From an end user perspective, there probably isn’t much to do other
than a path similar to the one you suggested – find an Android
distribution that supports a device with 4G/5G support, and live with a
non-free driver stack and lack of modem isolation – which, I understand,
are the main two differences of Replicant over other AOSP-based
distributions.
On the dev side, the ideal approach IMHO would be:
* Identify devices which come with a free Android (or Linux) driver
stack. The Librem 5 and the Liberty Phone, both made by Purism, come to
mind – they ship with Linux, so it should be possible to build Android
for these devices, using the same drivers. There may be other devices.
* Get them supported in LineageOS (which I understand is the basis for
Replicant). The LOS project doesn’t like feature requests, I guess the
only way to get this off the ground is to do it yourself and suggest
your work for inclusion. (Should it not get accepted, you still have a
running Android distribution for that device that you can work with.)
At that stage, you would have a partial solution – AOSP running on a
FOSS driver stack – that is already an improvement over the end user
solution mentioned above.
For a full solution, one would still need to work out modem isolation
(and any other changes Replicant has made, if any). Until then, the
partial solution should be workable for a number of people. Right now,
the main obstacle to the adoption of Replicant I’m seeing is the lack of
fully workable devices.
On 14/11/2025 10:05, John via Replicant wrote:
Hi,
As it seems, our mobile network operators will be sunsetting 3G in the
near future. One of them has already started doing it in some cities.
Additionally, banks are making it literally impossible to use their
services without a smartphone and their apps require all kinds of
anti-privacy permissions (including camera and microphone
activation/access etc). I expect the new world order to make things
even worse in regards to personal privacy and security.
Considering there are no 4G and 5G Replicant phones, what options has
one who wants to avoid that anti-human nightmare (at least as much as
possible)?
The only one I can think if is Graphene OS - much advertised for being
super secure. IIUC, it is not entirely free as Replicant, however it
relies on hardware's abilities of Pixel phones for better process
isolation. Another concern with Graphene is the non-removable battery.
So, I am kind of lost.
What do you think?
How do you approach this issue?
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