Any way to set and restore system image on a cell phone?

[IronWing]

My mom is getting up in years and lacks any discipline in clicking clickbait on her phone. So she picks up viruses and trackers by the score. Is there any way to create an image that can be reloaded daily or as needed to purge the phone of all the crap she allows? Explaining the issue to her has produced no change in behavior. Ideally, her contacts and pictures would not be wiped with a restoration of the phone. Her phone becomes inoperable about weekly.

 

[IronWing]

She currently has an android but we can go with android or Apple.

 

[Iron Woode]

On Android you can back up contacts to your email account (I think) or sdcard or simcard.

I just put all images on the sdcard or back them up to a PC.

I do believe a number of settings can be backed up to your gmail account and have it restored after wiping the phone. It's been a while since I have had to do any of that.

 

[lxskllr]

It would require a system wipe each time afaik. What programs are required?

 

[Brainonska511]

For Android, you could have contacts and photos saved to a google account automatically.

Have you considered implementing some parental controls to limit her ability to install software? Also, turning up the default browser settings - Chrome for mobile has some features that can be turned on to provide some additional protections. Some won't be foolproof, but should help.

 

[WelshBloke]

Firefox mobile loaded up with every tracker and ad blocker it has! Back that up to a Firefox account to save her bookmarks, history and add-ons if you need to nuke it!

It all depends on what she does on the phone. If it's just email, text and web browsing that should be easy to back up.

 

[balloonshark]

With a PC there are programs that can return the PC back to the way it was with a reboot. Sort of like a kiosk mode for demo PCs in stores. No idea if they make virtualization, light virtualization or sandboxing type apps for phone though. It would be a perfect solution for your situation. I'm getting search hits for android kiosk mode. It might be worth investigating.

Also, it may be time for a "dumb" Jitterbug type phone. They are a bit overpriced IMHO. For her pics you could get her a digital pic frame.

 

[igor_kavinski]

VMOS Lets You Run a Virtual Android Machine on your Phone

www.xda-developers.com

This could be it?

 

[Kaido]

She currently has an android but we can go with android or Apple.

Yup, iMazing does it wirelessly for the iPhone for $40:

iPhone Backup Software | iMazing

Backup iPhone to computer, Mac and PC. iOS backups to external hard drive. Wireless, private and automatic, iMazing is the best backup solution for your iPhone and iPad data.

imazing.com

Runs on Windows or Mac. You can set it to backup daily when her phone connects to your home wireless network. Super easy to recover:

 

[Kaido]

My mom is getting up in years and lacks any discipline in clicking clickbait on her phone. So she picks up viruses and trackers by the score. Is there any way to create an image that can be reloaded daily or as needed to purge the phone of all the crap she allows? Explaining the issue to her has produced no change in behavior. Ideally, her contacts and pictures would not be wiped with a restoration of the phone. Her phone becomes inoperable about weekly.

For Android security, I recommend:

1. The Brave Browser
2. Malwarebytes security
3. Glasswire firewall

The Google one app & service has some backup features for Android:

Google One - Apps on Google Play

Cloud storage, automatic phone backup, and more.

play.google.com

Automatically back up the important things on your phone, like photos, contacts and messages using your free 15 GB of storage that comes with every Google account. If you break, lose or upgrade your phone, you can restore everything to your new Android device.

 

[sdifox]

Just setup a google account and save her stuff there. Factory init phone everytime you need to start over. Just add her google account back after init.

You can do system backup, but probably more trouble than it's worth.

 

[balloonshark]

Tip #5 about applock may be of interest to you. The link is broke in the article so I included a link to the app below.

How to Make an Android Phone or Tablet Grandma-Friendly

By now, a mobile phone that isn't "smart" is about as hard to come by as a TV that isn't high definition. As a result, members of older generations who were previously reluctant to purchase a newfangled smartphone have no other choice but to cave into the more recent trends when their old device...

android.gadgethacks.com

AppLock - Apps on Google Play

Protect privacy.

play.google.com

 

[Scarpozzi]

Just setup a google account and save her stuff there. Factory init phone everytime you need to start over. Just add her google account back after init.

You can do system backup, but probably more trouble than it's worth.

Problem is typically photos. People take pictures on their phone and Google only does 15GB without a plan. It's way easier to sync them to Amazon if you're a Prime member, otherwise you need to pay another service to catch them as they're taken. My wife ran into that recently and we now just pay iCloud $3/month for the 250gb plan or whatever.

 

[sdifox]

Problem is typically photos. People take pictures on their phone and Google only does 15GB without a plan. It's way easier to sync them to Amazon if you're a Prime member, otherwise you need to pay another service to catch them as they're taken. My wife ran into that recently and we now just pay iCloud $3/month for the 250gb plan or whatever.

Back the pix up manually. Easy to do with an andrpid phone.

 

[lxskllr]

Where do viruses and trackers come from? I don't think I've ever even seen an attempt on my phone. Maybe just a browser with an ad blocker as Welsh said would be sufficient. My recommendation would be firefox and ublock origin of course, cause fuck chromium. I wonder if brave will even block ads once manifest V3 goes live?

 

[Scarpozzi]

Back the pix up manually. Easy to do with an andrpid phone.

Used to be easy, but if you're wiping the phone often, it can take time messing with it. Backups or photo sync is usually easier than the cable. I've lost my patience since the image sizes have gotten so large.

 

[sdifox]

Used to be easy, but if you're wiping the phone often, it can take time messing with it. Backups or photo sync is usually easier than the cable. I've lost my patience since the image sizes have gotten so large.

Eh? You don't have to keep backing up pictures you already backed up lol.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Wonder if there is a way to install the OS right on the SD card, that seems like it would be the easiest way as you can just dd the entire sd card to a backup and to restore just dd it back to the card. I imagine it's not possible to do that though.

 

[Scarpozzi]

Eh? You don't have to keep backing up pictures you already backed up lol.

Good point. I guess I was always dealing with my wife's phone and apple never named files well for PCs. I guess if you have a Mac PC and iTunes, you're good. I just have little patience anymore for crap I'm not getting paid for.