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Fairphone Is Finally Selling Its Repairable Phone in the US
(www.wired.com)
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this post was submitted on 18 Aug 2026
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Now make it for Graphene
It's never good enough
There's one dev who's been hard at work making postmarketOS work for FP6:
https://ani.social/u/TheMightyCat
It doesn't sound possible on the FP6 or FP6+. But maybe in the future? If people keep asking them (politely!) they might consider adding support for the 7 or 8
I thought Fairphone was one of the few supported phones. Perhaps I'm thinking of a different phone OS.
No I think you are thinking of calyx. Graphene repeatedly asserted that they won't support fairphone because of the slow update.
It wasn't just the update cycle either, it's that they don't have the physical hardware chips to support Graphene's minimum requirements for security, which would severely weaken any benefits you actually get from GrapheneOS.
not any, but some benefits, and GrapheneOS maintainers are perfectionists
Entirely lacking disk encryption for typical users due to not having a secure element is a pretty major flaw.
It's also missing hardware accelerated virtualization which is necessary for much of GrapheneOS's sandboxing, has weak security for other keys in the OS keystore, is missing hardware memory tagging which makes it much easier for apps to use overflow attacks, doesn't have proper verified boot support once a custom alternative OS is flashed, and leaves exposed debugging APIs even when the phone is locked.
This breaks:
At that point, GrapheneOS can't physically provide you essentially any security anymore.
all android devices have been using file based disk encryption since several Android versions now.
the others are all good to have security features, but lets be honest, a proper sensors permission toggle does not require any of that, just like a dozen other features only GrapheneOS has. storage scopes, contact scopes, pin scrambling and the requirement of fingerprint + pin for unlocking the lock screen, duress pin, the user profile improvements
all this does not require any hardware support.
https://grapheneos.org/features
While that is true yes, their whole brand is built on being secure.
If they release to Fairphone it won't be long before the news is flooded with "Police easily bypass supposedly secure GraphoneOS"
And that's not a look they'd want.
I like their stance on All or Nothing.
Motorola is shipping with GraphineOS soon.
but if calyx would take their features they would be screaming loudly how unfair that is
that part I can understand. maybe release it under a different name, but they are probably not interested in that.
their code is open source, but they were so hostile with every other part of the free android community that nobody wants to deal with the shitstorm that would happen if they took patches from graphene.
This is news to me, how were they hostile?
I would think they'd be happy if others also implement security features
initially the founder had issues with an old project member, who founded copperhead os, a competing rom. allegedly he took all the code from graphene for use in copperhead, without attribution, and it even involved money some way. these two were suing each other for a long time, there was brigading in chat rooms and forums and whatnot. then somehow the rage extended to other projects too, like f-droid and calyx os, which they also accused of brigading and more, so that anyone mentioning calyx os in graphene rooms gets banned from there on sight.
I don't have enough information to be certain about which projects were actually hostile to graphene and which not, but people have been calling the graphene founder paranoid for thinking everyone wants to destroy their project. the founder was writing a lot on twitter and other places, mostly (but not only) with tye official graohene os account. he stepped down from being the project leader a year or two ago.
All Android devices are supposed to support it, but not all do. (or at least, not all do effectively without compromising the cryptographic root of trust by not implementing proper hardware security chips)
I'll grant it to you on the scopes, PIN changes, etc, but realistically I just don't think anyone can justify GrapheneOS being something that should be supported on Fairphone given how absolutely desolate the phone looks with regard to any attempt at all to hardware security.
It really depends on what security level you want out of a phone. Most people are concerned with a pickpocket stealing and being able to access everything. Most of the world doesn't need the security level required to pass through the united states border control. Which they will just force to put the pin anyways or put you in jail for even having a secure device.
It does, but that's exactly my point. GrapheneOS will provide you essentially no more security than any other alternative Android operating system, should it have to operate on a Fairphone with all those features not supported by a Fairphone stripped away.
