Rita El Khoury / Android Authority
TL;DR
- A leak claims that Pixel 10 phones (except the 10a) are set to receive a bootloader update that’ll prevent downgrading to older Android versions.
- The change relies on Android’s Anti-rollback (ARB) protection.
- Once the update is introduced, recovering from issues in some cases might require sideloading a full OTA image to avoid bricking.
Google may be preparing to tighten software downgrade protections on the Pixel 10 series.
According to the Mystic Leaks Telegram channel, all Pixel 10 models except for the Pixel 10a could receive a bootloader update in a future Android release that increments the anti-rollback version.
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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.
When the Pixel 10 phones receive this update, recovering from issues in some cases might require sideloading a full OTA image to avoid bricking.
The change revolves around Android’s 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.
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.
OnePlus also recently introduced anti-rollback protection on devices like the OnePlus 13 and OnePlus 15. Samsung has also long implemented its own security measures through Samsung Knox.
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