There used to be a time when, if you lost your phone, that was it – it was gone. You’d get in touch with your carrier and report it lost or stolen so any calls or texts wouldn’t be added to your bill, ...

[devicemodder] wrote in to let us know they managed to install Linux Mint on their FRP-locked Panasonic Toughpad FZ-A2. Android devices such as the FZ-A2 can be locked with Factory Reset Protection ...

After a factory reset, the device requires verification with the previously synced Google account. Without the correct Google ...

Factory Reset Protection (FRP), a protection measure that’s supposed to prevent thieves from using stolen Android devices, is easy to bypass on some Nexus devices running on unpatched versions of ...

Factory Reset Protection was introduced with Android Lollipop, and, like Apple’s iCloud Activation Lock, it’s supposed to make it really hard to resell a stolen Android phone. The gist is that when ...

Following last week’s release of the Android 8.1 Developer Preview, new functionality is still being uncovered. Yesterday, one possible feature emerged, suggesting that Android was making a critical ...

Ryan is a tech/science writer, skeptic, lover of all things electronic, and Android fan. In his spare time he reads golden-age sci-fi and sleeps, but rarely at the same time. His wife tolerates him as ...

If you can tap on a screen and follow simple instructions, you too can “hack” into a Nexus device that, in theory, should be secured by Factory Reset Protection. Back in March, we reported on how easy ...

I've been writing about Android since 2011, with a focus on device reviews, Samsung and Google Pixel hardware, and the latest happenings in the ecosystem. In my entire writing career, I've reviewed ...

Smartphones offer users plenty of ways to keep the data they store secure, but what about protecting the phones themselves? Google’s tried to make Android phones less appealing to thieves by ...