Google announced a new requirement: starting September 2026, every Android app developer must register centrally with Google before their software can be installed on any device.
Is there going to be a class action lawsuit against this? If they'd have told me that I wasn't allowed to install apps of my choosing on the phone I was about to buy, I never would have bought it. Them changing the terms two years down the line seems criminal
Here in Switzerland UBS forces their custom authenticator on you. If you don't have a "compatible device", they ship you a card and card reader as authenticator. That reader is horrible to use, and has button as smusshy as Haribo Gummybears...
What if google starts forcing the APK's themselves to do some crypto handhsake to run on android? Will all your developers make a second set that don't so they can run on Graphine?
Maybe I'm making it up, but I seem to recall that disabling Google Play Services was enough. But that is easier said than done. Google did a Microsoft with internet explorer, and basically made the whole OS depend on Play Services. A lot of stuff won't work if you disable them, and some of it is unfixable on stock android. You basically need a custom ROM to get away with it, and even then, it has some problems.
The thing is, Google Play Services is integrated into the OS. Like Microsoft back then, they've made it so that the OS doesn't work properly without it. For example, notifications won't work. Some background tasks will stop. The battery will last less time. You won't be able to log in to any google app, and some third party ones won't let you log in either. Forget about banking apps. The list keeps going...
I really don't know how Google is allowed to do all this after Microsoft got (rightfully) destroyed in court for doing the same with Internet Explorer.
I de-googled my phone and the battery lasts 2 days now. Just throw MicroG or GAPS on a lineage android and you're golden. took me a day to do my gf and Is phones. Google can eat a dick.
With evilgoogle services shut down battery lasts longer. Notifications only from non google phone, sms and email app. My bank lets me use online without app. So while you are right for most people - in my case i not lose no important thing. I even still on android 12 phone just to be sure i can disable assistant and avoid gemini.
You would need an unlocked bootloader and a custom ROM for that. I suspect that completely disabling google services on stock ROM is either not possible or will brick your device.
Also Google does provide an opt-out mechanism, for now. The restrictions will likely tighten in the future.
I've posted this info on Lemmy before, but worth a repost now:
alternatives to Google branded Android
For those new to the process, the best general resource for instructions on how to unlock your phone’s bootloader and flash alternate AOSP ROM’s or non-Android OS’s is https://xdaforums.com/
Please note that not all carriers and oem’s allow you to unlock the bootloader though, so choose your device carefully for this.
You will also most likely need a PC (desktop or laptop) with adb & fastboot on it. These are apps used in the terminal, but you only need to copy and paste a few commands into them to use it.
unfortunately postmarketOS just barely qualifies as usable, and absolutely cannot be pushed as a serious option yet unless people are okay with turning their smartphone into a feature phone.
I don't think people hearing "postmarketos is good" -trying it- and realizing it's hilariously far from usable, counts as support..
by all means support the project, donate money and for the 3 people who are capable of it please do contribute to the codebase! But that's not really what people are encouraging.
I have PMOS on a Xiaomi phone that's supposed to be fairly well supported. It's very laggy, freezes often and won't charge when turned on. I really want to like it but it's just not there.
Lineage with MicroG for now. Next phone will hopefully be whatever Graphene and Motorola are working on.
What about Sailfish? Also using /e/os, but I've only recently started looking into non Android phones and heard Sailfish is Linux but has Android compatibility?
It's always better than any Android-forked option, but SailfishOS still has some closed-source parts. PostmarketOS is going for mainline kernel, with everything open, which is the goal we should strive for.
Likely the vast majority of the apps you're running are from devs that now have to register. My concern is that google changes the APK's to have cryptographically secure elements that require their latest play store and end up starving graphineOS users out of apps.
It's time for me to look for a new phone or install GraphineOS and this is what's holding me back. If I do all the work to switch over to GraphineOS and then Alphabet/Google make it impossible to run unapproved apps so I have to buy a new android phone anyway.
cries in GrapheneOS because I understand that I live in a society and a personal workaround is not the same as solving the underlying antitrust/consumer protection law problem
At the risk of being booed out of the room I'm all for developers of the apps on my phone being fully transparent about who they are.
