More and more locked down devices, Android source releases only being published once a year, device drivers for reference devices disappearing, and now, verification of all your software for your "security". The war on general computing is well and truly on.
What the absolute fuck.
They've been chipping away at this over the years. Safetynet was the first offense, but if they start restricting app installation from sources of my choice (I hate the term "sideloading"), there's not much advantage left.
Personally: I don't use Apple because I like being able to whip together little apps to side-load without having to check in with a walled-garden mothership. If Google is going to move closer to Apple in that regard... Apple's UX ecosystem is better, so I have far fewer reason to keep using Android.
GrapheneOS won't survive the next generation of devices because bootloader unlocking will also go away (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44765939), and without kernel security updates that OS can't continue.
Now there's also no more sideloading, so what purpose does Android even serve anymore?
More info:
https://developer.android.com/developer-verification
https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answ...
Personally...we all know the Play Store is chock full of malicious garbage, so the verification requirements there don't do jack to protect users. The way I see it, this is nothing but a power grab, a way for Google to kill apps like Revanced for good. They'll just find some bullshit reason to suspend your developer account if you do something they don't like.
Every time I hear mentions of "safety" from the folks at Google, I'm reminded that there's a hidden Internet permission on Android that can neuter 95% of malicious apps. But it's hidden, apparently because keeping users from using it to block ads on apps is of greater concern to Google than keeping people safe.
> we will be confirming who the developer is, not reviewing the content of their app or where it came from
This is such an odd statement. I mean, surely they have to be willing to review the contents of apps at some point (if only to suspend the accounts of developers who are actually producing malware), or else this whole affair does nothing but introduce friction.
TFA had me believing that bypassing the restriction might've been possible by disabling Play Protect, but that doesn't seem to be the case since there aren't any mentions of it in the official info we've been given.
On the flip side, that's one less platform I care about supporting with my projects. We're down to just Linux and Windows if you're not willing to sell your soul (no, I will not be making a Google account) just for the right to develop for a certain platform.
Ah, then I guess everything is fine. I'm sure they aren't in favour because it gives governments greater control over what apps we're allowed to have on our phones. That would be absurd.
If this actually goes through, there will be no option in the mobile OS market for an OS that both:
a) allows the installation of apps without any contractual relationship with any party, and
b) allows the use of mainstream and secure apps like banking
I am gonna start carrying around a laptop with a 5G modem instead.
I find it hard to state how contemptible this is. How stupid. Everyone who worked on this has blood on their hands.
adb shell settings put global package_verifier_user_consent -1
I personally won't be doing this verification for my open-source apps. I have no interest in any kind of business relationship with anyone just to publish an .apk. If that limits those who can install it to people who disable Play Protect globally, then oh well.
I’m hoping that projects like Precursor can take off because we’ve buried ourselves in such mountain of complexity that seems like only a billion/trillion dollar big tech company can make an OS.
But then again, some body called BS on browsers and we might have a good option soon in Ladybug!
I guess words don't don't have meaning anymore, how can you claim to have an open system in an announcement about closing it down?
It's also telling that the big supporters of this are apparently corporations and governments. Admittedly I don't know what "Developer's Alliance" is but they don't seem to care about developers very much, and I wouldn't surprised if they were just a "pay us to say what you're doing is good for devs" kind of thing
Break them up already, it's getting old.
Personally I would be fine with unsigned apps requiring the user to click through a notice before install, or having a setting to toggle to enable unsigned apps. Windows does something similar to this where unsigned binaries get a pop up warning but signed ones are executed immediately.
Google doesn't make better phones, they were just less hostile to the consumer. That seems to be going away :(
It isn't possible to ban encryption, so the governments have to chip away at security and privacy using these techniques.
From: https://developer.android.com/developer-verification
"You may also need to upload official government ID."
This won't end well for Google or the governments involved when the people get so angry that they are forced to roll this back. Switch to an alternative phone OS.
If someone made a screenless powerbank-shaped Android device, I might be interested. The device would double as a 5g wifi modem, and to access the UI you'd remote in over VNC from a laptop, or unrestricted mobile device like a PinePhone.
Apple implemented a similar change for the EU App Store earlier this year to comply with the Digital Services Act (DSA), a regulation that now requires app developers to provide their “trader status” to submit new apps or app updates for distribution.
