The developers of CyanogenMod have released a new stable build of their operating system for dozens of phones and tablets. CyanogenMod is an open source operating system based on Google Android. It can be installed on a wide range of phones, tablets, and other devices as a replacement for the operating system that came with your device.
CyanogenMod 13 ZNH5Y is based on Android 6.0.1, but it includes a number of enhancements to Google’s software.
For example, if you’re using WiFi tethering to share your phone’s internet connection with other devices, there’s an option to automatically turn off the WiFi hotspot after there’s been no activity for a certain period of time.
There are also new (and returning) options for displaying wallpapers, weather, and other information on your lock screen, and new camera and web browser apps.
The latest version also includes all of Google’s latest security updates. But there’s also a warning: without cooperation from phone makers, it’s likely that some older phones and tablets may never be fully protected from the widely publicized Quadrooter vulnerability affecting devices with Qualcomm chips.
While the developers of CyanogenMod were able to patch vulnerabilities affecting the kernel, some of the issues affect closed-source code that has not been released by device makers… and which may never be. So if you were hoping that using a custom ROM would help you keep an old phone up to date after the manufacturer stops releasing security updates… well, I guess you now have on less reason to use a custom ROM.
Fortunately there’s a pretty easy way to avoid the Quadrooter issue: only install applications from sources you trust.