Unlocking the bootloader has long broken a lot of functionality. Play Integrity (formerly known as SafetyNet) provides three levels of checks, and increasingly apps are requiring the phone to pass the second level in order to use the app.
Until last year, it was possible to spoof the second level (though not the third), with an unlocked bootloader, but Google started cracking down on that hard and it's essentially a game of whack-a-mole. Because the spoofing requires finding the fingerprint for a supported device that hasn't yet been banned (of which there are a finite number), it's a losing battle.
That said, unlocking the bootloader on Pixel devices is less useful than it used to be, because of an expansion between what the base device already does and a degradation of what an unlocked and/or rooted device can do. There are fewer custom ROMs than there were a decade ago, and (unlocked) Pixel devices get rapid updates with long official support.
Rooting the device used to give you the ability to install custom adblockers and bypass screenshot restrictions, but Android now has better support for DNS-based adblocking built in, and they've now cut off the main loopholes that allowed people to screenshot apps that block access. I think it's now impossible to screenshot an app if the app has blocked screenshots[0]. Ironically, it's easier to screenshot or get videos of apps on iOS than of those same apps on Android - I don't know if that's because developers don't bother to implement the blocking APIs on iOS or some other reason, but more than once I've ended up having to pull out a backup iPhone in order to screenshot/record something I couldn't on a Pixel device.
Pixel phones already don't include most of the bloatware that comes with other devices, and the remaining stuff is built in and can't really be removed without impacting the core functionality of the device. So root access gets you a lot less than it used to, for Pixel devices.
An unlocked bootloader is the only way to take a local backup of app data now, afaik, since they've made the adb backup tool more and more useless - and phone transfers too.
So you can either have no banking app, lose all your data when your Pixel glitches out, or (recommended option) upload all your data to the cloud for the voyeurs at Google to perv at.
Imagine my surprise when I tried to take a screenshot on Apple Vision Pro of how cool it was to watch Apple TV while chopping vegetables, only to find that Franklin had been replaced by a black box.
If that's a deal breaker, then what phone would you buy? Every Android phone supports FLAG_SECURE (which is such an Orwellian name), and iOS has its own equivalent API: https://github.com/JayantBadlani/ScreenShield
Well, the phone should keep my own needs above everything else, and no app maker should hamstring me on MY OWN phone. Somehow I have the feeling certain phone makers are sitting on the horse backwards.
I agree with you. I don't want app developers to stop me from being able to screenshot whatever I want on my own phone. I just don't know what to do about it.
There are too many apps tied to some real-world thing that only support iOS and Android. Consider banking apps for mobile check deposit, or apps that let you remote start your car. And even if you were willing to go without those conveniences, consider the SeatGeek app. I've been to shows where the only way to get tickets was with that app - there was no paper option and no Web option. And even though emulators like Waydroid exist, a lot of those kinds of apps implement things like SafetyNet or Play Integrity, basically to intentionally refuse to work in any environment not officially blessed by Google.
I find all this screenshot blocking stuff stupid. You can just point another phone or camera at the screen to grab a "screenshot" anyway. It's just security fluff, and ultimately just degrades the user experience.
They absolutely have, Windows, Android and Apples platforms all have the concept of "secure" framebuffers which appear as black rectangles if you attempt to screenshot or record them. Netflix and similar will only serve you high res video if your system supports that protection amongst others, otherwise they'll restrict you to something like 720p.
If you use the built-in Windows screenshot (print screen) it just copies a black frame to the clipboard. It's trivial to bypass with e.g. ShareX (I don't know if Snipping Tool suffices).
EDIT: Ah missed the comment below which explains that already.
Yeah but Netflix won't serve you 4k on a PC unless you use Edge (not even chrome iirc) or their windows app. Screenshot those and you'll get black rectangles.
Great post. This is one of the great enshittifications affecting android. I currently use grapheneos but I'm likely going to move to iOS. More and more apps are no longer allowed to run / have broken features due to the play integrity api.
If I'm forced to live in a walled garden, might as well go with the well maintained one that isnt run by a monopolistic surveillance/advertising company.
Do you have Play Services installed? I, thankfully, have yet to run into an issue with any apps and Play Integrity, but I also export my sdks that are installed on a profile with GPS so I can install them on my main profile. I also hope to be able to use those outdated versions if they ever go to Play Integrity required states.
I do. There's a number of apps that are now broken, and you can't even install them from the playstore anymore e.g. Authy and relay for reddit. Sure you can save APKs and reinstall them (I have for relay), but the last working version is from last year and has multiple bugs including ones that cause app crashes.
Various apps from minor banks in my country don't work (even with compatibility features enabled), although all the major ones do thankfully.
Uber was also doing A/B testing earlier in the year where they would disable a lot of features if you had an untrusted device for some users.
It all depends on what "good", "fast", "isn't buggy" mean for you. Librem 5 has one day of battery life (if you don't use it too much) and a possibility to switch the battery on the go. It's slower than Android but sufficiently fast and stable for me to use as a daily driver. You can run Android apps with Waydroid (F-Droid works fine for me). More reviews: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41356567.
Until last year, it was possible to spoof the second level (though not the third), with an unlocked bootloader, but Google started cracking down on that hard and it's essentially a game of whack-a-mole. Because the spoofing requires finding the fingerprint for a supported device that hasn't yet been banned (of which there are a finite number), it's a losing battle.
That said, unlocking the bootloader on Pixel devices is less useful than it used to be, because of an expansion between what the base device already does and a degradation of what an unlocked and/or rooted device can do. There are fewer custom ROMs than there were a decade ago, and (unlocked) Pixel devices get rapid updates with long official support.
Rooting the device used to give you the ability to install custom adblockers and bypass screenshot restrictions, but Android now has better support for DNS-based adblocking built in, and they've now cut off the main loopholes that allowed people to screenshot apps that block access. I think it's now impossible to screenshot an app if the app has blocked screenshots[0]. Ironically, it's easier to screenshot or get videos of apps on iOS than of those same apps on Android - I don't know if that's because developers don't bother to implement the blocking APIs on iOS or some other reason, but more than once I've ended up having to pull out a backup iPhone in order to screenshot/record something I couldn't on a Pixel device.
Pixel phones already don't include most of the bloatware that comes with other devices, and the remaining stuff is built in and can't really be removed without impacting the core functionality of the device. So root access gets you a lot less than it used to, for Pixel devices.
[0] In the spirit of classic bash, I am asserting that it's impossible, half hoping that someone will take that as an opportunity to correct me: https://web.archive.org/web/20230711000352/bash.org/?152037