Breaking - Samsung Removes Bootloader Unlocking with One UI 8

Era of tinkering, customization for better privacy ,performance is end,each day there less and less phone vendors which let to unlock bootladers,now we left with oneplus,google pixel and xiaomi with 9 circles of hell to unlock it
- Also Sony, their open device program is pretty sweet.
  
  Asus is good too
  Edit: not any more
  
  As someone who uses Sony Xperia 1 VI, yes can confirm it's absolutely amazing. Took me less than half a minute to unlock bootloader and root if you don't count the time for the mandatory wipe when bootloader is unlocked (per Android design), and you literally don't lose any OS feature other than Sony's proprietary video enhancement feature (due to DRM key voiding and DRM level demotion with unlocked bootloader), but it's pretty shitty anyway and only useable with the standard display mode, and if you're using an Xperia phone you're probably a photography/cinema/art enthusiast who would much prefer keeping the phone in the color accurate "professional" display mode anyway. And this phone comes with a very clean AOSP-like ROM with minimal customization from Sony (but those they did make are very good QoL features), so most of the Android ROM modding tools designed for Pixel phones would at least have most of the features working on the Xperia phone too, and you dont really need to worry too much about too much unexpected behaviors from OEM customizations with ROM modding, especially compares to the like of Xiaomi phones lol
  But I'm not sure we genuinely have a feature with Sony smartphones. On the newer generation Sony Xperia 1 VII, Sony for the first time outsourced their flagship phones (the Xperia 1 series) to a 3rd party manufacturer instead of making them in factories which Sony owns and have direct control themselves, they have been doing this with their mid-range and budget phones before but this was the first time they did it with their flagship phones, and immediately there have been serious quality control issues resulting to many Xperia 1 VII phones failing prematurely and required motherboard replacement (according to some users who ran into issue early), and Sony later had to launch a whole recall for many of these phones: https://m.gsmarena.com/sony_announces_xperia_1_vii_replacement_program-amp-68647.php
  Issues this serious and this widespread is pretty much unheard of for Sony Xperia flagship models, they may not had the most advanced features or sensible pricing, but they have always been known to have at least some of the best build quality, except longevity issues on the Samsung-made OLED screens on gen V model which was more of a Samsung's fault and it also affected Samsung's own phones using the same OLED screens anyway.
  And all this is after they already stopped officially selling smartphones in the US and China markets with the 2024 gen VI model, which are arguably two of the biggest smartphone markets, and with the 2025 gen VII model Sony announced they are significantly downsizing their operation in the EU.
  At this rate, there might now be a new Sony Xperia phone in the next 3-5 years.
- Fairphone
- Just waiting for the pain to be enough to switch to Linux on a phone.
  Main drawbacks right now:
  I have one health-related (open source) app that I NEED to work flawlessly
  Navigating the various UIs seems incredibly awkward and inconsistent
  
  Have you checked SailfishOS? Their Android-bridge is pretty decent, it might work well. If you tell me the app name, I can check whether it works or not.
  
  I’m not sure how you’ll be switching to Linux on a phone you can’t unlock properly though
- There haven't been any roms for OnePlus phones in a few years since they stopped publishing the MSM tool for new phones. Iirc, the 9 was their last phone to truly support custom roms.
  Apparently the MSM tool was leaked for the 11, so there are a couple roms for it. But the old OnePlus and their community is unfortunately long dead.
  
  I am sorry to hear that then :(
- Motorola is pretty solid from a bootloader unlock perspective. It is dead simple and some devices support relocking with custom keys.
  
  Also mine had a headphone jack before I STUPIDLY traded for a fucking Samsung. Never again.
- i have op12r i heard it can change the os, but im not savy enough to do it.
- There is also less need for custom ROMs. One of the first custom ROMs that I used was for Galaxy Note 3. Following their disasterous Android 5.0 update, I decided to try out LineageOS.
  It was like night and day. It was much more responsive and UI/UX was cleaner while offering more customisation.
  These days smartphone devices (even cheaper ones) remain very performant even 3-4 years after release (battery notwithstanding) and most OEM have long support periods.
  
  Depends on why you would want a custom ROM in the first place. I have even more reasons now with every bundled app tracking everything I do and AI assistants being integrated in crucial comppnents of the OS.
  
  I used to think the same but now I want custom Roms even more now than in the past for things like GrapheneOS with the desire to lessen involvement with Google or Apple.
  
  For that yes, but we want custom ROMs now to improve our privacy and to remove shitty features like AI.
  
