Google can get fucked. I feel like there will be a nontrivial market for de-googled or older and unlocked Android phones after this. If they manage to kill off custom roms with their previous AOSP rug pull I’ll go back to using a (subpar) Linux phone or maybe even one of those cheap flip phones.
Don’t worry we can just install Graphene OS on Pixel phones, there is no problem with my plan !
feels funny that you have to buy a phone from google to get around google’s actions…
I’m sure it’s just a fortuitous coincidence and nothing to be worried about
I started joking that my next phone will be a Nokia 3310. I feel more and more each day like that should just be my actual next phone
There’s more and more people who feel just like you do. I’m so exhausted of all these companies being predatory and anti consumer. I’m the type to stand my ground and abstain or find alternatives, but it feels like there’s 5 people who don’t care and 4 people who will just let it go for every person willing to boycott bullshit.
Yes there are dozens of people who care. The vast majority of people never sideload.
I’m making a statement about companies in general. People are just so willing to bend over and take it. In my mind people used to have more gumption, but I’m probably overestimating how much was individuals vs how the media portrayed things.
Feels like if Upton Sinclair released “the jungle” today we’d all collectively say “oh well, guess we’re eating rats and formaldehyde.”
Funny enough, Nokia started making cheap flip phones and some others in that form factor again. My daughter asked to replace her smartphone with one of the flip phones. It was only $70, so I got her one. It’s build quality is what you would expect, but it works and has GPS at least.
They even actually re-released a version of the 3310 a few years back. I
still have my old Garmin knocking about, wonder if it’s got updated maps if I got a model without GPS.
In case you’re curious, the Nokia flip phone I got my daughter is the Nokia 2780 Flip.
It even runs WhatsApp and Signal now, or at least, that was the plan a while back. And it’s only like 60 euros or something. Perfect for multiple day festivals and camping trips at least.
Which model is that exactly? I’d love a “dumb” phone with Signal.
It no longer runs WhatsApp, actually. The new version of the OS (KaiOS which is a fork of the dead Firefox OS) broke compatibility and Meta apparently decided to not bother with supporting it.
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Not until this pain is felt and developers see an opportunity
Graphene and PostmarketOS. Biggest issue is banks and other organisations that only want to make apps that run in locked down environments. There needs to be a real push to bring in legislation to make this stuff work.
How can that be legal?
Because Apple does it
Fuck.
Wasn’t it made illegal on Europe?
they saw how apple is profitable from being completely walled in garden.
I first read the original report from Android Authority thinking it would only be an additional hurdle for third-party stores and developers, but I’m now thinking that it would potentially block the use of ReVanced
and any apk installed eventually, and custom OS, that doesnt come from the google store front. im not tech savvy but im using apk of many apps right now. if only someone can develop a “storefront” where it seperate from google.
Unless revanced somehow gets the APKs resigned it will almost certainly destroy revanced.
What if I come up with a random package name, like “online.discuss.jim3692”, register that name and a keypair, and then build ReVanced using that name and keys?
Because Google will find out and revoke the key
What if I keep the apks for me and my family, instead of publicly releasing them.
This is probably similar to the state of Piped and Invidious. Google tries to kill them, so we are hosting private instances, instead of relying on public ones.
google can just revoke it if they dont like it. they certainly want to become apple down the line.
Yeah I don’t know what they’ll block yet but I’m already assuming some of my apps will be blocked. It’s pretty terrible news. I really didn’t want to have to hunt down a phone that was compatible with alternative OS’s.
From my understanding, it will only allow apps that were registered, so since ReVanced uses identical package names to the patched apps, it probably won’t work unless they start using ReVanced-specific package names that are tied to their identity. But that would allow Google to block these package names (or ban ReVanced completely) if say, Spotify or YouTube complain about them.
if say, Spotify or YouTube complain about them.
… who owns YouTube?
Yeah, they’re going to block ReVanced.
Google’s move to block sideloading of unverified Android apps marks a major shift toward tighter security. While it aims to curb malware and fraud, it also raises concerns about user freedom and indie developer access—Android’s openness is slowly fading. mcdvoice
If Android sideloading needs to be verified by googld for “Security” then Maybe IOS seems like a viable option (except for the price and price to repair) but man i wish Linux on smartphones Has a good ecosystem of apps.
iOS is still worse, because you’re then confined to whatever is in the App Store, which Apple take a 30% cut of.
oh yeah, true.
only malware i have read about on android have came from google’s oh so safe store.
No one talking about how this could completely annihilate open source .apk development? First off the lead dev has to get identity verified to get a key, which will reduce the number of devs willing to push through friction to start a project. Then when the key is issued and it is posted to the repository, what keeps anyone from grabbing it and using it for another repo? We’ll they have an official app registration of some kind, ok, what about version control? Does every new version have to be registered before it can be loaded and tested? Same for forks?
This is about to be a terrible mess, Google is assassinating FOSS with this.
It will kill everyone that is playing around with the phones. I have done a couple mobile projects where I just sideloaded the package I created to quickly test it and to demo it to people. Now that I can’t do that why would I develop for your platform by choice.
