KRACK whacked, media playback holes packed, other bugs go splat in Android patch pact Google has released its November security update for Android, addressing a bag of security holes. You should install them as soon as they are available for your phone, tablet and other gadgets. Depending on your mobile carrier and device manufacturer, they may arrive immediately, soon, late or never. Among the holes covered …
... more like every six months. No matter the price point (well, almost). And installing a mod doesn't help - these are not backported patches but completely new OS versions, not so much resource hungry but rather resource addicted. I don't like dumping stuff that is still working! (the hardware is!)
Nope, if getting patches promptly is high on your list of requirements, you have been able to purchase android phones that deliver this for years. Unfortunately too many cretins are blinded by other features and patches are an afterthought.
Monthly patching doesn't come cheap, expecting a sub £200 phone to deliver it is laughable, the only problem is some popular brands of premium phone don't either, but that is the consumers fault for continuing to buy them
Unfortunately too many cretins are blinded by other features and patches are an afterthought.
Other features like removable battery, SD card, dual SIM, and reasonable after-sales service or a phone which is a reasonable price and doesn't click like Flipper or have a screen which burns?
You're pontificating as if Nexus or Pixel were perfect.
Google has stopped updating some Nexus models and others are due to be EOL'd shortly. So much for the updates, they could have at least tried to support devices like Apple does.
have good lineageOS support so I can get firmware updates weekly instead of on the 25th of never.
Huawei bragged about how great they were going to be with firmware updates, last update for the honor 5x I have was 14 months ago - bastards - lesson learnt.
Ah, I had the 2015 Moto X Pure. A minimal OS phone that promised rapid updates, except that software and hardware support was immediately terminated. No VoLTE and no warranty service. ZTE also went the extra mile by also promising parallel Cyanogen development but instead disabled bootloader unlocking and published non-functional kernel code.
Some companies like class action lawsuits more than repeat customers, I guess.
"Huawei bragged about how great they were going to be with firmware updates"
My other half has been stung by this. Never going near them again. Oneplus are the polar opposite. I get an update nearly every month. Running my OP3 for well over a year now - on android 8 with September security.
I got my daughter a Wileyfox that was promptly bricked by the first update it installed. Replaced it, same thing happened. Wileyfox's oh-so-helpful suggestion was that I send it back to Amazon for a refund. Shame, really, as it was a nice phone when it worked, but I won't be buying from them again.
Hm, I have an original Wileyfox Swift, and although things looked promising after they switched from CyanogenOS to Nougat, it is now stuck on the 1 May 2017 security patch level. I'll be contacting them in a few days if there is no sign of the KRACK-related security updates from them.
On the other hand, I also have a Sony Xperia running SailfishOS. That one was patched for KRACK (and BlueBorne) over a week ago.
I also have a Swift and latest update is 1 Sept for security patch and it's on Android 7.1.2. Kernel 3.10.49 dated 14 Sept '17. I'm sure you know to check Settings > About Phone > System Updates to make it check.
Fox support just seem to to be totally useless tho - send it back seems to be their only response, but won't even give a rough guess as to how long they'll take to even look at it never mind fix it. And I'm guessing there'll be a charge too.
"so clearly this is not a Android problem, it's a Samsung"
No it was an Android fuck up that it relied on 3rd parties to roll up patches, repackage them with their own carrier software and them push them out. If they had not made it to be such a PoS design, this would not be an issue.
MS rolled out patches regardless of make of phone.
""Fandroids with Nexus and Pixel devices will be able to get the November Android update directly from Google. ®""
well there the thing only the Nexus 6P and 5X will get these security updates (not sure if the samsung S5 i have will get it) all there other phones are now ignored (need to unlock and flash your own if they are still working) the Nexus 6 and 5 Might get the update as they only went EOL last month (October 2017) but they dont have to
https://support.google.com/nexus/answer/4457705 (this page should be persistent for all future google phones so probably should bookmark it)
"Pixel and nexus get monthly security updates from Google, so clearly this is not a Android problem, it's a Samsung (or whatever you own) problem"
No it's a Google problem. Wtf have OS updates got to do with your device manufacturers? They should be responsible for patching baseband firmware only. That's how it works on Windows Phone.
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