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FYI, the 2016-12-24 CM Nightly for Nexus 4 is still available and is Android 7.1.1 and it's working great for me. https://download.cyanogenmod.org/?device=mako

Cyanogen Inc. the company is dead and bankrupt. Good riddance. This has of course repercussions for the community project cyanogenmod as well. Especially for the name "cyanogen" itself, which belongs to the company but also infrastructure like servers which were used by the community project.
But the people behind cyanogenmod, the ones doing the actual work for many phones, not the guys who wanted to simply sell that work, will continue:

A quote from a blog entry at https://www.cyanogenmod.org/bl...
"Embracing that spirit, we the community of developers, designers, device maintainers and translators have taken the steps necessary to produce a fork of the CM source code and pending patches. This is more than just a ‘rebrand’. This fork will return to the grassroots community effort that used to define CM while maintaining the professional quality and reliability you have come to expect more recently."

So the name cyanogen/cyanogenmod is dead, the project itself is hopefully not.

has anyone tried CyanogenMod on it? Would any of these work: https://download.cyanogenmod.org ?

Actually Android is Linux - it uses the Linux kernel. But yeah, I really don't understand the EU on this. Google already releases the source code for Android If anyone has a problem with Android being "closed" or restrictive, they just need to grab the source and compile their own version. Or install a version someone else has already compiled. If that's too difficult or not to their liking, then the EU should just hire someone to make an EU version. Google has already done 99% of the work, the EU just has to do the last 1% to create their own Google-free version. Just like Amazon has done with Fire OS.

Google places no restrictions on Android - it is free (as in beer) open source. The only restriction they place is on the Google App suite (gmail, maps, calendar, etc). If you want the suite, then the Google Play store must be on the device. Unlike a competitor whose name is a fruit, you can have other stores if you want (I have both Play and the Amazon app store). If you installed Cyanogenmod, then the Google apps suite is the gapps file you downloaded and installed afterwards. It's not a necessary step if you want to use another app store, or just use Android with directly downloaded apps.

Short of decoupling that app suite from the Play store (which would destroy Google's revenue model, since their apps are otherwise free), there's not much else Google can do to make Android any more open and free than it already is. This is kinda like if Microsoft gave Windows away for free and released its source code as open source so anyone could make their own version (which could run all Windows programs). And they also gave away the Office suite for free with the only stipulation being that you had to also install the Microsoft Store if you wanted the Office suite. You can still get your software from other stores if you want, and there are competing office suites you can use instead of Office. Then the EU filed an anti-trust suit against Microsoft because 80% of people opted to use the Office suite.

With the granular privacy settings in stock, what does Cyanogenmod really offer over AOSP now?

Fast forward and rewind by long-pressing the volume buttons. I still miss that. Ultimately I ditched CM when the phone functionality of my previous phone stopped working for an extended period of time.

I like vanilla android with a common stock set of features.

you know http://www.cyanogenmod.org/, don't you?

* People were fed up with carrier-crap on their phones

I'm definitely in that camp, I'm sticking with the Nexus, not only do I not have all of the carrier crap, but I also get regular OS updates - my 3 year old Nexus 7 tablet still receives near monthly updates.

* People were fed up with Google-crap on their phones

Apparently not that many, or Cyanogen would have a market for their OS. Even cyanogen provides a wiki page to tell you how to load Google Apps on your Cyanogenmod device, because "many users find them beneficial to take full advantage of the Android ecosystem."

https://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w...

You don't have to wait for Google, because Cyanogen will have you covered too http://www.cyanogenmod.org/

Oh yes, protect against 3rd party exploits by installing a third party OS. Sounds like a GREAT solution!

My HTC Evo 4g hasn't been updated past CM 7.2 http://download.cyanogenmod.or...

Even the last "nightly" build is from 2013.

You don't have to wait for Google, because Cyanogen will have you covered too http://www.cyanogenmod.org/

You may want some, or all, of these:

• -Xprivacy, a module in the Xposed framework, can be used to deny location access to any application, including Facebook. Your phone must be rooted to install Xposed modules.
• -Cyanogenmod PrivacyGuard has a similar feature. You must erase your OEM operating system to install Cyanogenmod.
• -3rd-party Facebook clients:
• • -Face Slim is very current, with patches in the last few days to deal with Facebook's messenger "night of the long knives."
  • -Tinfoil is the best-known skeleton client, but has been recently silent on the messenger issue. The app currently crashes if you try to use messenger functions.
  • -Several closed-source Facebook clients can be found in the Play store, who MIGHT respect your privacy.

Let the damned end users have the choice.

You mean like this?

Since he asked let me add a question myself: now that CyanogenMod is in bedsheets with M$....