It’s sad that smartphones now hold so much personal and private data but aren’t really under the control of their users.
"You'll need to prove you own your apps by providing your app package name and app signing keys."
That is capital-I Insane.
What a fucking joke.
This is absolutely unacceptable. That's like you having to submit your personal details to Microsoft in order to just run a program on Windows. Absolutely nuts and it will not go as they think it will.
Isn't this a death knell for F-Droid, at least for running on most hardware? Since they require their own builds/attestation?
The Overton Window for computing keeps inching towards gatekeepers having total control over devices. I can't help but imagine myself lurching along on the last somewhat open hardware I can cobble together in a couple of decades, because I refuse to drink the verification can to continue...
I think they might just get away with it.
> Starting next year, Google will begin to verify the identities of developers distributing their apps on Android devices, not just those who distribute via the Play Store.
Odd little phrase, "distributing their apps on Android devices".
I think "distributing" in this context is in the sense of product distribution, not in the sense of distributed systems.
But "distributing...on" sounds a little odd, like Google is still providing a distribution service. (Contrary to all the precedent of how we've thought of installing software, other than the proprietary, captive-user app stores.)
And so, maybe "distributing...on" makes it sound more like Google is (once again) entitled to gatekeep what you can run on your device/computer.
> However, developers who appreciated the anonymity of alternative distribution methods will no longer have that option. Google says this will help to cut down on bad actors who hide their identity to distribute malware, commit financial fraud, or steal users’ personal data.
Maybe it's not "developers who appreciated the anonymity" (which we immediately try to conflate with bad actors), but that the whole point lately has been to stop the greedy proprietary lock-in app store monopolies, and not have them gatekeeping what everyone else can do.
Is anyone working on fixing this? We can do so much better.
This combined with the 'age verification' coming to all Google properties means it is a very small step from that new world to full Google verification of everything you visit and everything on your device, at any time, for any reason with the penalty being incontestable ban from your device, apps and data.
Get ready for facebook style 'we are interrupting you for a video selfie because we have detected you are a threat' across all google properties (Android, Chrome, Gmail, Maps...).
Move to linux phones, now.
At least most of the world has until 2027 to install LineageOS or GrapheneOS.
« Développer will have freedom » yet they are entitled to Google’s verification.
It’s just another stone in the grave of Android and even though I shipped off this sinking ship 6 years ago to iOS, this is still concerning because ultimately apple’s IOS is in competition solely with Android.
If Android gets so bad it has all the disadvantage of iOS, some more, for instance with the embedded spyware that manufacturer are paid to include, and none of the good side of iOS, then everyone lose. Apple doesn’t have to compete anymore, they just have to not suck.
- money - tickets - identification
They cannot force everyone to own and buy a phone.
It looks like many in this thread are against, but I don't see suggestions for action?
Doesn't this make it prohibitively difficult to do local builds of open source projects? It's been a long time since I've done this, but my recollection was that the process to do this was essentially you would build someone else's (the project's) package/namespace up through signing, but sign it locally with your own dev keys. A glance at the docs they've shared makes it sound like the package name essentially gets bound to an identity and you then can't sign it with another key. Am a I misremembering and/or has something changed in this process? Am I missing something?
not even to mention the h1b indian kickback stuff that's about to hit them. couldn't happen to a nicer company.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/apps/develop/smart...
This is the future; partially fuelled by malware, partially fuelled by the desire for platform control, and partially fuelled by government regulation.
If I'm not allowed to develop and install my own apps on my own phone, what advantage does Android have over Apple?
Microsoft would love to do that too, but it just has too much of legacy software to introduce such a major hurdle.
> NSA: Linux Journal is an "extremist forum" and its readers get flagged for extra surveillance [0]
Looks like this is a part of the move toward Chat Control and ending E2E encryption.
[0] https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/nsa-linux-journal-extre...
> You shouldn’t have to choose between open and secure
2+2=5
Truly the end of an era. I've spent nearly two decades buying Android phones because of a single checkbox in settings that let me have the freedom I consider essential to any computing device that I own.
In a way, it's liberating, I've missed out on a lot from the Apple ecosystem because of that checkbox. Maybe finally I can let go of it now the choice is out of my hands.
[0] https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2025/08/elevating-...
Google don't even expose a per-app toggle for app Internet access, why am I surprised?
