Battle Should I buy a Chinese Smartphone?

Freki123

Level 15
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Top Poster
Aug 10, 2013
737
I wouldn't think that a chinese company would spy on me any more/less than a american company or any other country. What you should worry more about is the reputation of the vendor supplying the phones with security updates in a timely manner.
If it's an android phone maybe take a look at Blokada - the best ad blocker for Android, free and open source to minimize atleast the spying from the vendor, google and so on ^^
 

DeepWeb

Level 25
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Well-known
Jul 1, 2017
1,396
I mean isn't every smartphone made in China technically? Couldn't they put spyware into all of our hardware? Just a little tag that keeps track of you? I agree with what @Freki123 said, people worry too much about government agencies. I would worry more about private companies mining all of your data regardless of what phone you have. Google and Facebook know more about us than any spy agency in the world.
 

motox781

Level 10
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Well-known
Apr 1, 2015
483
I mean isn't every smartphone made in China technically? Couldn't they put spyware into all of our hardware? Just a little tag that keeps track of you? I agree with what @Freki123 said, people worry too much about government agencies. I would worry more about private companies mining all of your data regardless of what phone you have. Google and Facebook know more about us than any spy agency in the world.

True
 

Paul.R

Level 17
Verified
Well-known
May 16, 2013
844
You can buy it, I use one(smartphone), majority of us have chinese manufacturers products.
You can say goodbye to privacy from 2009 because:

Google's CEO Eric Schmidt declared: "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place. If you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines—including Google—do retain this information for some time and it's important, for example, that we are all subject in the United States to the Patriot Act and it is possible that all that information could be made available to the authorities." - Wikipedia
 
F

ForgottenSeer 58943

According to Kim , buying a Chinese Smart phone, then securing everything properly, using encryption, and removing some of the hidden apps actually affords greater privacy/security vs one of the phones from a US Corporation or US Cooperative firm.
 

jogs

Level 22
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Nov 19, 2012
1,112
Your question should be , where can I find a smart phone that doesn't have a Chinese component in it?
And I doubt anyone will be able to answer it.
Even if you buy a phone that says its made in some country other than China, most of its components will be from China. There is no escaping the Chinese.
And its just a Western Brain Wash that Chinese products are always spying on its user. No one has been able to provide any proof, on the other hand there is enough proof against Google, MS, FB and the likes.
 

ZeroDay

Level 30
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Well-known
Aug 17, 2013
1,905
Most smartphones are made in China anyway so if they wanted to do anything to the devices manufactured there to spy on people they could do it easily. I have an Huawei Honor 10 and it's been an amazing device, it gets Android updates faster than my Galaxy S9, it runs smoother and it's just an all around good experience. No one should really be worried about Chinese smartphones. The amount of tech we use in our daily lives that contains components made in China must be through the roof. If China want to add backdoors they can do it at hardware level and they really are spoilt for choice on which devices or hardware they could ever want to add backdoors too. I'd recommend the phone I'm using to anyone the OnePlus phones are also great devices.
 

Kuttz

Level 13
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Well-known
May 9, 2015
625
Made in China vs Chinese brand is different. Those who worry about Chinese spy then they can avoid Chinese brand products which is easily possible.

I'm looking for a new smartphone since my old Lumia 930 is broken. I like Huawei smartphone but it is a Chinese company. Any advices?

You could consider ASUS which is not Chinese and their phones are pretty good. They are underrated due to the overwhelming models availability of Chinese branded phones.
 

Vasudev

Level 33
Verified
Nov 8, 2014
2,224
Made in China vs Chinese brand is different. Those who worry about Chinese spy then they can avoid Chinese brand products which is easily possible.



You could consider ASUS which is not Chinese and their phones are pretty good. They are underrated due to the overwhelming models availability of Chinese branded phones.
Isn't ASUS made in Taiwan? Its called AsusTek or Pegatronics in Chinese markets!
 

jogs

Level 22
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Well-known
Nov 19, 2012
1,112
May be, but as I have said earlier most of the components will from China. Taiwan is one of the biggest investor in China, they do the research & development and get the products made from China.
I have seen some of their phones, they are quite good compared to the price. Infact I'm thinking of getting one from them very soon.
 

DeepWeb

Level 25
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Well-known
Jul 1, 2017
1,396
Made in China vs Chinese brand is different. Those who worry about Chinese spy then they can avoid Chinese brand products which is easily possible.



You could consider ASUS which is not Chinese and their phones are pretty good. They are underrated due to the overwhelming models availability of Chinese branded phones.
Most if not all Chinese brands make a clear distinction in their software when it comes to Western markets. Yes Chinese phones being sold to Chinese people have software that sends data back to Chinese authorities. But the US and EU versions of the same phones do not have the same OS and software. The Chinese version of the iPhone shares encyption keys of iCloud with Chinese authorities for example. I wouldn't buy a Chinese iPhone. It all depends on what the end market is. If these devices really had spyware, they could never pass the FCC, FTC and other regulatory commission's approval to be sold at all.

And yes Chinese phones will send telemetry back to China because that's where the companies are located and just like any manufacturer and developer, they receive telemetry and debug information which can have personally identifiable information. I just think that the fear is exaggerated and mostly political. The US fears that we will end up in a world where most of the Internet's infrastructure will be run by Chinese companies but that's unavoidable.
 

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