CyanogenMod isn't in bed with Microsoft. You're thinking of Cyanogen Inc., which commercializes CyanogenMod and includes MS services, but CyanogemMod doesn't align with any single provider, and can be used with Google, Amazon or FDroid app stores, or no app store at all.

citation

BTW. I actually find the Microsoft Arrow Launcher quite good.

Pretty much par for the course for Cyngn these days.

Also - gotta love how they decided to create a deliberately confusing name in order to steal search results for CyanogenMod.

No joke, I thought that's who it was.

I've used CyanogenMod before, and thought this their business attempt. http://download.cyanogenmod.or...
There were problem in the past and I couldn't really search it out https://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w...

Pretty much par for the course for Cyngn these days.

Also - gotta love how they decided to create a deliberately confusing name in order to steal search results for CyanogenMod.

No joke, I thought that's who it was.

I've used CyanogenMod before, and thought this their business attempt. http://download.cyanogenmod.or...
There were problem in the past and I couldn't really search it out https://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w...

I'd like to fix my mediaserver and stagefright. I'd run Cyanogenmod, but Verzion prevents me from using an unsigned kernel.

If I follow these instructions for my Samsung phone, can I pull the mediaserver and stagefright libraries out of the resulting .zip and load them in place of the existing binaries, can I have a running system that closes the exploits? I can likely use the nm utility on the resulting .so and check that all the symbols in the old libraries exist in the new.

The build process appears to pull from both aosp and cyanogenmod, and I understand that aosp Kitkat has been retroactively patched.

I wonder how many people here, like me, went to this page thinking they'd be able to respond to your challenge, only to see the warning about bricking the phone. I feel bad for you -- my T-mo GS4 is so much better with Cyanogenmod installed.

You can put cyanogenmod on the N7 too you know.

If you want quick updates to the latest version of Android, it's got to be Nexus 7 (2013), Nexus 9 - or you could buy a device supported by Cyanogenmod and install Google Apps on top if required.

If not, just pick the specs important to you - say 1080p screen, at least 32GB flash, 2GB RAM and quad core CPU - and get the best deal available. You should be able to find even a factory refurbished 9 inch tablet for under $200. They are all pretty good.

If you want quick updates to the latest version of Android, it's got to be Nexus 7 (2013), Nexus 9 - or you could buy a device supported by Cyanogenmod and install Google Apps on top if required.

If not, just pick the specs important to you - say 1080p screen, at least 32GB flash, 2GB RAM and quad core CPU - and get the best deal available. You should be able to find even a factory refurbished 9 inch tablet for under $200. They are all pretty good.

See the blog post.

Wow! CyanogenMod has become amazing since I last looked at it.

New hardware? Steve Jobs got people to believe that, if they don't have the newest version of DTT, Digital Turnip Twaddling, they are horribly disadvantaged.

Buy an Apple watch? For $1,000.00? An Apple employee showed me his watch and said the software was unfinished.

I have a pretty decent phone. A flagship phone that's now 3 years old, the Moto Razr Maxx HD. It's a bit long in the tooth, but it still has a sharp, bright screen, decent battery life, and while it's not lightning fast, it does everything I need smoothly and comfortably.

But Moto doesn't sell it anymore. I'm pretty sure it's EOL anymore, which probably makes me SOL.

But it keeps chugging on, and as a consumer, shorting of reading tech sites like /., I would never know that there's any problem at all. Meanwhile, my security keys are being lifted, my email passwords are stolen, and somebody's posting Donkey pictures on my Facebook account and I have no idea how or why.

But, even if I *weren't* SOL, there's the issue that, while my Linux laptop gets updated daily, and my Windows laptop gets updated weekly, my phone gets updated (perhaps) a few times per year.

See the problem, yet? We're seeing just the bare beginning.

The bright boys at Google need to figure out a way to update Android and bypass the carriers, or at least, provide a side-channel way to roll out security updates, or their whole ecosystem will collapse in an orgy of viruses and malware.

For my next phone, I just might make sure I can run Cyanogenmod on it, if for no other reason than the hope of getting security updates in a reasonable timeframe.

A prominent Cyanogenmod dev doesn't use Cyanogenmod. http://www.cyanogenmod.org/blo...

The Google Apps bundles for Cyanogenmod can be used as a means to find most of the components of the apps. It's not perfect, but it's a start. There are still components of stock CM that contact Google, so it goes much deeper.

Install CyanogenMod

It maybe sucks for those who buy a phone with CM pre-installed, but they've already announced that there's no plan to install any MS junk into CyanogenMod, and it's highly unlikely that the community would stand for it if they tried.

So, not something to worry about terribly much. Yet.

Yeah, 5.0.2 nightlies are indeed up for the Note 4. (here's the T-Mobile/Canadian version. Here's the Sprint version. The "eur" T910F version is also available, with nightlies coming soon.)

