[scheeseman486]

QubesOS is an OS for PCs which have a standardized hardware interface. Support for older systems is basically "free". Smartphones aren't standardized in the same way and the amount of effort it takes to properly support other phones has a considerably higher cost on developer bandwidth.

Anyone can fork GrapheneOS and build it for other phones if they want, instead of doing this the developers instead focus their time and effort on the most suitable hardware for their needs. This isn't a part of some agenda or a swipe at Linux, open source or Stallman's cholesterol filled heart, it's just pragmatism.

[strcat]

GrapheneOS has to do substantial work on each supported device to integrate the hardening features and fix the issues those uncover. Supporting other devices is not easy and involves a lot of resources. Those devices also need to provide the hardware-based features heavily used by GrapheneOS including hardware memory tagging, pointer authentication, verified boot, etc. which those devices don't provide.

[fsflover]

Can you support these devices without listed features with a low effort?

[fsflover]

I agree that the lack of resources is a reasonable argument. However this not the argument provided: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30765013

[scheeseman486]

Instead there's a bunch of other arguments that are just as reasonable which underline why deploying their security focused OS on such a hardware platform would be a waste of their time. This is your refutation?

It really seems like you're more concerned about hurt feelings than objective fact here. Every link you've provided thus far was framed by you as evidence of poor decisions or behaviour on the part of the GrapheneOS team but you've done nothing to elaborate, and after reading the content of those links for myself there is nothing there that support the things you've been implying.

It doesn't make a whole lot of sense, at least not unless I put myself into the mindset of a child and read any negativity expressed towards FOSS projects as an attack, or taking their choice to not target phones I like personally.

[fsflover]

I have no idea where you managed to find any feelings in my replies, and I will ignore the personal attacks.

The linked security-related arguments aren't reasonable at all. They talk about improving users' security but instead the actual result is less security for the majority of people, due to (1) the high price of the supported hardware, (2) reliance on Google hardware not trusted by many users (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45101524).

[scheeseman486]

> I have no idea where you managed to find any feelings in my replies, and I will ignore the personal attacks.

Your username is fsflover and your posts clearly have an ideological bias that favours purely open source solutions even if it goes against reason.

> The linked security-related arguments aren't reasonable at all. They talk about improving users' security but instead the actual result is less security for the majority of people, due to (1) the high price of the supported hardware, (2) reliance on Google hardware not trusted by many users

All SoCs are a black box and all of them are made by untrustable companies that are likely already working with the security services of whatever country they're R&D'd or manufactured in. There is no good solution to this, so they picked the best worst option.

Nonetheless, most of the evidence that is available shows that GrapheneOS on Pixels are the most secure phones currently available. So, clearly not security theatre, whereas if they also supported phones that didn't even let you lock the bootloader it absolutely would be.

GrapheneOS isn't to blame for every other phone manufacturer dropping the ball.

[fsflover]

> fsflover

Thanks for the clarification. Free software ideology is not like a religion, where people believe in a god. Every Stallman's essay explains a very practical reason for following his ideas. FLOSS protects you from the enshittification, walled gardens, backdoors (to a degree) and similar things.

GrapheneOS have put themselves in Google's walled garden in terms of the supported devices and now Google can easily make them less secure or even kill them completely at will.

This is like saying "you clearly have an ideological bias that favors democracy/ or freedom even if it goes against reason". Sometimes a tyranny is more efficient at forcing people to do a particular thing, e.g., produce weapons. It doesn't mean that choosing it can be reasonable sometimes.

> All SoCs are a black box and all of them are made by untrustable companies

You clearly can't understand that different people have different threat models. This is a huge problem of GrapheneOS developers: they never accept this possibility and force the single threat model upon everyone. This reminds me of Apple by the way: They do the same. In reality, some people can trust Chinese devices more than Google's ones (imagine that), or trust a particular company that didn't perform a ton of evil action like Google did (that's me and many others).

> There is no good solution to this

The good solution to this is security through compartmentalization, which is the best security approach ever invented. The more varied hardware people use, the harder it is to make a targeted attack or to mass compromise every single device sold.

> most of the evidence that is available shows that GrapheneOS on Pixels are the most secure phones currently available

I don't dispute that, and you won't find me saying that GrapheneOS is insecure in itself. I am saying that they did a wrong bet long-term, and their approach leaves a lot of people without Google's hardware insecure.

> not security theatre, whereas if they also supported phones that didn't even let you lock the bootloader it absolutely would be.

Once again, this is implying one single threat model upon everyone. I never leave my phone unattended, so nobody can secretly reflash it. And whenever I suspect a compromise, I reflash it myself using a disposable VM on Qubes OS. Does it look somewhat secure to you?

[strcat]

GrapheneOS is for people who want highly private and secure mobile devices. It has a very reasonable set of security requirements for hardware listed at https://grapheneos.org/faq#future-devices. Other devices meeting these standards do not currently allow using another OS or do not allow it to use the security features on this list. It is not the fault of GrapheneOS that other OEMs do not allow using it and do not provide comparable security.

The purpose of GrapheneOS is not an OS which people can install on as many devices as possible where substantial security sacrifices need to be made even compared to the stock OS and a reasonable level of privacy and security cannot be provided due to lack of firmware/driver updates. Without the hardware-based features we use as part of our work, it would also hardly actually be GrapheneOS.

Support for installing another OS on devices has been removed or is in the process of being removed by several OEMs. Providing an OS for most mobile devices isn't an option in the first place.

GrapheneOS is actively working with a major OEM since June 2025 on a small subset of their next generation devices meeting all of our official requirements and providing official GrapheneOS support. The initial phase of support may still require people to install it themselves, but it will be another option than Pixels and the plan is to do more than that. The OEM is very interested in GrapheneOS and there may be devices sold with it as an official option. We'll be able to start doing lower level hardening work on firmware rather than our work not going below the level of the hypervisor, kernel and kernel drivers beyond reporting vulnerabilities or making suggestions. We already do a large amount of low-level work specific to devices and will be doing much more of it in the future including at a lower level. We have a lot of improvements we want to make at the level of the boot chain and secure element.

GrapheneOS in the long term will be a hardware, firmware and software project working closely with one or more OEMs to make highly private and secure devices. We'll support the existing Pixel devices until end-of-life and will add support for new generations of Pixels as long as they continue meeting our requirements, but our focus will shift to devices made in partnership with OEMs.

The purpose of GrapheneOS is not something people can download for their existing device to make it less bad. That's not even generally possible due to lack of support for using another OS and crippling of devices when another OS is used, especially the security features. You're talking about doing something which has never been the project's purpose. The purpose requires using the best available devices and ideally working with an OEM to make better devices for it as we're working towards (the first generation will likely not be more secure than Pixels, but it will meet our official requirements and improve from there).