This is disgusting.
Freedom died a little bit more today.
Why is end-user choice and consent not considered?
It's really disturbing that the EU and Google would do this.
I can't recommend Android or iPhone because of this nonsense.
I doubt I'll move away from Android too soon, but that definitely makes me reconsider whether any Google services have a right to CPU time on my device.
I've seen a lot of similar sentiment on this thread, but the reason I use Android is because it gives me more control than iOS by allowing full-on painless sideloading, and custom distributions like GrapheneOS. They're doing everything they can to turn themselves into a worse Apple. All of the downsides of Apple, but none of the upsides. Apple beats them in every aspect that isn't "openness".
When will the straw break the camel's back? I'm shocked we've let it get to this point with no realistic alternatives. There's no reason a competitive Linux-based smartphone can't exist (no, I'm not counting Android in that).
Oh, yes... Actually I remember: it was a long slow series of accepting small artificial restrictions. I remember people laughing at me at the time. They said it won't matter, they didn't care, that I was paranoid...
Now... Here we are.
Google can't even stop the scam ai companion apps on the play store that all use the same same backend full of characters...
Google also can't stop the huge wave of scam Bitcoin ads impersonating Canadian media outlets, with ai generated pictures and videos of politicians.
Get real Google.
Will there be a local override?
Ok, but what's the real damage? In other words, how many installs and how much money siphoned from users and legit apps?
Whose smart idea was that.
I'm cancelling my Pixel 10 preorder.
> our recent analysis found over 50 times more malware from internet-sideloaded sources than on apps available through Google Play.
I will believe this when we stop seeing brazen malware in marquee app store apps, e.g. https://www.tracesecurity.com/blog/articles/meta-pixel-and-t...
It feels as if that would provide far more of a public service than this... whatever this is.
Are there stats on whether more malware and financial scams come from installed apps or from advertising?
was a reason I bought Android. will they be sending me a refund?
What someone needs to do is create a "Store" browser that loads apps from random websites like https://site.tld/app.apk
You could manually parse AndroidManifest.xml and allow only apps that expose <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.INTERNET" />
I'm somewhat interested in doing this myself actually. What do people think?
Don't be evil Google!
The infamous Franklin quote always comes to mind when I see things like this happening. Choose freedom over security while you still can, or you'll soon not even have the freedom to choose.
It's also worth reading Stallman's "Right to Read" again, to see how scarily prescient he was.
IF that is the case, I'm actually willing to be slightly inclined to see this as a positive? We should normalize installing apps outside of Google Play, but that means malware becomes a serious issue with people downloading and installing random APKs.
e.g., this may normalize people hosting downloadable APKs whilst also reducing malware risk for "normies", which idealistically could weaken the "monopoly" of Google Play on android.
The problem is that Google is the gatekeeper.
[1] https://grapheneos.org/donate
Totally brain damaged ruling, the judge must have been molested by an Android phone at some point, but here we are, and google is now moving closer to an Apple model.
FWIW I'd rather not use my phone for critical transactions its making authorities lazy. The number of times Ive had to fight thanks to "buggy" payment code that deducts money is not funny and banks are getting worse at customer support day by day.
Also what the fuck are the governments doing with tax payer money, instead of going after criminals, we go after citizens.
I have a Concept2 rower with the old PM3 monitor which is no longer supported by their ErgData app and the only way to connect my phone to my rower is by sideloading the ancient version of the app that supports it. So that's going to break now?
No reason to ever touch another day of Kotlin.
Come to think of it, why am I even on Android now as a user?
Regardless, this is extremely bad news.
The only reason why google phones became so popular was the fact that they were much less restrictive than iPhones. Thus the platform became the biggest phone platform in the world.
Now they are asking for a new start to arise and take their place.
The only saving grace is you can always import a Chinese phone without the play store at all, and then you can install what you want.
I already got popup in dashboard this morning
My phone is my phone, not Google’s. They have absolutely no right to prevent me from running whatever software I wish on that phone.
This must not be allowed to stand.
This is a depressing change if they follow through with this.
And "in the name of security" doesn't pass the smell test if there is no way to opt out.
The problem is that most normal people (HN is not normal - mostly for the better) don't even understand what sideloading is - let alone actually care.
How can we fix this?