The fees are changing but unless you're a AAA game developer then it will be to your benefit. The current flat rate of 30% on all proceeds is being tiered so that you only pay 10% up to the first 1MUSD.
Plausible anonymity is a crucial safety tool for allowing developers to resist the forces of capital. These sorts of things aim to remove that so any sort of deviation from the mainstream, such as Lemmy, can be more effectively repressed via social pressure if nothing else.
Developers, musicians, etc. figured out the solution to the "how to get both anonymity and trust/transparency?" Issue a long time ago and that's through pseudonyms. This breaks the anonymity part and does nothing to increase trust.
That article isn't saying anything I didn't already know.
They're making it more difficult to side-load; not impossible: The article explicitly acknowledges that Android must remain open and that sideloading must continue to exist.
F-Droid, Git, etc, are horrible places to obtain apps from. It's in Android's best interests to not make it easy or convenient. People won't read a full proper warning like https://lemmy.world/post/48579911
It's like the earlier scare on Android based TVs. They disable an app, but you can clone it anyway.
I'd only get from those sources things that Go ogle wouldn't allow like PipePipe (even that I have no use for though).
Forcing side-loading through hoop jumping is primarily being used to push people towards the easy-mode method of using Google Play. How much longer before your government ID is required to download apps from the Play Store, too?
Microsoft was forced to bundle a browser installer in the EU for something that was definitively less onerous than the new barriers proposed.
Google shouldn't have the right to decide how I install software on my computer, and the idea that we can just install a different OS wasn't a convincing enough argument for the EU, so why is it that you're happy to be told how you can use your property?
Listen. I'm not interested in your kookie conspiracy theories. If I was, I'd be going to infowars. -Doh! That shit got shut down. -Must be the gubberment!
Can't argue on merit, so you baselessly dismiss it as conspiracy. No one should have to wait 24 hours to install an application because Daddy Google said no.
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Is there going to be a class action lawsuit against this? If they'd have told me that I wasn't allowed to install apps of my choosing on the phone I was about to buy, I never would have bought it. Them changing the terms two years down the line seems criminal
Criminals run the show so I doubt they will care to do anything.
Jokes on them. I have a iPhone. It was never mine to begin with.
I'm getting to the point where I'm thinking about throwing this thing in the trash.
i might just get a dedicated music player
Flip phones
There are no good flip phones anymore. They're all horrible. And I'm tired of pretending Kai OS doesn't suck.
the year of the Linux
desktopphoneIf only bank apps would work on Linux mobile environments...
Can you not just use their website? If you can’t, that’s terrible.
The website uses the bank app 2FA. Without it you can't login.
What if you don’t have a mobile device?
Then you use a desktop, ATM, or go to the bank.
Back in my day when you wanted to do anything, you walk into a branch and talk to a teller. Without a mobile device, you go back to living in the 90s.
Here in Switzerland UBS forces their custom authenticator on you. If you don't have a "compatible device", they ship you a card and card reader as authenticator. That reader is horrible to use, and has button as smusshy as Haribo Gummybears...
How did the button taste
Do the bank websites not work on a browser?
the website wants you to 2fa with the app
the website doesn't offer this feature ! pleass check out our app!
if only I could give up more freedoms for convenience!
I'm not phonetistic, just regular autistic; does rooting the phone bypass any of this? Or will I need to install a hacked ROM or something? 🤔
I'm on grapheneOS which won't implement this
I'm assuming other custom rooms won't either
As long as your ROM doesn't have Google Apps (or has them contained like Graphene) this won't do anything.
What if google starts forcing the APK's themselves to do some crypto handhsake to run on android? Will all your developers make a second set that don't so they can run on Graphine?
A forked ROM is not a hacked ROM.
can i disable all google apps to escape this apocalypse?
