Android 8.1 Adds A New Icon To Status Bar Which Tells If Factory Reset Protection Is On

When Google launched Android 5.1 Lollipop, they also included Factory Reset Protection in March 2015. What it does is, it acts like an anti-theft feature as it closes a loophole which existed on most Android devices before the feature was included.




When this feature, Factory Reset Protection also knows FRP, wasn't launched the lock screen security could be bypassed if you can open the recovery, as the stock recovery on many Android phones allowed anyone to factory reset the phone. If the phone was factory reset, that meant its lock screen security had been wiped out and a potential thief could unlock the phone and use it. That meant the whole purpose of lock screen security was made ineffective, and so to rectify this, Google released Android 5.1 Lollipop with Factory Reset Protection, and most phones released with Lollipop and above have shipped with Factory Reset Protection.

FRP means if any user has an active Google account on their phone before factory resetting it, then the Google account will not be wiped out even after the factory reset, no matter how the factory reset was performed. The Google account which had been added before would not be removed and unless the person factory resetting it knew the account’s password, there was no way to unlock and setup the phone.

This is an great feature even though people aren't aware of this. Recently, Google started advertising this feature and with Android 8.1 Oreo, the company has added a new status bar icon on the Android start screen that tells the user whether factory reset protection is on or not, you can see the icon in the picture on top-left.

There is a new icon on the status bar which shows up right on the start screen in Android 8.1. This new icon benefits second-hand phone buyers, as they can now check that the phone isn’t locked right after booting the device.



Source : Reddit