pouët.net

Encryption on older Android phone

category: offtopic [glöplog]
 
I was recently given a brand-new-in-box Samsung Galaxy S II (ca. 2011) - 1.5GHz, dual-core, 1GB RAM... don't laugh, it's a significant upgrade from what I *was* using.

Its running Android 4.0.4 which has full device encryption as an option. I'm thinking of trying it out, but I'm worried it will slow everything down too much. I understand it's standard on Android 5.x devices but so are other things like a faster CPU and more RAM.

My only other experience with encryption is on a ~2010 Core2 laptop I have (standard Ubuntu disk encrpytion) where it is DOG SLOW. But to be fair that thing is running a low-power netbook-class hard drive, probably spinning at 4800 RPM or something.

Have any of you tried encrypting an older phone like this? How's it run?
added on the 2016-06-24 01:44:36 by jmph jmph
4.0.4 is really old. Upgrade it to some recent version (5.1 or even 6.0.1 might be available for that model and run fine with 1GB), because encryption is useless with so many unpatched vulnerabilities. THEN go for encryption, because speed has improved with 5.1+...
added on the 2016-06-24 15:13:05 by raer raer
cyanogenmod to the rescue!
That started sucking too lately, since they started screwing around with Microsoft, but there are currently not many alternatives imo... :/
added on the 2016-06-24 16:16:01 by raer raer
Meh, I looked into Cyanogen, but the last stable release for this model is 10.2 which is based on 4.0x anyway. There are official nightly builds of CM11.x and an unofficial 13.x port but both seem to have some known issues.

There are some unofficial builds of vanilla Android 5.x floating around too but most of the posts I've seen about them says they're not really stable.

I'm happy enough with 4.x until I actually shell out for a new-ish phone. (Considering I was running Jellybean until this month and Cupcake aka 1.5 on the original HTC Dream until the end of 2014 it's a big improvement. :P ) I might dig a little deeper and see if I can get a decent 5.1 on there, but not really enthused about having to set up the phone & transfer over all my apps & contacts / text messages again.
added on the 2016-06-24 20:20:30 by jmph jmph
Galaxy Tab S2 supports Knox, which I also use with my Samsung Tab and Note phone. Maybe ur phone is supported too after an upgrade.

"Knox" is an encrypted Android OS sandbox within Android from Samsung. I use it for my social media and other sensible private data.
added on the 2016-06-25 16:42:57 by Salinga Salinga
Quote:
not really enthused about having to set up the phone & transfer over all my apps & contacts / text messages again.

MyPhoneExplorer is your friend. Has been working really well for for me for years now...

Quote:
Meh, I looked into Cyanogen, but the last stable release for this model is 10.2 which is based on 4.0x anyway. There are official nightly builds of CM11.x

I'm running nightlies on my phone too. Some have their problems, but overall work quite well. You just have to upgrade to the one that works best and stay with it... ;)
Stable is also "old" and does not mean it is bug-free...
added on the 2016-06-27 10:27:26 by raer raer

login