Please read (if necessary translate this text)… money quote: “From the most secure to the least secure provider: Google, Realme, OnePlus, Xiaomi, Vivo, Samsung, Motorola, Huawei, Oppo and at last Fairphone.”
I am disappointed that a device may have to become less safe than actually possible due to a loss of performance!
At least Fairphone has “taken note” of the results 
I’m not sure if I follow this. What do you mean? Can you rephrase that sentence? Fairphone can fix their security rating by providing more consistent and current monthly updates. That doesn’t degrade the performance of the device.
the article is coming to this conclusion so reading it might help to understand
Sicherheit wird für mehr Leistung abgeschaltet
Neben dem Alter spielt auch die Leistungsfähigkeit der Smartphones eine Rolle: Langsamere und billigere Geräte sind um 24 Prozent anfälliger als High-End-Handys. Das führen die Wissenschaftler darauf zurück, dass manche Sicherheitsmaßnahmen die Leistung reduzieren würden und daher von den Handyherstellern abgeschaltet wurden.
and in EN the full test “Defects-in-Depth: Analyzing the Integration of Effective Defenses against One-Day Exploits in Android Kernels”
@RSpliet isnt that paper exactly adding to what you just recently said during the discussion about the FP3 Kernel and A14?
I saw that, but where does it say that applies to FP? And to what degree? The FP5 is in terms of normal processing power not a slow device.
why do you relate this to the FP5 only or where did anyone say its related to FP?
Why are you replying? You’re not adding anything to the conversation.
I’m sure the outsourced team behind their Android development will care greatly about this critique /s
I’m a bit surprised that Realme is second. I expected Samsung to be second to Google. Oh well.
This paper is not only about the FP5 in general nor FP alone, however as Fairphones (FP3, FP4, and FP5 according the kernel versions named) were part of it, Fairphone might or might not use this mechanism (not all defenses enabled/configured (on kernel level) due to potential loss of performance) and I actually doubt that this alone
is the solution, especially not for FP3 and most likely neither FP4.
See also the Paper point 6.
Recommendation to Improve Android Security. With
these insights, we propose that Google updates the Android
Compatibility Definition Document (CDD), which outlines
the requirements for devices to be compatible with An-
droid.
Responses. Google responded that they are aware of this
problem and are gradually enforcing kernel defenses that
will be integrated. However, as defenses can come at a per-
formance cost, enforcing them across all vendors is diffi-
cult, especially for low-end devices. They pointed out that
CONFIG_DEBUG_LIST has been enforced in the past, but ven-
dors complained about the performance hit. This resulted in
critical defenses not being integrated.
Fairphone and Motorola acknowledged our findings and integrated defenses, while the others did not respond.
The good news is, that they seem to have made the phones more secure. I just hope this holds for future defenses.
(While I still hope that Fairphone gets faster in rolling out security updates)
@yvmuell Thank you very much for tagging me! This looks like an interesting paper related to upstream/downstream kernel development indeed, it’s on my to-read pile now.
This is exactly my point and the reason for my question to the topic starter. I don’t know why you repeat known information to try to make a point, but not add anything to my question about what exactly could be causing the performance loss. Since there doesn’t seem to be any information indicating this applies to Fairphone specifically. Let’s talk specifics. If those aren’t available, then why reply and add noise?
And of course updating more frequently improves your security standing.
Why would Fairphone not set available security settings? There can only be 3 reasons: No interest, the system would become unstable or a possible drop in performance.
I would like to rule out the first two reasons because that sounds implausible… and if it’s not the last reason, what else can you think of?
resources!? 
Writing code is time-consuming.
Fixing code is much more time-consuming!
In the whole document!?
Because extra security very often requires extra processing power!? If the device has more power than necessary, it is not very relevant. But if not, it is very relevant!
Do you think Fairphones are overpowered?
My understanding is that higher security needs something like the Titan M. Which is something all Fairphones sadly miss, and it’s one part of why GrapheneOS chose not to support the Fairphone 5.
Maybe one day…
I think that @SkewedZeppelin is addressing the Kernel issues as well, so the results of the paper might be no surprise to those dealing with this on a daily basis and across devices
more often are modified so much that they need to instead have patches manually tweaked (backported) to work. Google, Qualcomm, and other manufacturers do actually do this work but they still need to be manually applied by device maintainers.
The kernel also sports many built-in security features, that most devices actually have disabled!
and created tools to circumvent this (at least partially) in DivestOS
If a company’s motto (and actually its only unique selling point) is sustainability, fairness and a long update guarantee, I would like to assume that they will do justice to these few points. If the updates are maintained for many years but only liked things are implemented, it is a sham.
If you now say “but updates need resources”… exactly, then they have to be provided - otherwise I would actually have to assume that there is no interest.
No it doesn’t, it says some phones do this and that, but where does it mention FP specifically? It doesn’t. And what is the performance impact exactly and the security gain? How does FP mitigate it? Maybe from a different angle? Maybe I have to read the whole thing instead of skimming it. But since others share conclusions, I ask them to quote the interesting bits. Can you maybe englight me? You seem very sure about it, so I guess you can?
A FP5 is not a slow device for regular processing tasks.
Why do you always want to focus on this “the one reason is” when it’s more about the fact that fairphone is in last place, even though this discipline is on the banner?
I’m not sure what your point is, but both the linked article and the original PDF do specifically mention Fairphone:
Vom sichersten zum unsichersten Anbieter lautet sie: Google, Realme, OnePlus, Xiaomi, Vivo, Samsung, Motorola, Huawei, Oppo und Fairphone.
In our analysis, we cover Android devices from all top 7 vendors (e.g., Samsung, Xiaomi, and Huawei), along with three recognized vendors (i.e., Google, OnePlus, and Fairphone) [Fairphone is also quoted in many other places in the PDF, I won’t quote all 19 pages!]
I hope this answers your question about where it does mention Fairphone… Download the PDF (link above or in the article), and make a search for “Fairphone”. 
Note: They mention Fairphone as a company, they don’t speak about specific models, so you can obviously argue that they have based their findings on the then (2023) most current model, the FP4, and so your current darling isn’t affected. It doesn’t matter, since, as I said, this isn’t about specific models but rather about a general trend.
HtH