Unless Fairphone adds more hardware security features that are standard on most other phones, and highly supported on Pixels, installing a heavily crippled GrapheneOS on a Fairphone would get you essentially none of the benefits of GrapheneOS in the first place.
once again, that is completely false. I'm fed up with all the people pretending that all grapheneos adds is hardware security.
If the features you want are still in software like degoogling, you have other options available
Well sans duress password being a good idea now, when you get to the border, you can either unlock it or they'll just confiscate it. You don't get to be on their list and go through with a phone because they can't manage to decrypt it.
Buy a Pixel or wait for Motorola to release their GrapheneOS compatible smartphone.
Been burned too many times by Motorola. They always promise but I have rarely seen them deliver.
I haven't heard of this. Looking into it there's at least a year wait. I'd consider it - though my Edge 2022 battery may not make it until then. Damn thing was crap from day 1.
I am pretty sure Motorola plans to sell flag ship devices with GrapheneOS preinstalled. They won't support old devices. Also the manufacturer needs to still ship firmware updates for a specific duration for GrapheneOS to support it.
GrapheneOS already announced a direct partnership with Motorola, so they clearly already figured that out officially.
Motorola also promises 5 main Android version updates for their phones now.
I thought the deal was they shipped with normal OS because of existing deals with Google over Android but that they would have unlocked bootloaders so that the end user can install it.
Also it’s limited to their very high end so expect $1000+ USD.
Graphene is only on pixels, why not their /e/os?
Only because Pixels have met their hardware requirements. They are going to start working with Motorola now.
From what I understand, the two OS are not aiming for the same objectives. /e/os is a degoogled OS and that's its main purpose. GrapheneOS is focused on hardening security on AOSP.
/e/ os is not degoogled.
On some technical level you may be correct, but their site claims that /e/os is degoogled.
https://e.foundation/e-os/
So I would love to know more about what you're talking about.
Yes, they lie. GrapheneOS is the only fully degoogled android based OS, full stop.
This comparison chart shows which parts of /e/OS are not deGoogled:
https://eylenburg.github.io/android_comparison.htm
Why not posmarketOS?
I want postmarket so bad.
They did actually get a camera working for fairphone 6+, yesterday, kinda, mostly https://catcrafts.net/posts/fairphone-6-postmarketos-working-main-camera
I need an ok camera, ok video, gps, volte, sms, and ~18 hours of battery life with maybe 6-8 of it active.
I love Linux as much as the next guy but I've got PostmarketOS as well as Ubuntu touch running on a Fairphone 4 and the experience is far from polished, postmarket doesn't even do VoLTE.
Not saying it sucks - I love it. But it's not for everyone and unlikely to replace android for most use cases at the moment unfortunately.
Well do i have good news for you!
https://ani.social/post/34656971
https://ani.social/post/35759149
they got the camera kinda working on the 6+ yesterday too https://catcrafts.net/posts/fairphone-6-postmarketos-working-main-camera
Yeah I think it just doesn’t work on the FP4 yet. At least I haven’t managed to get it working. On Ubuntu touch it also took years (although that community is also very… special)
All of the above, preferably
Preferably before my Pixel 6 is EOL later this year...
Does official pixel eol affect grapheneos?
yes, they only support devices still supported by Google updates. When a pixel is eol'd, graphene stops supporting the device
Wow, thats dumb.
You've got a month, FYI...
You either have to wait for Motorola or get a new Pixel.
For my Pixel 6 Pro I think I'm going to wait for Motorola or the low chance that a Linux phone becomes daily drivable, and even then considering my budget I don't think I'll switch until enough stuff breaks. Although I wish they'd extend updates for at least the few months before their phone releases so people aren't left hanging
I'd choose any other company over Google tbh.
My last few have been used off ebay. Pixels really are mediocre phones these days. And the deals on used A series aren't as good as I remember.