Google’s September 2026 Pixel Update Bulletin contains patches beyond what’s in that month’s regular Android Security Bulletin. According to GrapheneOS, some of those extra patches touch standard Android platform code, the kind that runs on non-Pixel devices, not just Pixel-branded hardware.
None of that platform-level code has reached the regular monthly bulletin or the private preview patches other manufacturers typically draw from to get their own patches ready.
And at this rate, these won’t reach non-Pixel OEMs at all until Android 17 QPR2 ships later this year in December.
The project is characterizing this as Google “gatekeeping security patches to the standard Android platform code from Android OEMs.” The complaints
GrapheneOS says Android 17 QPR1 shipped new developer APIs that never made it into AOSP. This is something they claim hasn’t happened since Android’s Honeycomb days.
Google’s API diff report backs this up. Comparing Android 17 to QPR1 shows one new package, android.hardware.hid, plus changes across sixteen others, including android.media, android.os, android.provider, android.telecom, and android.view.
GrapheneOS has ported its code to QPR1 before Google even released it, but still doesn’t have permission to ship that work. For now, the project is backporting Pixel firmware, kernel drivers, userspace drivers, and HALs from QPR1 onto Android 17 instead.
On top of all that, there’s a compliance issue that seems to be recurring.
Google was slow to comply with a GPL source request. GrapheneOS requested sources for a build (CD1A.260905.001.A1) on September 1, and access only came through more than two weeks later.
Why this is worrying
None of these three issues is catastrophic by itself. A three-month patch delay, a paused API rollout, a two-week wait on source code—each is the kind of thing that could pass as a one-off.
Taken together, however, they point to a recurring theme. Google is holding security fixes back from the wider Android ecosystem, withholding new APIs from AOSP for the first time in over a decade, and slow-walking GPL compliance it’s required to meet.
Don’t even get me started on what they are doing to the Android app ecosystem.
Google is on track to require every Android app developer, whether on the Play Store, F-Droid, or anywhere else, to register with them. Come 2027, that means handing over legal identification and signing key evidence before an app can run on any certified device.
Sideloading an unverified app following this would mean enabling developer settings, waiting through a mandatory 24-hour cooldown, and clicking past several warning screens (classic scare tactics, btw).
GrapheneOS is one of dozens of organizations that signed onto the Keep Android Open campaign opposing this, alongside F-Droid, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and the Free Software Foundation.
If you ask me, this Big Tech company is doing what’s regrettably natural for it, clamping down open access to things so that its competition cannot benefit.
When Sony announced the end of physical disks, a low level exploit for the PS5 was released - to me the timing of this makes the message clear.
I hope we soon have some sort of similar response with Google, whatever that may be.
We are reaching a point where it’s evident we need to really start seriously developing open source alternatives for the technology in our life that is essentially gated by duopolies, monopolies, and oligopolies…
Thanks to the auther for publishing important news like this. Spreading the word is so important. Making it understandable to the average person equally so. We need to educate the youth in particular before they become irreversibly entrenched in an even worse tech corpo-dystopia.
Also, if any Grapheneos devs are reading this, I love you guys and I respect the hell outta the work you’re putting in. Anyone who has the means and the passion, I’m sure they wouldn’t mind a donation or even just feedback and engagement.
We need Proper Linux/BSD phone
PostmarketOS works pretty decently on certain hardware from my understanding. Apps are lacking, though. I think you might be able to run Android apps through something like Waydroid, but I think certain apps like bank apps don’t like that.
The list of well supported phones is vanishingly small & what’s even worse is that it’s not really daily drivable on any device. The idle battery drain is immense with the modem on. Honestly I’m not even certain that without a proper relationship with the hardware vendors it’s possible to build something that doesn’t drain itself in 2 days of idling.
Two days? I charged every night even when using Google’s OS.
SailfishOS phone ?
Furiphone?
Yeah, not, I’m not buying a corporate owned phone again so we can repeat this later. Fully open source should be the goal.
Lmao good luck
Lmao good luck
Jolla is a startup that is taking advantage of foss being free & are not really contributing back. All the innovations they made to actually make their Linux phone usable is lost to the community at large.
I think we need something similar to the Lenovo + Graphene collab. Mass produced phones sold at commodity prices with a usable Linux option.
Can you elaborate on this? I am planning to preorder a Jolla phone, bad idea in your opninion?
If you want a fully open source Linux phone, the best option is to get whatever is supported by a mobile distro. I think PostmarketOS has some of the best support, but I may be mistaken. There’s also Ubuntu Touch, Mobian, and I want to say one more I’m forgetting.
The company has been around for like 15 years I don’t think you can call them a startup anymore
That one is not fully open source. I understand why, but I don’t like it.
i mean there is AOSP
Google is on track to require every Android app developer, whether on the Play Store, F-Droid, or anywhere else, to register with them. Come 2027, that means handing over legal identification and signing key evidence before an app can run on any certified device.
When is some country’s government finally going to grow a pair and block this shit on the grounds of antitrust law?
Only when they stop getting some kind of benefit from it.
This was already the inevitability of Android; Google was just willing to spend 15-20 years to achieve as much market dominance as possible. They fought off Palm webOS, Windows Mobile, Linux phones are just now materializing, iOS is huge but having one major competitor isn’t a problem. Now that “the reality of the world means more security is needed” Google will work their way out of any openness they once had. Perhaps even someday their own hardware will be the only game in town. They’re already by FAR the worst company when it comes to harvesting data and profiling you.
Agree 99%. But I would argue that Google is on par with Meta on the profiling front.
It’s called installing apps, not “sideloading”. Installing your programmes into a device you own is normal, being blocked from doing that is abnormal.
