Honestly, Custom ROMs have been in decline of usage since few years. There are also Other ROMS like Pixel Experience, PixyOS, Havoc, evolutionX, PixelOS, Paranoid, Derpfest, CrDroid and lot more.
The reason for the drop is due to a combination of reasons like better OEM UI, unpublished Kernel code (Chinese OEMs, Mediatek), locked bootloaders and Safetynet issues.
I’m currently rocking CrDroid it has currently ~85K active devices (https://stats.crdroid.net/).
Before i got my Pixel 6 Pro, i’ve been running Custom Roms on everything. The Pixel 6 Pro is probably the first device, i’m actually okay running Stock. It just does what it should. And i’ll be honest, the hassle of getting it to work properly (Banking, Netflix, etc) is just too much for my everyday phone…Google really did a number on that one, both positive and negative. I kind of hate it…
Ironically that’s one of the only phones that you have the choice of not running stock
I used to turn to custom roms to extend the life of my phone. My first smartphone didn’t get an official update after I purchased it for example. The custom roms often made the phone snappier too.
These days I’m on a mid range Samsung phone released almost 4 years ago and it’s still getting updates.
Ditto on a Pixel 6 Pro. There were a ton of people with issues when this thing came out, but I was lucky enough to dodge all the issues.
I had none over the last 2 years…which is funny, because i fully expected to have them - and put a custom rom on it. There are just two things that irk me…you can’t disable IPv6 and the adaptive charging is still not enough for me personally, i would have liked to have a hard limit…
Do custom ROMs still have issues with some apps not allowing them? It’s been an eternity since I tried one and I don’t know if it’s a hard requirement, but at least when I did try it, I had (?) to root my device and my bank apps refused to work after that.
better OEM UI
Very subjective.
Unpublished kernel code
Don’t use those phones.
Locked bootloaders
Plenty of OEMs allow bootloader unlocking, stop buying Samsung.
Safetynet issues
It’s Google Play Integrity checking now, and as someone who has been using LinageOS on unrooted phones for a while, I’ve never had these issues. Not to say people out there aren’t having them, but it’s not as bleak as people seem to believe it is.
I have one phone that’s rooted, and I have to use magisk to hide it, and that occasionally has issues, but not the non-rooted ones running custom roms.
Where are these OEMs that allow proper bootloader unlocking on most of their range?
Google, Sony …? Huawei stopped doing it, Oppo & Samsung doesn’t last I checked.
It’s Google Play Integrity checking now, and as someone who has been using LinageOS on unrooted phones for a while, I’ve never had these issues. Not to say people out there aren’t having them, but it’s not as bleak as people seem to believe it is
Maybe a week ago they borked the integrity of custom ROMs. GPay/Wallet doesn’t work anymore with Magisk shenanigans. Happened to every ROM I checked.
I’m talking from a general user perspective who often can’t even differentiate between chipsets let alone look for such details.
People used to got to Custom ROMs because OEMs were really doing shit job, that’s not the case now given now.
People used to got to Custom ROMs because OEMs were really doing shit job, that’s not the case now given now.
Yep. I used to use custom (ROMs, kernels, etc) for the extra features and playing with my phone like a shiny new toy. Now I use GrapheneOS because OEMs and Google don’t do security and privacy anywhere near as good as GOS. And I can live with the minor inconvenience of apps that use Play Integrity API, though I do encourage the app devs to switch to hardware backed attestation because: “Android’s hardware attestation API provides a much stronger form of attestation than the Play Integrity API with the ability to whitelist the keys of alternate operating systems. It also avoids an unnecessary dependency on Google Play services and Google’s Play Integrity servers.” https://grapheneos.org/articles/attestation-compatibility-guide
Now try to use most of Banking applications (even McDonalds app lol) Most of these application require Google Play Integrity. So practically, you are enforced to use Google Play Services or buy a second device to run android with gapps and then power it off (that’s what I did)
Lineage OS is really great, I recommend the forked version with MicroG bundled to use google apps.
Depends on how pure you want to be. If you are a purest, that is a bad thing to do.
Well yes you are right, but being completely pure is borderline impossible IMO, and most people transition slowly.
I want to move away from GSF, how is MicroG working nowadays? I used it some years ago but it was buggy with any app related to mapping, and some other quirks.
Is it equal to a regular android? Will the usual banking apps work on it, for example?
No. Banking won’t work and you can’t lock bootloader. As far as I know there’s no Recovery password so someone could just adb and pull data. If you want to use banking apps you could use magisk to pass safety net but that will make your phone less secure. Personally I have no banking app so I don’t give a shit
1hr 45mins?!
I used LineageOS before switching to GrapheneOS
- Quarantined google play services on an alternate profile was a big sell for me. I don’t use anything google related in my day to day but occasionally I need traffic updates or alternative routes and I’m forced to use google maps. There’s a few other exceptions where I very rarely will need to use google play services.
In those situations, I can boot to an alternate profile for each app I need to use, and I know google is unable to harvest the majority of my data.
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GrapheneOS has hardened security compared to lineageOS.
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LineageOS did some type of takeover on cyanogenmod and I forget the details but I remember the whole situation left a sour taste in my mouth.
Considering the lead developer of GrapheneOS bans anyone from their chat for asking how an Android phone with GrapheneOS compares to a non-android phone, such as a PinePhone or Librem 5, in terms of security, because, according to said developer, PhonePhone and Librem5 are “scam products” and even asking questions about them is “spreading misinformation” and “promotion of fraud”, I’d be quite, quite vary of the claims GrapheneOS developers make about its security.
LineageOS did some type of takeover on cyanogenmod and I forget the details but I remember the whole situation left a sour taste in my mouth.
CyanogenMod was the one that went commercial and was shut down. LineageOS is the continuation of the original vision. Kinda like OpenOffice vs LibreOffice.
In 2013, the founder, Stefanie Jane,[11][12] obtained venture funding under the name Cyanogen Inc. to allow commercialization of the project.[1][13] However, the company did not, in her view, capitalize on the project’s success, and in 2016 she left or was forced out[14] as part of a corporate restructure, which involved a change of CEO, closure of offices and projects, and cessation of services,[15][16] and therefore left uncertainty over the future of the company. The code itself, being open source, was later forked, and its development continues as a community project under the LineageOS name.
And it could’ve even been useful, had they not chosen to show the code names instead of the make and model…
Daaamn sagit (xiaomi mi 6) number 3. Writing this from a sagit with LOS, such a great phone. This is why it’s great to have community supported roms, this phone hasn’t been updated for many many years and would be close to being unusable if it wasn’t for them.
I have this phone since December 2017 and I’ve had no issue so far to make me change. I’ve thought many times about upgrading, but it’s so smooth, camera with gcam is great and new things like quick charging and 5g are things that I don’t really need, so I haven’t changed yet. I’m afraid of choosing a device that won’t be as good as this one and that it won’t last as long.
It’s sad that community made Roms are less and less popular, I feel like phones are evolving less each year and Roms are a great way to have more control and extend the lives of your phone.
