So, OS-level age-gating is going federal, which will effectively kill your rights to device ownership and what’s left of free speech and expression.
Enjoy your free speech while you still have it because this is a clear attempt to erase that right.
SOPA never died, it just went into hiding until time to reemerge, and now’s that time, this is basically SOPA in a save the kids trenchcoat.
… for now. Samsung removed the ability to unlock the bootloader in an update.
And yes, there are other options. But Google is also cracking down on the openness of Android. I certainly can’t take the ability to root as a given.
There’s also nothing stopping PCs from getting locked down like phones either if Pluton is any indication.
Pluton as TPM.
Yay :/
So far it’s only been implemented successfully on modern Surface devices, but hypothetically any PC could implement it.
Phones like fairphone will always have an unlocked bootloader
Unlockable, hopefully. If Google doesn’t crack down further on it.
Earlier generations of the Fairphone simply had a root toggle in the settings, but they removed that.
(typing this on a fp6)
Google cannot tell them what to do?
They can if they want Google services.
There may have been concern from banking apps and the likes as well? Though it’s been a while since I’ve looked it up.
Edit:
On the Fairphone 2, Jan 2016
How far back are they pushing that update? Is it safe to assume that Samsung phones that can’t go beyond One UI 7.x.y.z are still able to have unlockable bootloaders?
Likely? I don’t know the details. My old S22 which did get updated no longer has the option.