(aside from making people care - apathy enables so many political problems in the current age, but it's such a huge problem that this definitely isn't going to be the impetus to fix it)
Personally, if I'm not allowed to run the software that I want on my phone, it almost makes more sense for me to get some old flip phone or one of those chinese blackberry knockoffs c.a. 2012. Not out of any principled stance, mind you, it's just that's the level of functionality you'd be reducing me to. Why should I pay $500 when I can find something that gives me the same features on a literal junk pile?
What they want is to get rid of apps like YouTube Vanced that are making them lose money (and other Play Store apps)
Will once again re-up the concept of a “right to root access”, to prevent big corps from pulling this bs over and over again: https://medhir.com/blog/right-to-root-access
- "Free" search - yay, let's all use it for everything and even make a verb out of it
- Email - such nice guys, Google - free email forever, what could go wrong if I have my 95% of all my info there
- Maps - yeah, let's all depend on these free Google maps with our lives
- Chrome - ofc, heck yes, let's all use their browser, it's the best and free - no need for anything else
- Google account login for EVERYTHING - so convenient! Google Authenticator app, Google Wallet - yes, more!
- Free mobile operating system - nice, take that, Apple!
Google has taken over a large portion of our lives, step by step - good enough services, on global scale, for free, until they became essential.
They are not evil, like they were never good - they are a company, and in the current socio-economic structure, that means having a duty to use their position to enrich their shareholders - and absolutely have no interest in people's wellbeing or morality or opinions or reputation - unless it temporarily serves to do so more / better.
I'm in no way trying to defend them. Just, with all the futility of it, pointing out how hyper-capitalism we've built/allowed to grow, has reached the stage where it's practically impossible for the "free market" to react / provide solutions that people want. Now the big players decide what people get.
In this case, you can no longer have a high quality phone of a good manufacturer and install on it what you want. Small manufacturer catering to that demographic won't get government certification, you can't have your e.g. Samsung and install a ROM anymore, and you can't install your app freely on Android unless Google lets you. That's all just in a tiny sliver of space.
Our Tetris board barely has any room left for choice and actions.
The only ones who hate it are devs. And who really cares about a bunch of nerds?
Remember, general purpose computing really boils down in security terms to "arbitrary code execution" -- a bad thing in the infosec field.
Side-loaded malware has been an epidemic in SE Asia, and there are MILLIONS of dollars stolen (mostly from pensioners!) via side-loaded malware disguised as gambling apps - the local population is particularly suspectible to gambling, especially the older generations that are not so tech-savvy.
It's good they decided to do something about it.
This might do more good than harm, since I'm willing to believe that scams involving APKs are prevalent, but come on. I need your permission to install software on my phone? Are you sure it isn't just that you want more control over everyone's phones?
If I look through Google's contact links, it's all oriented around getting help with a problem rather than letting them know I'm going to move to something else if they go through with this. (And yes, even if Apple has the same types of restrictions on app store, if a more open alternative OS didn't work out for me, I'd move to them to punish the one dropping freedom of use.)
Everyone can figure out what's going to happen next.
And yes, before you ask, I have personally quit a job that paid 3x what I was able to get elsewhere over ethics. And no, I'm not rich, probably bottom 5% in terms of assets among my colleagues, coming from a lower-class background.
This invalidates so many reasons to still use android.
Why did we let that happen?
On this day suddenly folks come out of the woodwork advocating for half baked measures to achieve what Stallman portrayed but they still hardly recognize this was EXACTLY his concern when he started the Free Software movement.
Natural incentives exist for tech majors to capture this space.
The thing is, GPS access as a permission is a bit scary. You could imagine some dubious uses for it. Moreover, you could imagine some such dubious uses creating a public relations nightmare for Google. So, Google just forces them out of the Play Store. (Technically, it's a routine renewal, but the GPS permission causes them extra scrutiny, to the point where the author burned out and gave up.[2])
Do we expect that this author should, or for that matter will, give their identity to Google after this? Or is GPSLogger just dead after this change lands?
[1]: https://gpslogger.app/ [2]: https://github.com/mendhak/gpslogger/issues/849
I personally will be extremely unhappy if I no longer can run dns66, newspipe or Firefox with ad blocking on my phone.
I think I might also start spending less time on my phone, which would be a good thing for me and a terrible thing for Google (in aggregate of course).
