{"id":696706,"date":"2026-04-01T07:13:17","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T07:13:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/696706\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T07:13:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T07:13:17","slug":"pixel-10-series-may-lock-you-out-of-downgrades-with-a-future-android-update","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/696706\/","title":{"rendered":"Pixel 10 series may lock you out of downgrades with a future Android update"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img class=\"e_lg\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"eager\"  title=\"google pixel 10 series pro xl fold family 1\"  alt=\"google pixel 10 series pro xl fold family 1\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/google-pixel-10-series-pro-xl-fold-family-1.jpg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Rita El Khoury \/ Android Authority<\/p>\n<p>TL;DR<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A leak claims that Pixel 10 phones (except the 10a) are set to receive a bootloader update that\u2019ll prevent downgrading to older Android versions.<\/li>\n<li>The change relies on Android\u2019s Anti-rollback (ARB) protection.<\/li>\n<li>Once the update is introduced, recovering from issues in some cases might require sideloading a full OTA image to avoid bricking.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Google may be preparing to tighten software downgrade protections on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.androidauthority.com\/google-pixel-10-specs-features-price-availability-3588502\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Pixel 10 series<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>According to the <a href=\"https:\/\/t.me\/mysticleaks\/152\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Mystic Leaks Telegram channel<\/a>, all Pixel 10 models except for the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.androidauthority.com\/google-pixel-10a-review-3646672\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Pixel 10a<\/a> could receive a bootloader update in a future Android release that increments the anti-rollback version.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Don\u2019t want to miss the best from Android Authority?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/andauth.co\/AAGooglePreferredSource\" class=\"e_nm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\"><img class=\"e_lg\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\"  title=\"google preferred source badge light@2x\"  alt=\"google preferred source badge light@2x\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/google_preferred_source_badge_light@2x.png\"\/><img class=\"e_lg\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\"  title=\"google preferred source badge dark@2x\"  alt=\"google preferred source badge dark@2x\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/google_preferred_source_badge_dark@2x.png\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>This will effectively prevent users from reverting to an older Android build after updating. Essentially, once a bootloader containing approved new software is installed, it ties the version of that bootloader to hardware, preventing old software from being loaded.<\/p>\n<p>When the Pixel 10 phones receive this update, recovering from issues in some cases might require sideloading a full OTA image to avoid bricking.<\/p>\n<p>The change revolves around Android\u2019s Anti-rollback protection (ARB), which is part of the Verified Boot framework. Google introduced ARB in Android 13 to prevent devices from being downgraded to older, potentially vulnerable software.<\/p>\n<p>Google has been using ARB for years. The first time it was implemented was on the Pixel 6 series, when Google prevented users from downgrading to Android 12. Most recently, Google rolled out a security patch for Pixel devices in May 2025 that included a bootloader with an updated anti-rollback threshold.<\/p>\n<p>OnePlus also recently <a href=\"https:\/\/www.androidauthority.com\/oneplus-arb-protection-3633783\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">introduced<\/a> anti-rollback protection on devices like the OnePlus 13 and OnePlus 15. Samsung has also long implemented its own security measures through <a href=\"https:\/\/www.androidauthority.com\/what-is-samsung-knox-3272792\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Samsung Knox<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Thank you for being part of our community. Read our\u00a0<a class=\"c-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.androidauthority.com\/android-authority-comment-policy\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" data-stringify-link=\"https:\/\/www.androidauthority.com\/android-authority-comment-policy\/\" data-sk=\"tooltip_parent\">Comment Policy<\/a> before posting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rita El Khoury \/ Android Authority TL;DR A leak claims that Pixel 10 phones (except the 10a) are&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":696707,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[17],"tags":[2722,10974,230055,611,158,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-696706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mobile","tag-google","tag-google-pixel-10","tag-google-pixel-10a","tag-mobile","tag-technology","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116328216706108078","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=696706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696706\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/696707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=696706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=696706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=696706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}