In what is a rather strange situation, Google Pixel 8 and 8 Pro buyers were spotted on Reddit complaining that their brand new devices arrived with an unlocked bootloader.
We’re not sure how widespread the problem is, but apparently it’s pretty limited as these things tend to blow up online pretty quickly nowadays and the Pixel 8 devices also come with a pretty obvious warning for an unlocked bootloader in the process. boot process. The user is presented with the following text:
The bootloader is unlocked and the integrity of the software cannot be guaranteed. All data stored on the device could be available to attackers. Do not store sensitive data on your device
As the message states, an unlocked bootloader, while not a big deal, does come with some privacy and data security concerns. The most obvious consequence of living with an Android device with an unlocked bootloader is that some financial apps, among others, will outright refuse to remain without security issues. For example, Android contactless payment via Google Wallet does not work with an unlocked bootloader.
In case you don’t know what a bootloader is and why it can be unlocked, the bootloader is the little software that handles the initial startup of your device and loads the operating system itself (Android, in this case). If you want to be able to tinker with your phone at the operating system level and install things like patches and mods or flash a new ROM, you need an unlocked bootloader.
Again, we can’t say for sure how widespread the problem is and, in theory, it should also be fixable by an end user via a computer and an ADB connection to the phone. Obviously, however, Google cannot demand such measures from its customers and, as far as we know, the Internet giant is already doing the right thing and offering replacement units to affected customers. However, according to reports, this requires a long support conversation.
Honestly, we’d like to know exactly how this situation came about since every year Google Pixel phones seem to have at least a couple of extremely strange “quirks,” for lack of a better term.
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