I own the same phone. Also mine still is perfectly alright. I'm currently on GrapheneOS but that's also not supported anymore. Sometimes I get some smaller patches. I'm planning to switch to LineageOS. The phone seems still supported there and they even have Android 14 available.
I'm certainly not wasting that phone. Except for the camera which seems a bit outdated to me, compared to the camera of my partner's Samsung... It's still a really nice phone. And I refuse to buy a new one at this point.
Sure. But running an unmaintained operating system also is an huge security issue. I mean the proper choice is quite obvious: get rid of the phone and buy a new one that's supported by Calyx or Graphene. But since I'm not willing to do that, I have to choose what's more important to me.
And with security, it always depends on the specific threat model. I'm not sure if I need secure boot that badly. Can people steal my phone, flash a different OS and access the cryptographic key to my storage? Because that'd be one of the things I worry about. If not, I don't think I care about secure boot that much... YMMV
I have a Pixel 4a (with Calyx) for a few years already (start of 2021)
That’s just a little over three years ago.
This is why I run with Apple. Because even though their repairability sucks even more than Android, they are built like tanks and they get six to seven years of full OS updates, and not just security patches.
And the security patches continue for another year or two after that.
Nothing else comes close. Sure, the big players in Android have now claimed five years of OS updates, but I was promised Android 13 with my Nokia 7.2, yet I am still on the original Android 11 that the phone came with - Nokia never even released 12, much less 13 for that model.
I will believe these vendors once they are actually pushing Android v.X+5 to a phone that launched with v.X.
Apple is not an option for me as they are completely closed source and super invasive of customer privacy (their privacy claims are "only we will know everything about you" which is creepy AF)
On the same concept I can also say that hou should just use a linux phone as these are very likely to be kept updated for years, but it's not really a reasonable option for this situation.
Which is why they introduced Legacy Contacts for next of kin… if someone with an iPhone dies, and their relatives want access to the deceased’s data but no-one knows the phone passcode or the iCloud credentials and don’t have legacy access, they can spend hundreds of millions of dollars suing Apple and Apple will be unable to provide access.
As someone who has actually worked on a system like this in another capacity, it really does works as advertised.
Sure, your iCloud data is encrypted, but what about all the metadata that Apple collects from your phone or on the files in iCloud? What about everything else you're doing on your phone? It's not just about having access to the data of your files.
Also, not having encryption on by default is creepy and purposeful.
New Google Pixels come with 7 years of security updates and 7 major Android updates. With GrapheneOS you generally geht all AOSP updates. https://grapheneos.org/faq#recommended-devices
After that GrapheneOS offers 3 years of harm reduction updates https://grapheneos.org/faq#device-lifetime
New Samsung devices (like the S24) also come with 7 years of security updates + 7 Android Version updates.
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