There is no turning back. Generations of developers will grow up thinking every form of communication and technology by virtue of existing needs a corporate groundskeeper. Government identification will be required for most things.
I don't really blame the companies, though. Unfortunately, it actually is the best means to keep a society of the masses functioning more safely online. What makes it all the more sour is that the very idea that things could be different is eroding away, too.
Couldn't the CA system, for all its problems, suffice?
sidenote: xAI just opensource Grok 2.5 and will opensource Grok 3 in 6 months.
Here a tip: you won't solve the problem of security by just whining about corporate interests (which is a real concern) and NOT proposing a better solution that works for an average tech illiterate, very socially engineerable person trained to ignore every warning screen. And no root switch is not that solution because it will be flipped on day 1.
Any hint why those countries first?
Is it a local law there driving this whole move? Is a critical mass of malware originating from there?
What a horrible, terrible, depressing bag of lies that the anti-humanists keep getting away with saying with a straight face.
You now have options for cheap (less than $200) portable low energy devices:
1. PineTab-V, a linux on Risc-V tablet. (Got debian a few months back, still waiting for proper GPU support, usable but slow now)
2. uConsole, a linux cyberdeck with optional 4G. (Also has debian for 2711, 2712 and 3588 Compute Modules)
I'm not porting my games to Android, iOS, Switch or PlayStation. Only Windows/X86 and Linux/ARM+Risc-V.
No Linux/X86 to not encourage power waste after Windows gets too expensive to run on the client side.
I'm selling on itch instead of steam.
You only need Android for banking, and Nokia G22 (repairable) is/was also sub $200.
I am now creating a new Google account for each phone, that way you are not the product any more.
But can still operate in society.
I have several own-built apps which I use for different purposes only on my own devices.
Why the fuck should I become a verified developer just to use/install/update them?
I'm already pissed off enough by the fact that I must agree to let them upload and scan my app just to install/update it.
https://www.zdfheute.de/wirtschaft/unternehmen/gmx-google-pl...
Rechtsprechung (court decision of LG Mainz, 22.08.2025, 12 HK O 32/24), text isn't published yet as of today:
https://dejure.org/dienste/vernetzung/rechtsprechung?Gericht...
If you search for the Aktenzeichen ("12 HK O 32/34") you'll find other news sources that confirm this.
In general this is a backwards step for the ecosystem.
If you are logged in with a Google account that the government doesn't approve of or not signed into an account at all, you may receive a modified app that spies on you.
I love GrapheneOS but they can only thrive if Google tolerate them. So in its current form, this is not a medium or long term solution (anymore).
We really cannot afford to think in terms of "Android OS" or open source OS anymore the problem is getting much bigger.
My guess is soon in many "free" countries, ISP will mandate connecting with a "Certified" device (someone was saying that in Brazil only cell phones certified by the teleco government agency can be imported already). And on mobile it is easy to implement since you need a (e)SIM. The Internet is still hard to control at the protocol level, but the gates are easy to mostly control (your ISP).
In terms of mobile computing I mostly care about being able to access my home network from the places I am 80% of the time (and I can always bridge to the Internet from there). So the real battle is really at the mesh and multi-hop mobile ad hoc networks. This is the aspect we neglected for 25 years.
Regarding mobile, the battle for Android is lost, time to look into things like B.A.T.M.A.N [0] so we be able to keep another open source mobile platform useful.
For anything "money" related, your bank (which is inevitably regulated) will have to mandate a certified device too. It will work on (some) Linux too.
Ever wondered why for example the Fedora project [1] is proudly part of things like The Digital Public Goods Alliance [2] who works with many govs and if you really look into it they are all about digital ids and "restoring trust"?
- [0] https://www.open-mesh.org/projects/open-mesh/wiki
many other fields have an explicit or implicit ethics code which we seem to lack. I'm thinking about other fields like medicine, engineering, etc. Probably since the entry level to development is low and anyone can do it, it means there's no way to enforce/teach it?
The usual answer that their livelyhoods depend on it is simplistic, these are the best paid developers in the US, pretty sure they have some sway power. There are doctors in way poorer countries with higher ethics standards.
For an average Joe and Jane, who gets their money stolen, that's a good move. They don't care about technology, they just want their bank, instagram, cat pictures and video calls to work and not get scammed. They are often lured into installing scamware through exactly sideloading APK, completely unaware of the risks.
