Stock Android and Custom UI Android in terms of privacy and security

[Einfo Mail]

Hi,

I read many articles for Stock Android and Custom UI Android.

There are many Custom UI Android like ColorOS (Oppo & Realme), EMUI (Huawei), Flyme (Meizu), Funtouch (Vivo), OxygenOS (OnePlus), MIUI (Xiaomi), Amigo OS (Gionee), etc.

No doubt, Custom UI Android provides more features and customization options.

And custom UI Android is good for those who want more options and customizations in android phone.

These days, we do more financial transactions on android phones and we keep banking apps in android phones.

In terms of security and privacy of personal data and financial transactions, I would like to understand security and privacy threat with Custom UI Android.

There are many Custom UI Android but I am concerned about MIUI 10, ColorOS 5.2 and Color OS 6.

Please be kind to elaborate and clarify it.

Regards

Ugn10

 

[Emmanuel Godwin]

Well no doubts, stock android is good, both in terms of security and usability... Coming to custom, i will say it depends on the manufacturer.. For example Samsung Experience which is now renamed to One Ui is pretty secured because it is protected by Knox. so it depends on the OEM.

 

[GameTheory]

Security and privacy can be seen as 2 different things. Your device can have the latest security patch level, but an OEM like Huawei can purposefully compromise user data as they are accused of, therefore reducing your privacy.

The Android Open Source Project(AOSP) where all android OS variants originate from, receives security patches once a month. So ColorOS and all other android variants are as secure as the security patch level they are on.

You can check your security patch level by going to the settings on your device in the about phone section.

In this link you can view details about the latest security patch:
Pay attention to the first 2 sentences...
https://source.android.com/security/bulletin/2019-02-01

 

[Hadron]

There';s no intrinsic pro or con in terms of security or privacy from using a manufacturer's skin (the normal way these things are referred to). A manufacturer might add extra security features (e.g. Samsung's Knox system), they might add privacy-invading apps, they may even do both. And different manufacturers will do different things, so you cannot say that having "stock" android (or as near to that as you can get) is intrinsically more or less secure than all manufacturer versions, though you might be able to make such a statement for a specific manufacturer's software.

As GameTheory says, how quickly manufacturers propagate security patches is the one real advantage, since most of the more heavily skinned manufacturers are slower at this. But that's really the only general statement that I'd make in answer to this question.