Free Your Android

iodéOS review

Written by Florian Snow on 2026-09-11 

Introduction

iodéOS is an Android distribution based on LineageOS with a focus on privacy. The French company iodé develops it. The target audience is users who want software freedom, but either do not have much technical expertise or simply prefer not spending that time on their phone. This means that iodéOS ships with microG integrated and it also comes with a blocker app that helps restrict tracking at the system level. Device support is smaller than on LineageOS, but iodéOS has official builds for some phones that LineageOS only offers community builds for. You can also buy phones with iodéOS preinstalled. In March 2026, they also introduced a blocker for spam calls. Phone sales and subscriptions to the extended blocker features provide funding for development.

For our tests, we used iodéOS 7. We also have further information on our test setup.

Installation

iodéOS provides an installer that makes the process very streamlined. In our tests, it took care of all necessary steps with very few user interactions. Download and flashing of all components happened automatically and in the end, the bootloader was locked. Since hardly any technical knowledge is necessary during that process, anyone should be able to flash iodéOS on a supported phone. At first boot, iodéOS walks you through a setup wizard that gives attribution to LineageOS, lets you set up push notification support via microG, and lets you deselect any of the standard apps the system comes with.

General impression

iodéOS is a full-featured version of Android with a curated set of apps that cover most daily uses. The LineageOS heritage is visible in a positive way: thoughtful additions from LineageOS such as the customisable navigation bar, quick settings tiles, colour temperature adjustment, and system profiles, are all on board. The app selection differs partially from LineageOS. iodéOS comes with Fossify Messages, Breezy Weather, CoMaps, Twelve music player, Camelot PDF reader, Thunderbird, Aperture for the camera, and HeliBoard as the keyboard. The included browser is a version of Firefox with some beta features enabled and Startpage as the default search engine. These apps are perfectly functional, but a detailed review is beyond the scope of this test. And with the setup wizard, a different choice is just a click away.

iodéOS also includes F-Droid with Privileged Extensions and Aurora Store with privileged permissions, which means they can install apps without further user interaction.

Backups

iodéOS ships SeedVault as the default backup solution. It behaves like in any other distribution. Please have a look at our general explanation of SeedVault for more details.

Battery life

In our tests, iodéOS did not have significantly different battery life compared to other distributions. We have more detailed information about this that is the same across all tested distributions.

Software support

iodéOS ships both F-Droid and Aurora Store, so both Free Software and non-free apps are available directly on the phone. F-Droid comes with the Privileged Extensions and Aurora with system permissions that amount to the same. This allows background installation of any software, including updates, without user interaction. This is an improvement in terms of convenience, but this setup can bypass the standard app install confirmation dialog, which is not ideal because it allows those apps to silently install and remove any package. F-Droid Basic also has unattended update support without this potential security problem, but this only works for apps that target Android 10 or later; some apps do not do this for compatibility reasons. You can disable app stores in the setup wizard and install F-Droid Basic yourself to avoid the problem, but we did not test this configuration.

We looked at a number of typical Free Software apps and non-free software apps for compatibility. Here is why.

All Free Software messaging apps worked and microG handled the push notifications, using Google infrastructure. The same was true for non-free messaging apps; everything worked as expected.

Navigation apps all worked without problems. We chose BeaconDB as the backend microG uses for network location and the GPS fix happened almost instantly, even indoors.

Streaming and media apps are a realm of non-free apps considering this area typically deals with Digital Restrictions Management (DRM). To our surprise, all tested apps were able to acquire a license and play DRM-encumbered media.

Delivery and transit apps mostly worked in our tests. One app had its connections blocked by the network blocker by default and did not start. This is unfortunate, but expected: iodéOS blocks certain connections and the app does not start if these connections are part of the startup process. However, a cleanly designed app could still start with either tracking or some features inactive, but that is simply not how these non-free apps are typically designed. Once we deactivated the blocker, the app started, but showed no map. Apart from this one problematic app, delivery and transit apps worked, sometimes with small delays, but were overall functional.

Banking is usually a field where users run into problems because a bank cannot be easily changed and there is no choice in terms of which app to use. A bit surprisingly, the banking apps we tested generally just worked. Neo-banks tend to have apps that cause more problems than traditional banks, but this also changes from release to release and our results are by no means representative of the whole range of banking apps.

eSIM

eSIM support poses some general challenges on non-Google Android distributions. iodéOS ships with OpenEUICC pre-installed as a system app and comes with the necessary permissions. eSIMs already present on the device worked immediately. The “add new SIM” button supports downloading new profiles via QR code or a manual entry. It also supports switching between and removing profiles through the standard remote SIM provisioning flow. This means that on any phone with a compliant chip and with any carrier that complies with the standard, this process should work.

Security and privacy

This area again shows the LineageOS heritage with the option of randomising the layout of the PIN pad, the ability to exclude sensitive phone numbers from the call log, and the option to selectively hide apps behind a secure lock. The included blocker and call spam filter are iodéOS’s additions to offer system-level blocking. The free versions can be toggled on and off, can be changed per app to standard blocking, live logging, and statistics, and they receive updates via regular OS updates. The blocker also allows individually blocking apps from Wi-Fi or cellular data. The paid version offers a much larger blocklist, custom rules, parental controls, and daily updates.