In the article there's this comment:
> I'm struggling to see the benefit of this new policy. While it's presented as a security measure, the requirement to fill out these forms seems like a trivial barrier for actual malware creators, who will easily abuse the system.
Every scammer will have a different code signing certificate which you can then block if they spread malware. Right now it's a huge mass of scammers and malware authors indistinguishable from each other. And Google could possibly block them all which would also block legitimate applications (now that would spark outrage). Thanks to the new policy it'll be easy to add a single cert to the blocklist.
If you want absolute freedom on your device, just install a different Android - for example Graphene, Lineage, /e/OS, or Calix. They are all Android too.
It's so fashionable these days to go after Google.
Thanks Google.
If it's something simple like $100, that's not a big deal. That's on the order of what I'm looking at for my code signing certificates. It would be a an eminently reasonable business expense.
We are so used to tech as it is that it is simple to force these bad decisions for the greater good. Because everyone is sure there is no alternative. There’s no other way to design tech, it will always be so complex and powerful that gov and corps can onesidedly decide what is best for the rest of the world.
This might be an area where local AI excels, when ready. No apps. No sharing of personal data. One AI capable of doing what most software does, on the fly, without relying on others to decide what is ok. Remains to be solved who can create and distribute this local AI and whether hardware will be allowed to run “untrusted” AI…
Feeling very frustrated with the way the internet is going lately. This plus OSA + chat control. And compounded by the imperative for AI companies to keep hoovering up any and all data they can get their hands on, wiring it into "agentic" workflows and such.
Even if Google backtracks now. Governments will latch on to this idea just like they have with client side content scanning. This will never go away. Thank you google you despicable pieces of shit.
What now? Where do we go from here?
I'm not going to submit to this crap. I'm sick of it. Nor I am going to IOS. It'll be a Linux phone for me or a dumbphone with tethering and a laptop.
This is truly some orwellian newspeak bull-shit.
For those who don't know, Google Play verification ensures critical apps like banking apps DO NOT WORK in privacy-focused ungoogled ROMs like LineageOS, unless you install the usual google spyware at the OS level. Basically soft-requiring you to buy into the duopoly.
Some of us code our .APK, then do an `adb install`.
This already requires enabling a system flag ("developer mode -> allow etc.").
It only makes sense that a similar flag would allow to install whatever we want (especially and in particular, our own software).
I have my apps as web pages, so I access them from phone web browser. I do not care about phone apps that much.
I use fdroid for calendar, gallery, and music though.
And to those, many here, who "but web apps are ugly, native feels better": you are contributing to all of this.
Looks like Google wants to kill it too.
Well I guess my next is an apple, but I'm hoping open-source android distros will get more dev resources now. Will happily use a sub-optimal distro over google's.
This of course has nothing to do with security, it's mainly the managements reaction to Youtube alternative apps actually growing in userbase (happy user of one here). And also to ban alternative app stores naturally.
Let us all not forget that YT videos are internet users created not google created, and the only reason why Google thinks this will work for them is their belief there is no competition to YT.
Having said that I can only see living with two devices going further: one locked down for banking & stuff and another one for freedom.
Unfortunately, I can also envision a locked down internet available only on certified devices in ten years. Absurd? A mere idea of a locked-down Android device looked absurd... yesterday. Just yesterday.
Switch to Iphone now? Maybe the in crowd will like me now.
What’s stopping us from making this a reality? We have passionate FOSS developers and visionary leaders capable of championing this cause and building a strong community around it.
I had high hopes for Marc Shuttleworth’s Ubuntu Phone. Unfortunately, after the Kickstarter campaign fell through, development stalled. I still believe consumers missed out on a remarkable piece of technology.
That said, I see Ubuntu Touch[1] is still active, though I’m unclear on its current impact or progress. Meanwhile, Smart TVs and smartphones continue to be dominated by Google’s Android OS.
The story unfolds in 28th century, but it all seems have started in the 21st one.
When will they go against malicious ads in apps?
- platforms are going to be forced to collect more data about you
- The amount of places without you showing IDs will decrease
- There will be more "moderation". You will not be able to provide nsfw contents, then you will not be able to host controversial topics. I suspect games will be more "kid friendly". No more real doom, gta, or Mortal Kombat for you. I remember how they provided more clothes on women for mortal Kombat
- The rules will always be vague, and used sporadically. Just like YouTube rules, where companies often abuse DMCA just to shut you off, or ban you, if you are not playing nice. Like Schlep.
