Recently, I had to change my phone. I got my grandfather’s old smartphone to replace it. I wanted to try a new OS to replace Google’s Android, I was thinking of trying either LineageOS or Ressurection REMIX OS. So, I candidly hard reset it by entering the “Recovery Menu”, just like I would on any computer I ever installed Linux on.

Except, there was something that went wrong. I got a weird error message. So, I booted the phone to see what was going on. I start the setup procedure. I am asked to log in with a Google Account, so I do. There, I get another weird message: I had to log in with the phone’s owner account…

The phone was locked. Locked by Google. The physical device that I thought I owned, locked by the inside by Google.

That particular “security” is called Factory Reset Protection. As far as I know, it is impossible to bypass that “protection”. Basically, once activated Google owns your phone.

I lost a lot of time, had to ask my grandfather to enter a code on his new phone to unlock the one he gave me.

When I was finally able to set up the phone, I was greeted by a lot of preinstalled and un-uninstallable applications. Truly, the smartphone oligopoly is a bad thing for users.

Both Android and iPhone phones are locked, you don’t own your phone like you own your computer.

We need more free and open-source alternatives, just like GNU/Linux is in the computer OS market.