Honestly, I am running GrapheneOS (o7 to the devs, btw) until my Pixel 6a dies, and then I am switching to Jolla + SailfishOS. There is nothing more maddening to me than seeing Microslop and Google slowly filling their ecosystem with irremovable invasive bloatware and basically blocking a free market.
If you don’t already have the Jolla hardware, I’d consider getting a Fairphone 6 or 6+ instead and using TheMightyCat’s build of postmarketOS. They’ve been doing some insane work with hardware enablement on the close-to-mainline kernel for that phone to the point where it’s almost 100% fully functional.
We’ll see what Motorola will cook up. Of course GOS team can’t maintain an Android fork on their own. It doesn’t need new features, just stability and security on the right hardware platform. And it’s too bad Google killed the Pixel tablets. There isn’t anything new supported on LineageOS either. Seems I have to bite the bullet, and look at Linux tablets.
Sadly, security on the Jolla is laughable. Comparable to a standard Linux installation years ago, from what I have heard…
It is so dumb that pretty much we only have to make these giant compromises because of greed.
For me, having control over my own system outweighs this. Might be naive though. Plus, I want to support these kind of initiatives.
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I’ve been trying to convince people for the last 10-15 years that Google is no friend to the open source community. It’s been difficult and sounds self-serving as I do it from Apple devices and make no attempt to hide or conceal that.
AOSP and chromium are open source projects. What Google actually puts out — Android and Chrome — are not. They take the open source foundations, and they build upon them with closed-source components. They’ve always done this. AOSP does not have any Google apps either (sometimes called GApps) as those are not open source. Browser and Mail are not Chrome and Gmail, though the former may be a chromium-based browser and the latter may be capable of retrieving and sending through Gmail (much like Apple’s mail app can).
Android is not an open source ally, and macOS is kinda, sorta, not really based on UNIX. But we could flip the script and say that Apple is a friend to open source because macOS is basically UNIX (via OS X and NextStep), while Android isn’t open source at all. I can already see the pitchforks being sharpened. Both positives are technically true from a certain point of view (like Vader having killed Anakin Skywalker, to use Obi-Wan’s example for this turn of a phrase), but the negatives of both are more accurate. Because to really be a friend to the world of open source (and FOSS, and the more preferred licenses), you can’t just half-ass it, you gotta go all the way. Apple isn’t there and neither is Google.
F-Droid is what the Android Market (I’m that old, and older) should have become, with Google offering a repository you can add to F-Droid. Google Play Store is trash and pretty much always has been, and I say that as someone who deals with the App Store (which is also trash) every day.
Of course I also root for GrapheneOS, up until they say you can only use their OS with a Pixel phone. If I want iPhone 11 performance, I’m not spending iPhone 18 Pro money on a Pixel 11, I’m gonna either get iPhone 18 Pro performance, or, if I want Android, I’m looking at the Galaxy S line. I’m not even looking at Pixel and its sorry ass, seven generations behind Tensor line. Bad enough Snapdragon struggles to keep up with Apple silicon. Does Tensor even try?
But nah, I wanna see GrapheneOS do what Andy Rubin did. Make Linux run on phones. But make it run on any phone. I guess I don’t mean “including the iPhone.” That would be nice, but Apple isn’t unlocking that bootloader. But we should expect a free, open source alternative to Android to run on any hardware, not just the one run by the one causing the problems. (So what standards do I aspire my iPhone to? I want it to be more like the Mac, with a terminal and ability to install apps from anywhere.)
Google used open source as cover to to illegally dump into different industries to expand its monopoly. It did the bare minimum to prepare for the antitrust litigation that never came.
Don’t forget everyone! Cheering on Motorola is no good feat. When the Flock cameras are getting take down. Guess who’s placing new cameras in the exact same places as the Flock poles. Axon and Motorola. Still want your Graphene phone on Motorola? Not a good sign.
Motorola Solutions != Motorola Mobility
Motorola Mobility is Lenovo and since 2014 they have nothing to do with each other apart from the branding.
Join forces with postmarketOS?
I mean I’m well aware that they won’t be taking any of their work over to that platform but they are expanding their hardware support pretty wide and it’s full on linux afaik.
Steam lepton is interesting.
It’s almost like steam is also possibly going after the play store eventually too. So, if they do that, and manufacturers change away, it’s a win
I’m not sure if Lepton improves on Waydroid for general apps as well, or just games. It would be great to see more weight behind Linux phones, but not sure if Valve intends to do it or not.
It says on the repo that the scope is limited to games only. Other apps may work but they’re not actively supported, and APIs not used by games won’t be implemented.
If we assume Google is a wiggledog of alphabet (lel) agencies, it would want to wiggle off all deviants and provide a single platform one can exploit in a predictable way and not others. In a subscription-model fashion, they benefit from having an ever moving window of vulnerabilities so their clients need to get the latest ones or otherwise they wouldn’t work. I slightly remember an article concerning russian cops using old Pegasus to dig into someone’s iphone and israelis commenting that it is outdated by a couple of years and is not applicable to modern models.
Privacy-focused OSes and apps out of their control introduce deviances Google doesn’t want to account for, so they establish a total monopoly.
There should be something more than we have now to tell Google should cool the fuck down.
GrapheneOS has ported its code to QPR1 before Google even released it, but still doesn’t have permission to ship that work.
Huh? What do they need permission for?
I had no idea that GrapheneOS was so dependent on Android as an upstream project.
It’s about Pixel specifics. I hope next year there is an alternative.
Graphene’s team is never happy. If no one picked a fight with them they would find one.
That’s good, that’s the whole point - if there were nothing wrong with android/google worth picking a fight over, graphene wouldn’t need to exist in the first place.
I want my graphene/EFF/etc teams rabid, angry, picking fights, and armed with bazookas.