- Corporations will create pressures on validated users, or ban you for life, but often they will just use "fear" to police people by themselves. Just like people will use "unalive" words, because they know they can get into trouble for saying a different word
- Google will be able to police extensions by banning people
- It is all a boiling frog scenario, where it creeps one law after another until everything is moderated, controlled by corporations
- The safety increases, but freedom decreases
- Free software people will often be mixed in article texts with terrorists, bad actors, predators, pedophiles
- It can happen because people do not understand these mechanisms, and they want "safer" world, in which nobody can get hurt, but it is also a place without you being free
I would be fine, if it was mandatory for Android manufacturers to allow installing alternative OSes. Normies could benefit from the added security on their certified Android device, and advanced users could install GrapheneOS.
Hopefully the EU slaps everyone with massive fines for these obvious anticompetitive plays. Best case scenario would be an outride ban giving local companies space but I doubt this will happen given how spineless the current commission is.
Clearly for American companies to be tightening the noose like that quoting the approval of authoritarian countries, it means they’re starting to feel the fire. It’s hard to not see the obvious link with them losing against Epic here behind the usual security smoke screen.
Both Apple and Google should have been broken to pieces for their egregious anti competitive behaviour a long time ago anyway.
Its good and bad at the same time imho.
Its also why we should not trust large AI corporations that appoint themselves as stewards of "AI safety". If a company that once had the slogan "don't be evil" can do this, so can all the frontier labs
I'm getting ready to give up on smartphones altogether. I used to think that surely a sufficiently open phone would come along, and that you could then just run a sandboxed Android emulator on that for whenever you needed some proprietary apps where society has stupidly decided you need them. But that also seems to be getting progressively harder.
So maybe I just give up on actually using a phone for much. Has anyone tried living with cheap Android or iPhone as a source of connectivity and making phone calls, perhaps with the odd app you just can't get through daily life without (see above), and then move everything where privacy and control actually matter the most to a small "pocket computer" that connects to the internet through a connection shared by the cheap phone? Are there any sufficiently compact and nice such devices? Surely they're easier to produce when you don't require a phone baseband and all the things that are needed for Google to certify it as an Android phone?
Thoughts?
Linux really is the only way to have an experience where the computer is your device to do what you want to do with it.
Android shouldn't be considered Open Source anymore, since source code is published in batches and only part of the system is open, with more and more apps going behind the Google ecosystem itself.
Maybe it's time for a third large phone OS, whether it comes from China getting fed up with the US and Google's shenanigans (Huawei has HarmonyOS but it's not open) or some "GNU/Linux" touch version that has a serious ecosystem. Especially when more and more apps and services are "mobile-first" or "mobile-only" like banking.
Of course people called him a paranoid and lunatic extremist, but in the end he was right and we are f*cked
I feel as an Android user, you've always had to put up with a more incoherent overall experience compared to iOS but received some additional freedom in return.
In recent years, Google has been steadily eroding their end of the bargain.
I wonder where that will leave them in the long term. Short term, I think restricting side loading will reduce piracy and drive sales of their subscriptions. Long term though, I wonder what will set Android devices apart from iOS for the average user, apart from being offered at different price points.
It feels they're playing themselves into a position where they're more directly competing with Apple, ultimately restricting themselves to lower price devices and lower margin sales. As far as walled gardens go, I personally prefer Apple's and I assume most people do.
This is a plot twist I never thought it would happen. While the EU [1], Japan [2] , UK [3] and Australia [4] are in the process of forcing Apple to allow sideloading and alternative App Stores, Google, which was far from these obligations, had taken a totally unexpected road to limit/control how sideloading should work.
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1.https://developer.apple.com/support/dma-and-apps-in-the-eu/
2.https://www.phonearena.com/news/the-world-is-changing-japan-...
3.https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/uk-passes-bill-whic...
4.https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jun/06/australia...
This is just another 'it's only about money' move from Google. Only Google approved apps means monetised apps. Monetised means Google gets it's cut. Google gets richer. More in-app purchases, more ads, more money for Google
Customers? Eh. What? Huh? Who cares
If for safety, make it an opt-out feature, so the ones who know what they're doing can disable it.