You distribute the code without your key and a built package that is signed. This isn’t exactly rocket science.
Anyone who forks the code will have to use their own key to install a package they built.
It’s just unnecessary red tape.
It’s just unnecessary red tape.
Which will reduce the number of people using foss apks, which will in turn, reduce the motivation, and then the number, of foss apk developers.
How will fdroid work
Fdroid itself and every package they host will have to be signed.
Maybe there are still workarounds, like enabling dev mode on your phone, but still tedious.
I believe disabling play protect turns this off
It also becomes no different than iPhone, so… what’s keeping me to android if they do this? Or hey, maybe I’ll commit to de-googling. I have CoMaps, I’m planning to setup nextcloud soon… Hell, I don’t even buy anything on Google play anymore since it’s so shit, i have no purchases tying me to the OS. Maybe I’ll buy a cheap old iPhone so I can finally use imessage with everyone that’s been bitching about me and use other tech for everything else.
(I’m not going to iPhone, but the point stands)
That is precisely one of my main lines of reasoning; I’ve thought about this for a long, long time, and I’m switching to Apple iPhone. I’m keeping a Oukitel Titan for Android stuff ((Grayjay)). But I’m getting the 17 Extra Pro Max Plus Plus or whatever for a main.
I’m wondering why I even need a smartphone at this point. I’m tempted to go back to a flip phone.
I left iphone because of a walled garden issue, was thinking about working with my parents off of iphone so I can actually assist with them because I’ve been off of it for decades.
Instead may be the other direction because at least iOS has a modicum of privacy by at least telling the US government to make their own back doors instead of just licking the boot like google does. I’m not a fan of apple by any stretch of the imagination, but at this point of the falling apart world fuck it, I gotta figure out what the least evil is, even if it’s only marginal.
This a massive overreach and so stupid when nowadays apple even relaxed their limitations a little, I heard that iOS users don’t need to jailbreak anymore to use outside apps. What will be the point of android?
I’d go Lineage / Graphene (?) next year
Been there done that. Will never go back to Google.
So say you want to move to one of these other OS’s graphene or whatever. Do those work with modern banking apps? Pretty much the only reason they haven’t done The switch so far is because Bank of America would tell me to fuck right off as far as I know
you can pack them on the magisk denylist and then they might work flawlessly.
this has never failed me but i would still not recommend it.
these banks and Google have no hesitation to cut your access to your money one day. they own your way of interacting with the web now and they don’t like what you’re attempting here
How about we abandon proprietary locked-down launcher sandboxes on our phones and just run regular old Linux on them like we do on the desktop?
Isn’t that what PostmarketOS is? Is there some bullshit firmware issue in the way of that? What exactly is stopping us?
The difference is that mobile phone hardware is commonly more locked down by default than x86 hardware. Whatever phone you have now likely has some weird shit on it that makes it really difficult to do anything but what the manufacturer wants you to do. What Microsoft is trying to do with Win11 and TPM 2.0, has basically already been done with many brands of smartphone. I’ve been trying to research affordable smartphones to daily drive that are also de-googled, and hours of research has resulted in me struggling to use a pinephone. The hardware, the software, they’re just not there, either. It’s not like desktop Linux where really it’s better than Windows if you give it a chance. Mobile FOSS OSes might be daily drivable if you try really hard.
What OS did you put on it and what issues have you run into? I’ve been considering the Pinephone Pro because it seemed both more flexible and cheaper than a Librem.
For the benefit of those reacting based on the headline and one-sentence summary, yes it’s a pain, I agree with the mob that it should be the user’s choice what they install, BUT, the headline is badly written, in that it implies that the app itself has to be verified, and also many commenters seem to have also inferred that it means an Apple walled-garden style Play Store lock-in which also isn’t the case. (a better headline might have been “sideloading of Android apps from unverified publishers”)
You can still publish and run apps from outside of the Play Store, but publishers will need to get a verified key from Google to sign them with. Google don’t have any visibility of what the app actually is, they just issue you a key and you do whatever you want with it.
i’m sure google will be happy to verify and hand a key out to revanced or aurora store.
For now…
Then they controll who gets a key and if you sign something that’s isn’t OK with them - revocation
Any developer of piracy or emulation related software will not apply for the registration, because the trail will point to they official identity, opening a flank to legal actions. This will kill piracy in Android.
Agreed on the headline, but having to ID yourself as a developer to Google even if you’re not using the Play Store is fucked too. It’s a big step towards a walled garden.
All Google would have to do is check what key an app is using on a user’s device and they can invalidate it. Someone made a youtube vanced 2 (not revanced)? Google can easily invalidate it for everyone using this process.
Even if I misunderstand how the key works and it’s more of a signature, it would mean that if you try to download an older app then it could fail bc the signature expired and isn’t maintained anymore. You also run into the same issue with not being renewed if Google chooses.
My point is it could effectively be a side loading killer, maybe not right away but the point of sideloading is the independence which this takes away