Some XDA threads for you: Development and Official nightlies.

Enjoy!

Yeah, 5.0.2 nightlies are indeed up for the Note 4. (here's the T-Mobile/Canadian version. Here's the Sprint version. The "eur" T910F version is also available, with nightlies coming soon.)

Some XDA threads for you: Development and Official nightlies.

Enjoy!

Serious question: But how do I totally block Google?

Using Apple devices is a pretty good solution for that. Another option is Cyanogenmod.

It's an open-source Android fork with better privacy: http://cyanogenmod.org/

Installing it is usually simple, but can be difficult or impossible on certain phones. If you're after a turnkey solution, your best bet is the OnePlus One, which ships with Cyanogen preinstalled. List price is $299, but they're going for about $400 on amazon right now, due to limited availability.

CM devs are consumers first. What this means is that they do not divide up devices among other developers, or assign devices like one would at a job. Developers work in their spare time without monetary compensation. Because of this, the developers are free to work on any device they choose to purchase.

Now, what does this mean to you? First off, requesting anywhere in the CM forum, the CM Blog, or the Facebook/Google+/Twitter accounts for device XX to be supported is probably a waste of your time and anybody who reads said request. CyanogenMod does not work on device requests as there is no guaranteeing that a current CM maintainer is even interested in the device. Additionally, its not as simple as 'porting' code, the device trees must be coded from scratch and made to work with the AOSP sourced code and CM enhancements. This takes a large amount of time and effort, especially when the device's OEM fails to release the latest version of Android for it. Second, in hoping a worthy developer sees the post and decides to take up the project... well, that is probably just wishful thinking. Many developers do not like interacting with end users (too much finger pointing between both devs and users or anger directed at the devs for something working other than how the user expects - it happens far too often); because of that, many developers don't frequent the forum (or if they do, they only view the forums for the devices they maintain). The best way to get a device official support is not requesting it from the CM team, but learning how to do it yourself or encouraging a maintainer of an unofficial build to submit their code for review.

So, Cyanogenmod devs will support what strikes their fancy. And if they are no longer interested in a device, it won't be supported any longer. Now if they get financing, maybe this will change as most consumers want some stability and continued support. It is one of the things that could differentiate itself from the phone makers... if they care to. If not, in this regard they won't be any different. And it would be a shame since it is nice to get rid of bloatware.

The vast majority of people will not port their own devices. They either don't have the time or the technical know-how or nether. I will use the stock OS if it isn't available as a stable CM. In fact I do with my P600 Samsung Note. But even if they did, after reading that sticky from the forum, I am less willing to adopt CM and choose to just root the device instead.

Turns out that Cyanogenmod supports that phone:

GSM version: http://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/...
Sprint version: http://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/...
Verizon version: http://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/...

GSM version gets the latest. Verizon and Sprint versions have been dropped, probably due to lack of maintainer interest, but the Verizon one at least gets something 4.4-based.

Turns out that Cyanogenmod supports that phone:

GSM version: http://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/...
Sprint version: http://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/...
Verizon version: http://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/...

GSM version gets the latest. Verizon and Sprint versions have been dropped, probably due to lack of maintainer interest, but the Verizon one at least gets something 4.4-based.

Turns out that Cyanogenmod supports that phone:

GSM version: http://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/...
Sprint version: http://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/...
Verizon version: http://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/...

GSM version gets the latest. Verizon and Sprint versions have been dropped, probably due to lack of maintainer interest, but the Verizon one at least gets something 4.4-based.

Well sort of both actually,

The people who made the phone need to make the updates, the carrier needs to push the update out on it's network for the phones.

In super rare cases you can download the update yourself and install it, but most of the time if your carrier doesn't push out the update your stuck.

Cynogen mod and other things like it are more likely to do updates for your device depending on what it is.

http://www.cyanogenmod.org/

In this regards, I think both Android and iOS are sorely lacking.

With Android at least there may be other providers for updates. It still sucks, but I'll take "sucks but possible" over "sucks and go fuck yourself" any day.

I've rooted and flashed CyanogenMod on my Defy+ for quite some time now. KitKat runs pretty good on it!

Cyanogen says they only support the Defy (previous generation 2.2 device)

But you need to "Root" your phone.

See: http://repo.xposed.info/ for info on installing the Xposed framework which basically places a hook into the main event loop of Android where Xposed modules like XPrivacy can watch, block or "lie" to most of the rest of the Apps running within Android.

XPrivacy is available here:

http://repo.xposed.info/module...

And BTW, iPhone Apps are not any better about this stuff like phoning home and spying on you unless they are rooted and modified. It is just that the greater openness of Android platform ersus iOS makes it easier to spot. But that also means that there are more and better countermeasures.