Mandatory locking down is not for safety but for corporate control.
can we like... regulate the ** out of makers to force them to make bootloader unlocked & provide drivers (for linux) for their devices?
Stop making or maintaining Android apps. Make apps warn users about upcoming changes and why they'll lose access to the apps they love. Decrease Google's ecosystem appeal. Money is king.
Samsung used to have a very cool feature on their phones (perhaps they still do, I switched away from the galaxy line). It was called Knox and was basically containers for your apps.
Unfortunately it was limited to only one secure container. What I did was I had all my secure apps outside the container. And insecure inside. I had a fake address book that had only one phone number in "My Knox" and any app I installed there I could give all the file and address book permissions it wanted. As I knew it could only see what is inside.
That is what we need, but better. I never tried Graphene, but I wouldn't be surprised if there was such a feature thre already. It's kind of obvious.
Guess we've arrived, I wish people voted with their wallets more, iOS could have added this a decade ago.
Since there are no viable alternatives, I guess it's time to go back to owning a cheap corporate/government approved phone for official business (i.e. banking), and another one that I actually use.
As an aside, the presentation[0] doesn't really go into the details how they will enforce this (on-device? Remotely? If the latter, can I just remove Play Services from my device to sideload whatever?), but you can apparently submit feedback about the verification process here[1].
[0]: https://goo.gle/play-console-android-developer-verification [1]: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdpZbsJCS-f7CtMbZPn...
It's annoying combined with them making that much harder to be a verified developer. I had an android dev account for years and published an app when it was $20 for life but now there's a bunch of hassle involved. If they had the old $20 and upload your passport to prove id it wouldn't be so bad.
How long is it until we see countries pushing to just delist Telegram, Signal, etc from the app stores?
The only way I want to engage with Google is when it cost them money. I will not give them a penny directly.
What the fuck is happening to computing and our personal devices.
Not 75%, not 80% and not 90% but literal 100% of adds YouTube served me for a week were financial scams. It sounds to me the quickest way to fight it, is to make ad publishers finally take responsibility for taking part in crime.
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html#four-freedoms
Quote below:
The four essential freedoms
A program is free software if the program's users have the four essential freedoms: [1]
The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose (freedom 0).
The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help others (freedom 2).
The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others (freedom 3). By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.Note that 'security' here is only for Google itself, for users it's an utterly different thing, e.g., inconvenience, censorship, etc..
In Brazil, the Brazilian Federation of Banks (FEBRABAN) sees it as a “significant advancement in protecting users and encouraging accountability.”
It used to be a huge scandal because people (rightly) feared that it would enable Microsoft to have a say on what can be executed or not, or only allow DRM protected content to play.
GrapheneOS says they won't touch it because it's a cat-and-mouse game. I think that's the wrong call. DRM was the same, yet torrent trackers are still here.
I would imagine security researcher could be registered developer but I could also see autobans if that is a thing to their accounts making life complicated.
Also some folks just being locked out of the due to government censorship etc..
And I do get that Apple does that already, but once Google goes same way, they EU will be forced to acknowledge the status quo.
Even though Google has not revoked similar controversial policies in the past, we do our best as much as we can. This change particularly threatens the freedom to build, share, and use software without giving away sensitive personal information. It affects independent developers, FOSS contributors, and even regular users who want to install apps outside of Google Play.
"Just imagine giving sensitive personal, government-issued ID to a corporation to install an app outside Google Play"
Let’s stand together to protect our freedom to create and use software without handing over personal information to a corporation. Every signature, share, and voice counts here
Support the petition here: https://chng.it/tyHZjstxWQ
You have the power to help turn a passionate subset of people away from Android, and now is the best time to do it. Instead of scattering effort into a dozen fragmented experiments, let’s rally around the best bet we have right now: SailfishOS. I'm not at all affiliated with Sailfish, just someone pissed off and am trying to point folks at the most mature alternative out there. I know it has its problems. I know there's even better alternatives that even less people use but seriously, rather than fragment the frustration around android right now, please, just try to rally around a serious legit alternative. We might actually make meaningful change here but it needs focus.
Intro for developers: https://docs.sailfishos.org/Develop/
Getting started guide: https://sailfishos.org/wiki/SailfishOS
Let’s push for something truly independent
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