Unplugged has open-sourced their kernel and antivirus - Unplugged Phone

Privacy and Security News
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  1. Under GPL, our obligation to provide source code applies when distributing binaries to users, and it must be fulfilled if a recipient USER formally requests it. We did not violate this obligation or the license. While we would have provided the GPL source code to any such requester, our plan has always been to publish the code publicly once our product reached a level of maturity and stability. That is exactly what we did. It was released publicly about three months ago.
    There were general discussions and some criticism online regarding the GPL compliance of our antivirus solution, which includes GPL-licensed components. However, the idea that we were operating outside the license is simply not correct.

  2. We have deep admiration for GrapheneOS and for what the core Graphene team and the open source community surrounding the project has accomplished. They have made significant, industry-leading contributions to privacy and security mobile OS technology and to fostering a culture of privacy. They have excellent documentation and a frequent update cadence. They’ve built a sizable user base and community. We do not see the GrapheneOS project as adversaries or even competition. The market for smartphones is very, very large (billions of units), and there is room for multiple companies and open source projects to succeed. This is the classic situation where a rising tide lifts all boats. The more that folks adopt privacy-respecting technologies, the more the whole of society will benefit.
    We have made friendly overtures and respectful conversation on X to the GrapheneOS account. We encouraged the porting of GrapheneOS for the UP Phone, but this was quickly dismissed. Irrespective of our approach and tone, they have attacked us repeatedly on X and in other forums. After one such exchange, they blocked us. However, we bear no ill will. We’ll just keep building our product. Our approach is different when it comes to user convenience, custom privacy controls and the development of our own hardware built to seamlessly support these goals.

  3. Initially the relationship with Brave revolved around a handful of get-acquainted calls in the summer of 2024 between members of the leadership teams from both Unplugged and Brave. It gradually led to discussions about how to collaborate.
    Although we have some competing offerings - for instance both companies offer a subscription VPN - we realized that for the most part our products are very complementary. They were impressed with the quality of the UP Phone, and that we were audacious enough to take on the full stack including hardware, the OS, the UP Store, etc. Multiple members of our team were already Brave users. Brave makes the browser, and we love the fact that they have an independent search engine and index, and a really impressive, easy-to-use AI integration that puts privacy first. It made perfect sense to make it the default browser and search solution for the UP Phone.

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