Maybe I'm making it up, but I seem to recall that disabling Google Play Services was enough. But that is easier said than done. Google did a Microsoft with internet explorer, and basically made the whole OS depend on Play Services. A lot of stuff won't work if you disable them, and some of it is unfixable on stock android. You basically need a custom ROM to get away with it, and even then, it has some problems.
I don't use google apps, dialers, gps, browser - most of things are from fdroid, so i believe i can live without evilgoogle crap.
The thing is, Google Play Services is integrated into the OS. Like Microsoft back then, they've made it so that the OS doesn't work properly without it. For example, notifications won't work. Some background tasks will stop. The battery will last less time. You won't be able to log in to any google app, and some third party ones won't let you log in either. Forget about banking apps. The list keeps going...
I really don't know how Google is allowed to do all this after Microsoft got (rightfully) destroyed in court for doing the same with Internet Explorer.
I de-googled my phone and the battery lasts 2 days now. Just throw MicroG or GAPS on a lineage android and you're golden. took me a day to do my gf and Is phones. Google can eat a dick.
With evilgoogle services shut down battery lasts longer. Notifications only from non google phone, sms and email app. My bank lets me use online without app. So while you are right for most people - in my case i not lose no important thing. I even still on android 12 phone just to be sure i can disable assistant and avoid gemini.
You would need an unlocked bootloader and a custom ROM for that. I suspect that completely disabling google services on stock ROM is either not possible or will brick your device.
Also Google does provide an opt-out mechanism, for now. The restrictions will likely tighten in the future.
Not. Android 12 still lets me adb pm uninstall or pm disable.
I've posted this info on Lemmy before, but worth a repost now:
alternatives to Google branded Android For those new to the process, the best general resource for instructions on how to unlock your phone’s bootloader and flash alternate AOSP ROM’s or non-Android OS’s is https://xdaforums.com/ Please note that not all carriers and oem’s allow you to unlock the bootloader though, so choose your device carefully for this.
You will also most likely need a PC (desktop or laptop) with adb & fastboot on it. These are apps used in the terminal, but you only need to copy and paste a few commands into them to use it.
If you have a Google Pixel then the best option is Graphene - https://grapheneos.org/
For other devices you can use a “degoogled” Android ROM and get apps from the open source F-Droid app store - https://f-droid.org/ Some choices for this are: Lineage - https://lineageos.org/ crDroid - https://crdroid.net/ /e/os - https://e.foundation/e-os/ Iode - https://iode.tech/iodeos/
OR use a a true alternative mobile OS. Options for this are: Ubuntu Touch - https://www.ubuntu-touch.io/ Sailfish OS - https://sailfishos.org/ Mobian - https://mobian-project.org/ Postmarket OS - https://postmarketos.org/ Plasma Mobile - https://plasma-mobile.org/ Droidian - https://droidian.org/
You can also purchase devices with alternative OS’s already preinstalled from: Volla - https://volla.online/en/devices/ Jolla - https://jolla.com/ Fairphone - https://fairphone.com/ Murena - https://murena.com/ Furilabs - https://furilabs.com/ Brax - https://www.braxtech.net/
Already on /e/os on my primary phone, hoping to find time to try postmarketOS on the secondary one.
There is no better alternative than postmarketOS btw, everything else relies on Android or isn't fully open.
unfortunately postmarketOS just barely qualifies as usable, and absolutely cannot be pushed as a serious option yet unless people are okay with turning their smartphone into a feature phone.
That's why it needs support.
Linux desktops also needed lots of support before getting where we are now.
I don't think people hearing "postmarketos is good" -trying it- and realizing it's hilariously far from usable, counts as support..
by all means support the project, donate money and for the 3 people who are capable of it please do contribute to the codebase! But that's not really what people are encouraging.
Imagine if support were given to a more worthy OS like BSD, or Haiku.
I have PMOS on a Xiaomi phone that's supposed to be fairly well supported. It's very laggy, freezes often and won't charge when turned on. I really want to like it but it's just not there.
