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Comment by butz | Hacker News Reader

Even most recent version of KaiOS still runs on ancient Linux kernel 3.10.49 (2014) with Firefox 48.0a (2016). Not only lacking in features, but in security updates too. With updated Gecko engine and proper PWA support KaiOS might have a chance to compete with other mobile operating systems. And if somehow this new engine will be released as open source, other projects, like postmarketOS, might be able to use it too.

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That explains why I was unable to find any secure way to store keys or sensitive data in their API[0] docs.

Which means user authentication apps will not come any time soon, like Authy (Authenticators), Bitwarden (Password Managers) or BankID (Swedish) (Identity Verifiers).

[0] https://developer.kaiostech.com/api

Yeah, until they can get their act together on the security side this has no chance to become as widely used like androidOS/iOS. For some places this is less important than others. But as countries seem to be looking into digital-only currency this will become more and more of a problem.

I could understand version 45 (somewhat) as it was ESR. FF48 came out around the same time that Mozilla dropped support. My assumption is that KaiOS hasn't really poured many resources into that part of the OS. An update to the kernel and moving to Firefox 68 ESR seems like an amazing upgrade for users.

I can't imagine Mozilla putting in the resources without also open-sourcing all the things.

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