This is 100% true but there also aren’t really any reliable alternatives for long-term firmware support. It’s either private companies offering 2-4 years or a somewhat open alternative whose longevity as a company and support capabilities (dev support) are unproven.

I’d say it mostly comes down to whether you want a phone you can tinker with and that supports a slightly better approach or something with the benefits of mainstream adoption and support from ROMs like GrapheneOS.

They just pay a vendor for it and don’t care about the things you do.

It’s a good one. You can stuff cash in an envelope to pay for it if you want.

I’ve never used Temu and for all I know they’re questionable, but this article is not itself very credible. It’s heavy on uncited economic assertions, makes a hackneyed national security argument, and is actually very light on the technical security details. Plus it suggests nonsense like TikTok not requiring the android.permission.INTERNET permission, lol.

On their “About” page they gladly announce that they’re a private company hired by big corps and finance bros so on, and they have an unexplained focus on China. I suspect they take money to do hit jobs.

I’d be interested to see a security comparison between, say, Temu, Amazon, and Facebook apps.

They came after gamers

Gotta purge the right people