  Holy shite imagine buying a PC that does NOT allow you to install Linux in it, or even to install a different version of Windows, because the UEFI/BIOS is locked. If any PC OEM who's not Microsoft themselves trying to sell that there's gonna be an outcry.
  Why would the same be considered even remotely acceptable on Android devices?
  
  In my case it was always get rid of bloatware,spyware of default rom get more up to date security patches and more new android and root ofc.

But at least this time it secures the phone against cellebrite & other hacking tools, right? ...right?
(for those unaware: there are tools built by cellebrite and other companies that can dump the internal storage of your phone and decrypt its contents without your consent. they're in use by most police in the US at least, probably other countries as well and definitely airports. They can hack just about every single phone, except for maybe the newest iphone with a really long pin and advanced protection enabled, and recent google pixels with grapheneos.)
- What's the proof ?
  
  https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/14344-cellebrite-premium-july-2024-documentation
  
  Cellebrite was used to crack the first Trump shooter's phone. At the time, they openly talked about the latest iPhone being uncrackable and still in the "In Research" phase. So if the shooter had one, they'd have been screwed.
  
  They sell a lot of copies of the software for it not to work.

Ugh. Samsung already has the worst, most intrusive Android UI. This reinforces my determination to never give them another cent...
- 💯

BREAKING
- EXPLODING BATTERY

1st they removed the sdcard from the A56, now this.
Except updates there are even lesser reasons to consider samsung. Especially, when chinese OEMs beat them in the hardware game.

They were set on doing it when Knox was first introduced anyway.
Normies don’t give a shit anyway as they see it as a necessary step in securing their own lack of understanding of anything technology, besides brainrot and doomscrolling.
Thanks for the reminder of why I stopped caring about Samsung phones 10 years ago.

Google needs to get their shit together and put an actually competitive chip in their phones. I’m not buying a late cycle phone with a tensor processor that can’t even match the current snapdragon or A-series.
- Google is busy locking android down to remove any freedom of choice.
- nah they want it to be AI/tensor, thats why i went with oneplus instead.
  
  I’m definitely keeping my eye out for Oneplus. Problem I had with them before though was that their UI was too flat and lacked transparent flourishes. That should change with iOS 26…
  Also, why is the one plus pad so small…? Their ecosystem needs to be more feature aggressive.
- But if they put a sufficiently capable chip in their phone, so that you can actually use your phone as a decent general purpose computer like how a smartphone should be like, they wouldn't be able to force you to buy their AI services anymore would they? Lol
  Also remember how they had that very big and very clear text in their ChromeOS documentation, that says "ChromeOS is NOT a general purpose computer."? Oh boy would they not absolutely LOVE to make it exactly the same situation on Android so they can have absolute control over your interaction with the internet and profit, but alas they can't take away too many general purpose computing features from the Android OS with a version release without losing the entire market lol, so they try it with hardware XD

Can't wait for a proper decent linuxphone.
- AOSP is better than any Linux phone I've scene
  
  AOSP is ostensibly dead thanks to Google closing off dev access and consistent abandoning of open source apps in AOSP.

Hasn't been unlockable for the past... 5 years? In the US at least. (Bought directly from samsung.com)
- Samsung only had locked bootloader in the US market because of the carrier mafias in the US having wayyyy more power than they should have, even over OEMs. They can't charge you extra for basic features if you can bypass the artificial locks with root empowered tools, or shove adware/bloatware down your throat if you can remove them, can they?
  All other market's models always had unlocked bootloader, even their China/Hong Kong and EU models. Although it's still not entirely open because Samsung have extremely customized ROM, that also have Samsung's security suite Knox and Samsung Pay deeply integrated all over the place, where a lot of encryption and obfuscation were included, because they are purpose designed security solutions. So with bootloader unlock you are still going to lose a lot of core OS features (even if you don't actually mod the boot image to have root access, and just have the bootloader unlocked), there are tools that can restore some, but not all features can be restored.
  Well that is, until now, apparently.
  But then, on the other hand, Samsung devices are the closest you can get to Apple's ridiculous walled garden in the Android ecosystem, so you'd you ever want that nonsense anyway lol

my A55 Will be the last Samsung phone i will ever get
- Samsung ASS?
  
  Its a decent phone but the software ehh.
- I abandoned the brand after the S4

I have a S24 because it is the smallest phone on the market that year. Can someone please make a small Android phone. I am running out of options 😭

BREAKING!
can't stand when this is in a headline lol