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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?
First world problems!
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it does. ipod touch
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Actually, the security issues have been vastly over-stated by click-bait driven media. Ever notice how we don't see stories about vast Android bot-nets or millions of people being the victims of exploits? The only successful malware relies on the user enabling installations from other sources and ignoring all the warnings, and even then on any 4.x version the OS will scan the app for known vulnerabilities.
The OP unfortunately doesn't say what version he is running, but my advice would be to install Cyanogen if available (simply to get the latest possible features and minimal bloatware) and not worry about it. If the OP is really paranoid there are anti-virus products for Android, but they are not really necessary.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
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