app in favor of their own proprietary apps such as Google Messenger, Goole Photos etc… That’s why community project like LineageOS builds their own apps to make them usable instead of the old deprecated ones. Brands like Samsung, OnePlus, etc… are not building from AOSP but rather paying a licence fee to Google so they can use the Google Services that are almost necessary to modern Android.

    OP is running GrapheneOS which is a Free and Open Source Operating System based on AOSP.



  • Mobile operating systems like Android are way more sandboxed than traditional desktop OS. Even though the situation has improved on desktop, especially on macOS and some GNU/Linux distros, sandboxing is more of an iOS/Android thing.

    On Windows, most people are admin users, which is a role with admin privileges. You’re not running these by default on macOS or GNU/Linux, and you’re not allowed to on your mobile. Both Android and iOS require an exploit to root/jailbreak to get admin privileges.

    This doesn’t mean that macOS, Linux, Android, and iOS can’t get any malware. But by default, a phone OS gives apps very little permissions. Of course, apps can ask for them and trick the user into giving them. Some permissions give higher privileges, and you don’t want every app to have those.

    So, no, what you want is education, not an app with privileges to verify everything is okay. I don’t say antivirus are useless, but you have to realize what it means to offer another app all these privileges. Fortunately, Hypatia has pretty basic permissions, but that means it also makes it less efficient than modern antivirus, as it works more basically.

    Simply reboot your phone often and don’t install shady stuff. It won’t prevent the NSO Group from selling a spyware with 4 0-days exploits to a Nation State to spy on your device, but Hypatia won’t either.