If you want to be shocked take your phone place it in WiFi only mode and then use network packet sniffer on all the data flying by like tcpdump or wireshark while using apps on it. You will then realize that you the purchaser of the device does not "truly own" that device as it is delivered.

You can also replace the stock Android OS with Cyanogenmod:

http://www.cyanogenmod.org/

to gain better control of your device.

These are the settings that you are looking for.

Just buy a phone with this installed.

Couldn't write a proper wear levelling algorithm if their life depended on it.

First the MAG4FA/KYL00M/VYL00M data corruption bug that affected the Galaxy Nexus - https://android.googlesource.c...

Then (actually BEFORE it, Google found it during Galaxy Nexus development but Samsung kept it hush-hush - but it became a public issue much later) - the infamous Samsung Superbrick fiasco (If you fired a secure erase command at the chip, it had a chance of permanently corrupting the wear leveller data to the point where the chip's onboard controller would crash until you power cycled it any time you accessed that region of flash). - https://git.kernel.org/cgit/li...

Then pre-release 840 PRO devices suffer from the SAME DAMN BUG SAMSUNG HAD BEEN AWARE OF FOR OVER A YEAR - http://www.anandtech.com/show/... - While this only affected review devices, the fact that this was a known bug since before the release of the Galaxy Nexus (a year earlier) is inexcusable.

Then there was the Galaxy S3 "Sudden Death Syndrome" issue in late 2013... - https://github.com/omnirom/and...

Then there were a few other issues - http://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/...

Now this...

As far as I can tell Android appears to be FOSS. You might need a version without Googles logos for it to be legal to use without paying them though?

here you go: Cyanogenmod Downloads

Ddid you know that you can get rid of the entire android OS entirely on most of the Kindles and replace it with actual Android?

You can.

Locked bootloader, shmocked shmootloader...

Wow. That does kinda blow, but sounds like an even better reason to *get* Cyanogen. Note: those "standard installation instructions" only work on a particular, rather small subset of Android phones. Cyanogenmod itself works on a much larger subset, though I think still not all of them, I have no idea if the Galaxy S Captivate is one of them or not. (Though it looks like the answer is yes?)

I installed Cyanogenmod on my previous phone that was stuck on 2.3 (and full of crapware I didn't want)... I had to first root it and install a bootloader, which was a bit of a pain to get working, but totally worth it.

My cousin's phone is a Samsung Galaxy S Captivate. It's one of the few Android devices that hide the Unknown sources checkbox from the user, which was AT&T's standard practice for about the first year that it offered Android phones. This means step 1 of the standard installation instructions will not work.

It's here. You're welcome.

My Galaxy S2 is still not able to run CyanogenMod. Eventually I discovered a "Calkulin's mod" that didn't do much more than unlock tethering. Woohoo.

Realistically, you want to get rid of Samsung's Android firmware entirely and that solves a lot of problems. Install cyanogenmod ( http://www.cyanogenmod.org/ ) and you can quite easily reclaim your phone. I'm still using my SGS2 i9100 and don't feel any need to update at all.

I got a Samsung Galay S Relay 4G from T-mobile, and I'm rather happy about it (well, not really from T-mobile, I'm in Europe, so I had to unlock it). It's not the very latest hardware, but it's still decent, and it runs the latest Cyanogenmod.

WIkipedia has a list of a dozen open-source phones with operating systems such as OpenMoko and Firefox OS, which includes parts of Android:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...

Nokia makes Android phones without the Google apps, and Google gives away the base operating system that allows them to do so.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/...

Cyanogenmod lets you run Android with no Google apps, some Google apps, or all Google apps - whatever you want.
http://www.cyanogenmod.org/

Ubuntu Touch may appeal to you:
http://www.ubuntu.com/phone

How about an article on the cheapest phone you can turn into an AOSP/Cyanogen handset with good results?

According to their device wiki, Cyanogenmod has current support for three slate phones with QWERTY keyboards: the Motorola Droid 4 (Verizon), Motorola Photon Q (Sprint) and the Samsung Relay 4G (T-Mobile). The Samsung Stratosphere II (Verizon) is not supported.

Nah, why bother; that would't start a flamewar!

Because the guy has a point. As you go farther beyond mainstream flagship models, you encounter more and more quirks with most smartphones. Samsung in particular has a history of releasing buggy handsets for Verizon (the Fascinate and the Stratosphere I & II were all heavily criticized for their bugs). Given the maturity of the AOSP code base at this point, it can be guessed that manufacturers can't leave well enough alone and are unnecessarily modifying their internal Android trees without proper bug testing.

The larger issue is that Google doesn't require every manufacturer to offer a Google Play Edition of their handset. People should have a choice between stock and modified.

/runs GPe on my GS4