Relocking the bootloader

As stated in the installation section of this report, relocking the bootloader is officially supported and standard procedure in the installer for supported devices. We also have more details about why this matters. Relocking support differs by device, however.

Updates

iodéOS does not have an official lifecycle document, but commits to at least four years of support for each iodéOS version. So far, iodéOS has not dropped support for any phones and all supported devices continue to receive security updates, even if they do not support the latest major version. Once a new major version is released for a phone, the previous version does not support security updates any longer. In practice, iodéOS supports each phone based on the latest major version of LineageOS that phone supports.

iodéOS provides OTA system updates every month. Any updates, including security updates, depend on LineageOS, which means there is an additional delay on top of the time LineageOS needs to incorporate an update. This typically means security updates arrive in iodéOS a few weeks to a month after Google releases them. Sometimes, iodéOS needs more time for its own process and will bundle two months of LineageOS updates into one iodéOS update. Apps shipped with iodéOS receive updates in between via its own F-Droid repository.

Major version updates also typically arrive as OTA updates, a major convenience for users. Depending on how large the changes are, this may take longer than security updates, though.

Just like LineageOS, iodéOS has no way of influencing the vendor security patch level. This means updates to firmware and other proprietary components depend on the hardware manufacturer and once a phone is no longer supported there, these components do not receive any more updates on any OS.

In our test, the trust interface reported the platform security patch level as up to date and the vendor patch level a few months behind. This is comparable to most proprietary Android distributions.

Data transmission

iodéOS includes microG, so some data transmission to Google is expected, mainly for push notifications. We captured network data from the device via mitmproxy and, for part of the process, installed a custom system certificate via root so we could also trace system apps.

Startup and idle behaviour

At idle with no additional setup, iodéOS makes connectivity checks:

GET http://captiveportal.kuketz.de/generate_204
GET https://captiveportal.kuketz.de/generate_204

This is standard Android behaviour to detect if you are on a network with a login page. These requests go to the Kuketz blog rather than to Google. In addition, the requests do not transmit device identifiers beyond standard HTTP headers. The User-Agent string is a hardcoded value that does not reveal the actual device model. This is a privacy improvement over stock behaviour because the information that a phone is active at a certain IP now goes to a privacy-focused independent server whose operator states that the data does not get logged.

microG performs a full Google device registration via android.clients.google.com/checkin with a payload that includes the model, a build fingerprint, and the manufacturer. This happens for push notification registration.

Otherwise, idle traffic is light, especially compared to stock Android: no advertising ID is transmitted and no Firebase logging endpoints are contacted.

Device attestation

iodéOS contacts Google’s Remote Key Provisioning service:

POST https://remoteprovisioning.googleapis.com/v1/:fetchEekChain
User-Agent: Dalvik/2.1.0 (Linux; U; Android 16; Pixel 8a Build/BP2A.250805.005)

This is nothing iodéOS specific, but an Android platform requirement for hardware-backed key attestation and the User-Agent includes the device model, Android version, and build number.

The device attestation for SafetyNet/Play Integrity fails, so it is questionable whether the calls for it are necessary. SafetyNet/Play Integrity in turn matter for certain apps that determine whether they should run on this system. microG enables interactions with the Google Play Store API and these interactions include extensive device fingerprinting, including a persistent device ID, carrier information, and a device consistency token. The SafetyNet request identified our device as a Pixel XL running Android 7.1.2; microG apparently spoofs an older device here.

Apps that use reCAPTCHA depend on the reimplementation in microG. This passes successfully, but triggers several more connections to different Google domains (recaptchaenterprise.googleapis.com, www.recaptcha.net, www.gstatic.com).

Browser

iodéOS ships a modified version of Firefox with Startpage as the default search engine and some beta features enabled. On launch, it immediately contacts Mozilla infrastructure: recommendation service, sponsored tiles service, add-on service, and configuration sync service. The browser also performs its own captive portal check, independent of the one the system does. This also transmits data to Mozilla.

This is standard Firefox behaviour, but for a distribution with a privacy focus, this behaviour is unexpected. Even if the blocker is able to block these requests, it would be better not to make them in the first place. Using Startpage as the default and not having Google as the homepage of the browser are significant improvements over the LineageOS base.

Summary

iodéOS offers an easy to install Android experience with improvements from LineageOS and their own improvements, including a blocker and a call spam filter on top. The bootloader gets locked by default, which enables verified boot. The app selection is good and can easily be changed, giving users flexibility. Updates arrive as OTA packages and while there is a delay, during our tests, they arrived in a timely fashion.

The network analysis is a bit mixed. Genuinely quieter than stock Android, iodéOS has taken significant steps to reduce data transmission to Google. microG, by design, has to make some of those transmissions again in exchange for additional compatibility. The browser, however, turned out to be a weak link in the default setup, contacting a whole range of different services, all without user consent. Using another browser solves those issues at the cost of requiring more user action.

The blocker and call spam filter are useful and free to use with a global on/off toggle and monthly updates. An upgrade to daily updates and more fine-grained controls requires a subscription that funds development of the distribution.