Most people opt for factory unlocked models because they want to be free of carrier bloatware and delays in firmware update release. The latter hasn't really been true for owners of US unlocked Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+. We reported two weeks ago that the handset was still on a security patch that was four months old.
Many customers have expressed their frustration at Samsung over this but they finally have something to look forward to now. Samsung is rolling out the first new security update for the US unlocked Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+ in months.
US unlocked Galaxy S9 update
Up until now, US unlocked Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+ units were on the February security patch. Owners didn't like the fact that some carrier versions have already received subsequent security patches while the unlocked models that are supposed to get their updates directly from Samsung received none.
Samsung's track record with updates for unlocked units leaves a lot to be desired. When questions were asked about why the Oreo update for the US unlocked Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ was taking so long, the company said that updates for unlocked units take longer because it has to ensure compatibility with all networks and not just one in the case of carrier-locked variants. While a bit excessive, that three-month wait could have been justified for a major platform update, but not for a minor update which just brings the latest security patches.
Even though the latest update for the US unlocked Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+ weighs in at 700MB, it doesn't bring much except the June 2018 security patch which contains fixes for all of the vulnerabilities found in the previous months as well. Samsung is now rolling out firmware version G960U1UES2ARF4 and G965U1UES2ARF4 for the handsets. Visit our firmware database to download the firmware files for the US unlocked Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+. One can only hope that the next security update for these devices won't take another three months.
