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Making an old android phone useful again

13 August 2015 21:50

I've got an HTC Desire, running Android 2.2. It is old enough that installing applications such as thsoe from my bank, etc, fails.

The process of upgrading the stock ROM/firmware seems to be:

  • Download an unsigned zip file, from a shady website/forum.
  • Boot the phone in recovery mode.
  • Wipe the phone / reset to default state.
  • Install the update, and hope it works.
  • Assume you're not running trojaned binaries.
  • Hope the thing still works.
  • Reboot into the new O/S.

All in all .. not ideal .. in any sense.

I wish there were a more "official" way to go. For the moment I guess I'll ignore the problem for another year. My nokia phone does look pretty good ..

Tags: android, hardware, phones | 5 comments

 

Comments on this entry

icon Frank at 14:23 on 13 August 2015

Did you look in XDA (or did you mean XDA as a shady site). There is a kitkat ROM available!

icon Steve Kemp at 14:26 on 13 August 2015
http://steve.org.uk/

I've looked at so many sites I've lost track, but I'll try and check that out tonight, thanks!

icon Max at 17:33 on 13 August 2015

I wrote this comment from HTC Desire with Cyanogenmod. Last version for that phone is 7.2.1, which is android 2.3.7

icon Fabio at 20:29 on 17 August 2015

Totally agree with you! All I see on XDA is people sharing binaries via file sharing (dropbox or other sites) at least for the recovery mod binaries. As for cyanogen you can download it from a single website and check the file signature at least, but there's often the first step which is quite shady/untrusted.

icon Asdbimbaj at 06:01 on 25 August 2015

I tried lots of rom on my xperia x8 lately and i have to say the most surprising were when they release a kernel which support communication on service com port behind the battery and you can run python code on the device. When you run the python code it can use the pins. woow

 

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