News

What we cover

This news page follows the degoogled Android world: new releases of GrapheneOS, CalyxOS, LineageOS, /e/OS and iodéOS, phones gaining or losing support, monthly Android security patches, privacy app updates, and changes from Google or phone makers that affect people who run Android without Google.

Stories come in two kinds. A News story reports something that just happened and links its sources. An Explainer answers a practical question, such as which degoogled phone path is easiest, using our own device database and guides.

How stories are checked

Every story passes automated checks before it’s published:

• At least two sources, on two different websites, that we were able to fetch and read.
• The key names and terms in the story must actually appear on those source pages.
• The source must show a publication date within the last 72 hours.
• Mirror sites and social media posts don’t count as sources.
• A story that repeats one we’ve already run is dropped.

If a news story fails these checks, the slot is filled with an explainer built from our own research instead, or it’s skipped for the day. We would rather publish nothing than publish something we can’t source.

When new stories appear

Two stories are published each day: one at 7:30 in the morning New York time, and one at 7:30 in the morning California time. To follow along without visiting, subscribe in your feed reader. The feed carries each story with its summary and a link back to the full text.

Older stories stay on the site, so the archive also works as a record of when each operating system gained or dropped support for a phone, and when each security patch arrived.

Terms that come up often

• Security patch level: the date of the latest Android security fixes a phone has received. It’s shown in Settings → About phone, and it’s the quickest way to see whether a system is keeping up.
• Android Security Bulletin: Google’s monthly list of fixed vulnerabilities. Private systems like GrapheneOS and LineageOS ship these fixes in their own updates.
• Extended support: a phone past the end of the maker’s promised updates, still getting security fixes from an OS project for a limited time. Plan to replace it soon.
• End of life: no more updates of any kind. A phone in this state shouldn’t be your main phone.
• Device codename: the internal name projects use for each phone model, such as “felix” for the Pixel Fold. Release notes and device lists often use codenames instead of marketing names.
• OTA update: an over-the-air update the phone downloads and installs by itself, with no computer needed.

Where to go next

News is easier to act on with some background. To see whether your own model is affected by a support change, look up any phone model. For the long-form, step-by-step pieces that don’t go out of date with each release, browse our degoogling how-tos. And if a story makes you wonder which operating system to pick, compare the five Android-based systems question by question.