Lineage with MicroG for now. Next phone will hopefully be whatever Graphene and Motorola are working on.
What about Sailfish? Also using /e/os, but I've only recently started looking into non Android phones and heard Sailfish is Linux but has Android compatibility?
It's always better than any Android-forked option, but SailfishOS still has some closed-source parts. PostmarketOS is going for mainline kernel, with everything open, which is the goal we should strive for.
laughs in GrapheneOS
Likely the vast majority of the apps you're running are from devs that now have to register. My concern is that google changes the APK's to have cryptographically secure elements that require their latest play store and end up starving graphineOS users out of apps.
If Grapheme goes bust I'll get a Linux phone I think. Seems like the last option besides a dumb phone with Signal (apparently there are a few)
But I really like the fact my phone can tune my guitar and play GameBoy games 😅
You can still run most android apps in a pinch on waydroid
The Linux Experiment dude did 30 days on halium/ubports and is sticking wiht it.
https://tilvids.com/w/jGs6g7uphg25pUXEBX3kLF
So, the AUR doesn't happen to Android phones. -It's in their best interest.
It's time for me to look for a new phone or install GraphineOS and this is what's holding me back. If I do all the work to switch over to GraphineOS and then Alphabet/Google make it impossible to run unapproved apps so I have to buy a new android phone anyway.
I'm just hoping for a postmarketOS phone that can last a full day on a charge and keep LTE4 speed data service.
cries in GrapheneOS because I understand that I live in a society and a personal workaround is not the same as solving the underlying antitrust/consumer protection law problem
This worries my Optimocracy instincts
and just as simple to code it's easy to Break that code duh
At the risk of being booed out of the room I'm all for developers of the apps on my phone being fully transparent about who they are.
The fees are changing but unless you're a AAA game developer then it will be to your benefit. The current flat rate of 30% on all proceeds is being tiered so that you only pay 10% up to the first 1MUSD.
The $25 set up fee is unchanged afaics.
Plausible anonymity is a crucial safety tool for allowing developers to resist the forces of capital. These sorts of things aim to remove that so any sort of deviation from the mainstream, such as Lemmy, can be more effectively repressed via social pressure if nothing else.
Developers, musicians, etc. figured out the solution to the "how to get both anonymity and trust/transparency?" Issue a long time ago and that's through pseudonyms. This breaks the anonymity part and does nothing to increase trust.
It's funny how gullible these people who use social media as News are! It's as if they never heard of as search engine or 'fake news'.
Great prank!
This isn't fake news https://keepandroidopen.org/
Try a conspiracy theorist forum. It's fake news.
It is not https://developer.android.com/developer-verification
That article isn't saying anything I didn't already know.
They're making it more difficult to side-load; not impossible: The article explicitly acknowledges that Android must remain open and that sideloading must continue to exist.
F-Droid, Git, etc, are horrible places to obtain apps from. It's in Android's best interests to not make it easy or convenient. People won't read a full proper warning like https://lemmy.world/post/48579911
It's like the earlier scare on Android based TVs. They disable an app, but you can clone it anyway.
I'd only get from those sources things that Go ogle wouldn't allow like PipePipe (even that I have no use for though).
Forcing side-loading through hoop jumping is primarily being used to push people towards the easy-mode method of using Google Play. How much longer before your government ID is required to download apps from the Play Store, too?
Microsoft was forced to bundle a browser installer in the EU for something that was definitively less onerous than the new barriers proposed.
Google shouldn't have the right to decide how I install software on my computer, and the idea that we can just install a different OS wasn't a convincing enough argument for the EU, so why is it that you're happy to be told how you can use your property?
Listen. I'm not interested in your kookie conspiracy theories. If I was, I'd be going to infowars. -Doh! That shit got shut down. -Must be the gubberment!
Can't argue on merit, so you baselessly dismiss it as conspiracy. No one should have to wait 24 hours to install an application because Daddy Google said no.