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Ask Slashdot: How To Safely Use Older Android Phones?
An anonymous reader writes: Like many people reading this site, I have several older phones around as well as my newest, fanciest one; I have a minimal service plan on one of these (my next-to-most-recent), and no service plan (only WI-Fi, as available) on the others. Most of them have some reason or other that I like them, so even without service I've kept them around to act as micro-tablets. Some have a better in-built camera than my current phone, despite being older; some are nice on occasion for being small and pocketable; I like to use one as a GPS in the car without dedicating my phone to that purpose; I can let my young relatives use an older one as a camera, etc. Besides, some people have only one phone at all, and can't reasonably afford a new one -- and that probably means a phone that's not cutting edge. So: in light of the several recent Android vulnerabilities that have come to light, and no reason to think they're the last of these, what's a smart way to use older Android phones? Is CyanoGen Mod any less vulnerable? Should I be worried that old personally identifying information from online transactions is still hanging around somewhere in the phone's recesses? I don't want to toss still-useful hardware, but I know I won't be getting any OS upgrades to 3-year-old phones. How do you use older phones that are not going to get OTA updates to address every security issue?
if it is good hardware why not put a new operating system on it and make it work for a few more years, no sense in filling the landfills up just because the software became obsolete,
the computer i am typing this on was built by me in 2000, i used to dual boot a copy of windows 2000 and Linux Slackware-8 when it was new, today windows is gone and i am running Debian Jessie on it, the hardware is old but it works good so why not put a new operating system on it
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Because time is a real cost. Sometimes more than throwing out something old & buying something new.
And time can encompass a lot of issues - build, install, security, speed, opportunity cost.
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