- Google’s surprise battery update for the Pixel 4a has caused severe battery drain for many users.
- Google has removed older firmware for the Pixel 4a, leaving users with no official way to downgrade from the problematic update.
- We advise users not to download rehosted firmware, as it could have been tampered with.
Pixel 4a users have been on a wild ride on their trusty old phone ever since Google rolled out a surprise battery update. Under the Pixel 4a Battery Performance Program, the update seemingly improves the battery on certain Pixel 4a units, but it made matters significantly worse for many users. Users had been scrambling to downgrade to older updates, but Google has now closed that road by removing download links for these older firmware.
A Reddit user noticed that Google used to host almost three years’ worth of firmware images for the Pixel 4a, ranging from its out-of-the-box Android 10 update to the last Android 13 update when the device reached its end-of-life status. This is fairly standard practice by Google, as it hosts a lot of older firmware for practically all of its recent devices.