Questions about updates for EOL devices

Ghen

de0u Thanks... The "two years" cushion was just a hunch based on past personal observations... nothing else. I guess I will remain with the Pixel 8 and forget the far better sized P5. Again thanks.

de0u

Ghen It seems clear there is a constituency who would welcome a small phone, just as in iPhone land there are people who are sad that Apple hasn't issued a Mini in a while.

mixis

I'm in the same boat. In one-handed use, one top-corner is barely reachable on the pixel 5, and for some reason, top-corners are exactly where interfaces tend to place important interactive elements. 8mm up and 2mm further out, would be a massive reduction in usability for me. Those millimeters can also be the difference between catching on a seam in a front pocket, and sticking out and increasing the likelihood of slipping out. That would maybe shift a trade-off to use a protective case, making the device even bulkier.

Carrying a device is also one of my major modes of usage, far outweighing screen-time. For my use case, the biggest risk is probably radio firmware, and I'm willing to take it. When a vulnerability becomes public, I can still reconsider that position.

[deleted]

mixis not being disrespectful here, first look at security. Then privacy and usability for you. Devices are not going to shrink or expand to your liking. Make a choice and live with it, buy pants with bigger pockets, practice hand gymnastics or operate devices with two hands, whatever brings you desired effect. Do not over complicate things and confuse others. And last but not least least, use recommended devices.

de0u

mixis When a vulnerability becomes public, I can still reconsider that position.

Manufacturers don't spend a lot of energy tracking vulnerabilities in EOL devices, let alone announcing them. If somebody with an EOL device is exploited, they may have no idea why, so there may not be any discovery or report.

The analysis and decision-making are obviously yours to do based on how you use the device, but I don't think "no news is good news" is a recognized security principle for EOL devices of any type.

DeletedUser370

[deleted] Make a choice and live with it, buy pants with bigger pockets, practice hand gymnastics or operate devices with two hands, whatever brings you desired effect.

It's very fair to advice people against using insecure devices. But I still find your tone to be quite unnecessary; Some people prefer smaller devices, and instead of lecturing them on hand gymnastics and clothing, why not just accept that people are different in that way?

[deleted]

DeletedUser370 yes I agree, people may be different in lots of ways, who is to say they are necessarily better ways (and in what respect)? Clearly you don't seem to respect my difference of opinion.

ErnestThornhill

Let's stick to the topic of this post and not derail it because of a difference in opinion and how a user worded their response. 👍 Neither contribute to OP's question(s).

DeletedUser43

I've changed from Pixel 5 to Pixel 9 Pro, it's gigantic. I even have the thinnest case possible, with MagSafe and a ring to help. Still, I can't effectively use it with one hand. I'd jump on a smaller phone in a second.

I actually had Pixel 8 Pro in between - it crosses a tablet threshold for me, so I was forced to switch.

AlphaElwedritsch

The 5 series was unfortunately the last to be a reasonable size.
It's a shame that Google didn't come up with the idea of offering a handy device from the current series

GrapheneOS

Ghen It's not at all safe and you should not use an end-of-life device. It's highly insecure and filled with holes. It also has far fewer defenses against exploits than more recent devices, particularly with GrapheneOS. We'll be ending support for the legacy extended support devices soon especially because people keep wrongly believing it keeps them secure. Posts trying to convince people it's fine will result in an earlier end to legacy extended support.

Move to one of the supported devices and stop believing people telling you that not having important security patches is fine. You don't have anything close to current generation exploit protections to make up for it either.

GrapheneOS

missing-root Vanadium on end-of-life devices without security updates is not a secure browser and neither is anything else. There are known, remotely exploitable vulnerabilities in the GPU driver and other components. Vanadium does not make you safe on an end-of-life device. You shouldn't use any web browser on an end-of-life device, regardless of whether the device has a legacy release of GrapheneOS release and current Vanadium.

So yeah, I think it is important to know what exact threat you are fearing. And tbh I dont know statistics on "how do Android users get viruses" mainly as I never hear of a single case. And if it was, it was paid, police, states, ...

You're completely wrong about this.There are widespread in-the-wild exploits. There's even a lot of in-the-wild exploitation of zero day vulnerabilities. We're not talking about zero day exploits here but rather exploiting over year old vulnerabilities in firmware, drivers, etc. The device also lacks a lot of the later hardware, firmware and software security improvements. Pixel 6 and later were always in a higher class of security and the Pixel 8 and later are another huge step up to a higher of security with GrapheneOS. They still shouldn't be used once they're end-of-life after their minimum 7 years of support from launch ends.

GrapheneOS

LocaLola You've been suspended for 1 week due to your harmful misinformation across threads telling people using highly insecure devices is fine. Do not use our chat rooms or other parts of our community during this time. You will be permanently suspended from the community if you come back and do it again.

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