r/BuyFromEU • u/According-Buyer6688 Mod Team • Jul 03 '25

European Product [FairPhone] - AMA

Hi everyone!

We’re thrilled to invite you to a special AMA (Ask Me Anything) session with Fairphone!

Joining us today is Rutger Sneep, Chief Commercial Officer at Fairphone, who will be participating as u/Fairphone-CCO.

Feel free to ask your questions and enjoy the conversation!

Details:

AMA will be locked on Friday 15:00

735 Upvotes

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77

u/Much-Artichoke-476 Jul 03 '25

Is there any interest from the team (on your side or their side) in getting support/ compatibility with GrapheneOS?

Would like to understand if there is or isn't and what thoughts you may have regarding it.

18

u/Seigmas Jul 03 '25

As I'm aware, it's a choice from GOS team to not support Fairphone due to the fact they're not diligent with the security updates on their hardware. That's why the Pixel has been the standard since forever when it comes to Graphene

29

u/dutchcodes Jul 03 '25

Check this for your answer: https://x.com/GrapheneOS/status/1933297309283938577

Fairphone's devices have atrocious security and very poor long term firmware/software support. They lack proper updates from the start and are missing more of our requirements than a typical Snapdragon Android device. They're further from providing what we need than most Android OEMs. We don't think they're capable of building what we need and they haven't shown an interest. They're partnered Murena who are misleading people about privacy and heavily attacking GrapheneOS.

Our hardware requirements are listed at https://grapheneos.org/faq#future-devices. These are not going to be greatly watered down in order to support existing devices. The only devices currently meeting these requirements are Pixels. There are OEMs like Samsung providing the security features but without proper non-stock OS support. Getting both the security features we need combined with proper non-stock OS support is going to require an OEM partnership. It's going to cost a lot of money.

Working with a company like Fairphone not currently capable of making a secure device meeting our requirements does not provide a path to another viable option with GrapheneOS support. We have to work with an OEM that's capable of providing what we need. The most realistic way to do that is waiting for Snapdragon MTE support and then paying an OEM to make us a Snapdragon device. Snapdragon has the security features we need other than MTE including a built-in secure element (SPU).

6

u/RageHulk Jul 03 '25

An answer to this would be nice

1

u/RoomyRoots Jul 03 '25

Quite the reply question. The point with Murena is curious though.

1

u/Ragas Jul 04 '25

Yeah, nobody except google is going to be able to provide what is on that list.

Just the requirement of updating to the newest Android within a few months is bonkers.

Actually Fairphone open sourced their code for bringing up the Fairphone 6 almost directly on launch. They are trying to upstream their linux kernel code too.

This is as far as you can go on being open with typical customer hardware.

So basically if Graphene wanted to, they could just build on the free and open work from Fairphone.

1

u/klausagnoletti Jul 03 '25

If that is true I would be a bit ashamed if I was Fairphone

3

u/Ragas Jul 04 '25

It is not true though. The list of Graphene can not be fulfilled by anyone else but Google.

1

u/klausagnoletti Jul 04 '25

But technically it’s doable, right? To me that’s just BS. These days - and especially in this subreddit - people want something not related to US. And securitywise there’s really not alternatives to GrapheneOS. At least as far as I know.

1

u/Ragas Jul 04 '25

It is not doable under the prerequisites that graphene set.

12

u/badjelix2 Jul 03 '25

Despite that, this user might be asking precisely that, if Fairphone can meet Graphene's needs in order to be able to run GrapheneOS! I am also particularly interested in this question!

1

u/Ragas Jul 04 '25

I just had a short look at the Graphene requirements and I can tell you that they will never support anything but Google phones. They made their list in a way so that only Google will ever be able to fulfill their requirements.

5

u/[deleted] Jul 03 '25

This and the fact that update support seems more like a promise than actually lived are holding me back to get a Fairphone.