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To limit smartphone theft, Google has designed a protection that locks your phone with your Google Account. This protection was introduced with Android 5 and is available since this version.
This makes sense because to enjoy your Android phone, you need a Google Account.
This protection is called “soft” FRP for Factory Reset Protection
or protection against reset if you are uncomfortable with Shakespeare’s language.
As you may have noticed, the usual protection systems:
PIN code
Password
Diagram
Fingerprint (although after a restart, the pin must be entered anyway)
are only operational when Android has started, so to bypass them you just have to start the phone in recovery mode.
By analogy, it’s a little bit like the password of your computer’s operating system, if you have access to the bios…
In recovery mode, you can delete all data from the phone (Factory Reset) and the next time you restart, find a phone as new again, starting the wizard and thus leaving the protections behind…
To counter this problem, when restarting the Android wizard will detect that a Google account has already been linked to this phone
and force you to use this one:
This means that you should know the account’s email address and password in order to use the phone.
In itself, the idea is honourable and promising.
On the other hand, it also means that if someone knows your google password, just as you can locate your phone, or make your phone ring with AndroidFind, they can delete your device remotely…
One more reason to secure your Google Account properly.
How to get around it?
There are different techniques to bypass this protection depending on the version of Android and the brand of your smartphone.
A search on youtube for the term FRP should give you hundreds of results.
But the principle is usually the same, do some manipulation to launch a Google application or you can set up a different Google account from the one on which the phone is blocked.
And it really works?
I played the game on a Huawei phone, the procedure is quite simple and does not require connecting the phone to a computer.
The goal is obviously not to promote the flight(s) but to satisfy my curiosity to see if it really works.
This procedure uses a flaw in the “Tallback” application (Application for the visually impaired) and is described in the following steps.
You can view steps 1-14 in the first video and the rest in the second.
Launch the TallBack tutorial
On the wizard screen where you have to choose your language,
press with 2 fingers the upper part of your screen,
you should see the Tallback tutorial home screen.
Disable TallBack
Simultaneously press the + and – volume keys
A window should appear asking you to confirm the deactivation of TallBack
Confirm that this is what you want, as long as the TallBack is activated, you must press twice for each action.
The first (the selection) allows you to hear what this choice does.
Take this opportunity to remove the fact that this window will be displayed each time it is deactivated.
Return to the language selection screen
Keep volume + and – to reactivate TallBack
Then draw an “L” on the screen, it should allow you to display a “Global Context Menu” window
In this menu, select “TallBack Setting”
In the settings select everything in the “Privacy Policy” background,
this should launch the google browser (google chrome)
On the window that appears, press “Accept & Continue”, Google’s privacy rules should load into the browser.
Then use the google search engine (delete the address and type google.com)
to search and download “QuickShortcutMaker 2.4 apk”
Download and install the application, you will need to unlock the installation
Once the installation is done, you must launch the application, this application will allow you to launch the Huawei menu
In the application search for “huawei”, then “huawei home”
You can then launch the application by pressing “Try”, you will arrive at the start screen
From there, you can use the phone normally
and for example go to the settings to add a Google account
but chances are you’re still stuck at the same point.
If this is the case you must download and install the application “Google Account manager 5.1”.
Once you have installed an appointment in the “QuickShortcutMaker” application and search for “Google Account Manager”.
Select the entry where you can read “type email and password”, select and choose “Try”
You should arrive on a page asking you to enter your password,
in the upper right corner press the 3 points and select “browser sign in (connection in the browser)”
Login with your email & password
Once connected, restart the phone (power button, restart)
Last step, to check that it works, you can do a factory reset from Android.
You will find on youtube, a multitude of videos that describe how to bypass this protection according to the brand and version of Android.
The procedure described above is well represented by the following videos:
Although on the second video, the phone is a Samsung,
I applied this manipulation (from step 15) on a Huawei phone and confirm that it works.