GitHub - zenfyrdev/bootloader-unlock-wall-of-shame: Keeping track of companies that "care about your data 🥺"
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Keeping track of companies that "care about your data 🥺" - zenfyrdev/bootloader-unlock-wall-of-shame

This is a list of phone manufacturers that lock their bootloaders to prevent people from installing custom operating systems (LineageOS etc) to remove bloatware and spyware/tracking.

  • onlinepersona@programming.dev
    4·
    8 hours ago

    The effort is appreciated and while some brands can definitely be undoubtedly terrible (like Apple which doesn’t have a single phone the expressively allow you to unlock), many brands have a mix of phones that allow unlocking.

    I’d much rather have a long table I can filter and sort than just a blanket “this brand is terrible and should be avoided”. Also, that verdict should be reached by a list of common criteria with a point system. It should just be the author of a page that decides a company’s rating.

  • Admiral Patrick@dubvee.orgEnglish
    23·
    21 hours ago

    Yeah, I dunno how accurate, let alone comprehensive, this repo of shame is.

    From: https://github.com/zenfyrdev/bootloader-unlock-wall-of-shame/blob/main/brands/cat/README.md

    Cat’s phones have the OEM Unlock option in the settings app, but the typical fastboot flashing unlock/fastboot oem unlock just returns an unknown command error.

    They didn’t bother to list what model they tested before deeming the entire brand “Terrible”. I have two CAT S22 Flips (still daily driving one of them), and both of them unlocked immediately with the fastboot command and without requiring an unlock key.

    Mostly moot, though. You can still get CAT phones on the secondhand market but Bullit Group (the manufacturer of their branded phones) went out of business in April 2024.

    I’m honestly not sure why you’d buy a phone from a tractor company anyways.

    Because their phones are rugged AF and nearly indestructible.