Phone Encryption on KitKat

zhris

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Oct 13, 2014
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I read that Lollipop will encrypt the phone by default, so I'm thinking about enabling it now to get a feel for it. Has anyone done this, and if so what should I expect? Does it make the phone slower, or cause some apps to go wonky? Thanks!
 

Rukbat

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Does it make the phone slower
Of course. You can't run an encrypted app or use encrypted data, and decrypting takes time. Maybe not much, but it takes some time.

or cause some apps to go wonky?
Probably not, since reading storage causes decryption, so the app never knows that its data was stored encrypted.
 

tech_head

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I read that Lollipop will encrypt the phone by default, so I'm thinking about enabling it now to get a feel for it. Has anyone done this, and if so what should I expect? Does it make the phone slower, or cause some apps to go wonky? Thanks!

It's default only for devices that originally ship with it.
There are some issues with encrypted, but mostly performance to read/write storage.
I wouldn't enable it unless you have a security concern greater than a desire for performance.
 

meyerweb#CB

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You can always decrypt the phone if you decide encryption made it too slow.

But there's been a lot of hot air about the impact of encryption. It makes some benchmarks run much slower, but most users who have used the Nexus 6 (currently the only phone shipping with encryption enabled by default) don't really notice an issue. If you root the Nexus, it's possible to remove encryption and, again, those who have done so don't seem to notice any significant difference how fast the phone feels (as opposed to benchmarks).
 

zhris

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Apologies for digging up an old thread, but I wanted to provide an update in case anyone was curious.

So I've had the phone (and the SD card) encrypted for about 3 weeks now. Havne't noticed any diference as far as app speed, as a matter of fact the only difference I have noticed is the lock screen (you can't use a pattern lock when the phone's encrypted, only PIN or Password). You do have to enter a PIN to power the phone on though, and that does add a few seconds to boot time.
 

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