Transcript
A fediverse post by Dataline (@somebody@tech.lgbt). It has an screenshot of a discord message saying “have you guys seen how people are unlocking xiaomi bootloaders now step 1: ask store to downgrade firmware step 2: before they relock the bootloader run away with your device.”. The screenshot has two imgur links showing this happening.
the links: https://imgur.com/P4n0pcI https://imgur.com/8UWg5hv
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I bought a Redmi phone myself because I had heard that it’s really easy to unlock its bootloader.
It isn’t.
You have to install their shitty community app, wait for a month, then try your luck applying to unlock your bootloader everyday at exactly 0:00CST because they only take around 2000 applications per day and it resets at that exact time. If you’re late one second it tells you that the application quota limit has already been reached. But in my experience, even when I do it at exactly 0:00, I get a random unrelated error thrown at me and if I try again after that I get rate limited for that day. Fuck Xiaomi. I’m probably going to just sell this and get a dumb phone because it just isn’t worth it.
Ayep. I have an unlocked Mi 10T Pro and I honestly would be scared of attempting to unlock another Xiaomi phone right now. It was already difficult enough those couple of months ago, I can’t imagine how bad it is now.
Fiddling with Mi Unlock itself took hours out of my day. Installing random older versions, not being able to select something because some UI element couldn’t get out of the way, and so on.I had a similar experience. Bought it thinking it would be easy to unlock, then realized I needed to wait a month before I could even attempt it. Reallly wanted to send it back within the 2 week return policy, but I also wanted to see if I could do it, so I waited. Then finally the month was up and I got nothing but unexplained error messages. I wanted to chuck it off a high building and never see it again, I was so frustrated. The main problem is that there isn’t an official guide, so I was relying on forum posts with voodoo logic, stuff like “I requested the unlock three times at midnight and then it appeared” and “don’t try to unlock it before requesting the permission or the month resets”. Eventually I got it, but don’t ask me how I did it (random luck) and I don’t want to do it ever again. Fuck you, Xiaomi (but thanks for the cheap hardware which is now running crDroid :3)
you could buy a used Google pixel, they’re the only brand that lets you unlock the bootloader and lock it again after installing a custom ROM.
edit: forgot to mention, the only user modifiable bootloader that also offers good security by not ignoring all the Android security updates or refusing to use a secure element for verified boot.
Fairphone does this as well. Happily running CalyxOS on my Fairphone 4 with a locked bootloader :)
Can you tell me about your experiences with calyxos? I own a fp4 as well and I’m thinking about installing a custom ROM on it. I am still undecided whether calyx or e/os.
Calyx has been my daily os for about 4 years now.
Banking works, I don’t have a car so can’t talk about auto. Pay also doesn’t work, but I have cash and a card so whatevs. I have a few pieces of google software which are fully blocked from the network using the built in firewall (proprietary camera SW just makes better pics).
Updating and running this has been a breeze. More intrusive software reqd for work etc are installed in the “work profile” side of things, where apps don’t run at all unless I allow it. Pausing all apps in that space is as simple as tapping a button in the pulldown menu.
I believe graphene may be more protected against nation-state actors, but if you’re worried about privacy and want control over your data without losing features, CalyxOS actually rocks.
I think this is a good summary. Android Auto should work as of a few updates ago as well. IIRC it can be ran sandboxed, without modifying the ROM which was the way of doing it before it was supported.
Lwhat do you wanna know? I like calyx a lot
I mean things like ease of use and installation, the use of banking apps, etc. Have you noticed any problems in everyday use? Things like that.
I am not anything close to an IT-person, my experience in IT reduces on me using Ubuntu. Did the installation on FP5 myself and it was very easy. Just followed the install instructions. Everyday use: it feels really clean and the only thing that really changed for me: Google services aren’t the standard. I can still use them. Aurora store is the Appstore. No problems yet.
My banking app works. You can ask a person that has a fp4 to install your app and test if it works but I didn’t have any problems with mine. I just trusted, haha.
What I learned: apps in f-droid store are mostly absolutely banger!
Edit: wero, and “TK-App” are the only apps i tried to use which don’t work
I was going to save up to buy a Pixel for that reason, but now that Goog has decided to to close source Android* I am looking at other options. It’s only a matter of time before it becomes a completely closed ecosystem like iOS.
Edit: They aren’t closing the source code actually, just switching to private development.
What are you talking about, close source android?
Are you talking about no longer including the pixel-specific device configuration files in AOSP?
Well, it looks like I was a victim of a clickbait article. The one I read said that Google was going to make Android closed source, but it looks like the truth is that they are switching to private development, but will still release the source code once complete.
Still not great, but better than what I was thinking. I hadn’t seen the corrected articles, so I apologize for spreading incorrect information.
Your grasp of it is not wrong though. Source available != FOSS.
Source available != FOSS.
I don’t disagree with that, but according to that article it’s under an Apache 2.0 license. That’s an Open Source license correct?
AOSP isn’t dead, is it?
Not at this point, no. And further, if Google decides to close up the way that Apple has with most of their formerly open source projects, that doesn’t necessarily mean the end either, it could be forked, like how Illuminos is the continuation of Open Solaris after Oracle shut down the official project
They’re sadly not available in my country.
Motorola also does this
The procedure used to not suck as much, but my Poco F6 is definitely my last Xiaomi phone even though it is my fifth in a row. I’m lucky I made the unlock on my second try, but I was so mad at them.
did you have luck applying to unlock your bootloader?
Nope, sadly not.
Well, isn’t it like this only on chinese version? Although mi unlock is a shitshow from my experience (but I do have an unlocked Redmi after a shitload of tries).
The Chinese version is now not unlockable at all AFAIK, and the global version became this way after HyperOS came out.
Holly fuck. Well, no new Redmis for me, what a shame. What the hell am I supposed to buy now? Xperia 10V?
I don’t know exactly how rough the market is now, but I’ve been happily using my moto g8 power (intl) that I bought for 170$ in 2020 when I lost my old one. Motorola makes some very good, cheap phones that can also be rooted (I’m not knowledgeable on this, I just use pared down apps on mine because I mostly value the 3 day battery life and regular phone/email features).
I looked into redmi back then but even w/o the US ban it wasn’t worth it.
should’ve done this instead of messing with the dumbass community app lmao
Why is this a screenshot of a Mastodon post of a screenshot of forwarded Discord messages
First of all, its not mastodon, its wafrn (app.wafrn.net), second of all, the person probably got the discord messages and wanted to share it with other people publicly.
its wafrn (app.wafrn.net),
Federated tumblr-esque thingy with personal blogs/pages that can be stylized. Interesting
And it has bluesky support.
Ok why did you post this horizontally uncropped abomination instead of the actual meme
To give credit to the person I stole it from, and to have the emoji reacts be visible.
While that’s respectable, just link the original meme in the post body - if I want to see a meme on my phone, I want the whole meme and nothing but the meme.
cant crop it yourself?
3rd of all, its actually really, really hard to crop an image, or use an area constrained screenshot tool.
=P
looting back your own hardware is based
Ok so i have a redmi note 7 which was a pain to unlock. I think it might be dying though, is there any phone that is easy to unlock? I just want minimal shit with LOS… I fucking have the smartphone world.
Banger post. On samsung if you do things in the wrong order while unlocking the bootloader you must wait 24 hours to try again. Also all of your data gets wiped. I installed postmarketOS on mine :3
My old samsung phone had an openable bootloader, but there was no firmware for it :(
Based
