@duckling5746@lemmy.today as a reminder the reason this is related to self-hosting should be obvious, whether in the title or the post text.
For this one, I’ll note that this is key to self-hosting, and I think many know it. Many, myself included, use f-droid or similar 3rd party repos to manage the apps that we use with our self-hosted setup. With this change, many of the current apps we enjoy using will either need to register with Google, or essentially become unused. While there is a way to still do it, it is really messy, and requires an absolutely wild number of steps + 24hr “cooling off period”. Its ridiculous.
Personally, I’m leaving the android ecosystem one way or the other. It may be using an android phone and hotspotting for another device running PMOS or similar, or getting a Moto with Graphene, whatever, but this change is impactful and horrendous.
Not that I particularly trust Google, but they have promised to not molest the ADB pathway.
"Are ADB installs impacted by the 24-hour waiting period for advanced flow? No, there are no changes to how ADB works. You will be able to install applications using ADB as usual. The waiting period does not apply to ADB installs. Last updated: March 23, 2026’
https://developer.android.com/developer-verification/guides/faq
but they have promised to
Like they promised other things in the past?
@SuspiciousCarrot78 @curbstickle adb is not at all convenient compared to something like fdroid. I wouldn’t consider that a real alternative other than in rare cases.
LADB is a native android app, among many.
What’s to stop me from doing this
- Download apk
- Enable Wireless debugging
- Pair the on-phone ADB client
- Run something equivalent to: pm install /sdcard/Download/app.apk
- Installation occurs through the ADB shell route.
Because if that works, “install from Fdroid” needs just a small tweak so that the Fdroid app submits the APK through ADB.
The nonsense steps to even get there. The absolute nonsensical mess of lies in their claims to even do this in the first place. Lets be clear - if they wanted to block malware, they would need to be doing so from the Play store in the first place. So, lets highlight a few simple things:
- It was only about 6 months ago that it was documented by a cybersec company that hundreds of malicious apps were downloaded quite literally tens of millions of times.
- The number of malicious apps on the Play store have gone up, not down.
- Banking malware has more than doubled in the past few years
- The majority of growth (more than doubling) in the YoY were spyware apps - used for identity theft, extortion, and surveillance, and all on the Play store.
- There are even ones specifically targeting Android TV boxes, again mostly operating unchecked on the Play store.
To even suggest installing apps (which, lets be honest, that is what they are calling “sideloading” - doing the thing you do on your PC all the time) from a different location is the issue is far from reality. So any “promise” from them is worth functionally nothing to me.
As I said, I’m leaving Android either way. I shouldn’t have to go through such a massive number of hoops to install on my own device.
https://github.com/evanman83/OURS-project
Doesn’t really slide into the back pocket but…
What I’m hoping to go with is more something like a clamshell (think MNT Pocket Reform) or slider (like the old motorola droid). The Mecha Comet seems interesting but I’m not sure yet. I also like what WaveShare has going with the PocketTerm, but I want something other than a pi in there (I swore off RPi when they continued business sales and let prices skyrocket for the regular users who made them who they are).
I may also end up trying to put something together with spare parts I have, but we’ll see if I have the time for that.
I kind hope google goes full retard. It’s probably the best way to break their monopoly.
My phone is 9yrs old this year -still works great. When it dies, I will go dumbphone + small tablet route. Fuck it, I will build a tablet or a cyber deck if I have to. No better fuel than spite.
Fuck you Pichai.
please just make an android alternative
I want a phone that isn’t a closed ecosystem race to the bottom shit phone
All of the alternatives eventually run into the same “Will my banking app work on it?” problem. The absence of a healthy app economy is the one thing that can’t be fixed by throwing software engineers at it, and it is what caused the death of Windows Phone.
i hope linux phones succeed
I’m pretty sure that custom roms will remove that 24hr wait period from their binaries. Android is still open source and removing a check isn’t going to be very hard for them.
The tech ecosystem is as open as you can. Use linux. Use SearxNG. Use graphene or other custom roms. There’s options out there, you just have to start adopting them instead of just complaining online about having no choice.
AOSP is open source, android isn’t
There are, but the market is rigged by monopolists. And things like banks increasingly require apps that won’t even run on customer Android ROMs easily.
The regulators are needed here.
OK but that is about a 10000x bigger project
Really starting to wonder what they signed with apple to get RCS. Seems to be they sold the soul of android.
Wait so you’re somehow trying to blame THIS on Apple too?
A 24hr waiting period to use a competitor’s product has to be one of the most blatant anti-competitive behaviour in history.
If only the founding fathers had written the right to bear apps shall not be infringed in an amendment.
Oh well can’t change the ancient text now, just have to be governed by it forever. 🤷 (It’s a shame the ancient powder-wigged wizards that wrote the constitution weren’t clairvoyant.)
If only there were some way to change the ancient text. Some sort of amend-sion. Surely our benevolent leaders would have figured something like that out by now. I guess we’ll just have to keep voting and hoping every four years
We’ve tried nothing and we’re all out of ideas
I don’t get it, how tf they gonna stop you on phones that already exist?
A. You can disable any new OS or device updates from Google.
B. You can keep your existing phone on Android 16 or prior (hell, I’m on 12)
C. Use alt OS like Graphene, Lineage, Iodé, /e/OS, CalyxOS (they’re back!!), etc
D. Sign out of Google on your phone, install F-Droid or something from APK package on FF derived browser.
I’m sure on brands new devices with that patch, plus anyone who doesn’t disable the auto updates will be blocked. But no way no how can Google stop us all!! 🖕🖕🏻🖕🏿🖕🏼
I think the goal is to push it silently as a Google system service, rather than wait for manufacturers to ship an OS or app store update.
There’s a real possibility your phone already has Android Developer Verifier installed and sitting dormant until enforcement begins.
You can check for the package now:
“com.google.android.verifier”
If it’s there…well…
A. It’s not an OS update. It’s part of Google Play Services.
B. I’m pretty sure this applies even on Android 12 because it’s Google Play Services. Years back, Google started moving functionality like this into Google Play Services so your phone could get new features even if you had a bad manufacturer and OS updates were months or even years behind. It was introduced as a feature then.
C. This does work, but some apps (notably banking apps) block non-Google Android, even if there is no legitimate security reason for doing so. This will vary by OS and even phones running the same OS. Official GrapheneOS builds for officially supported devices probably have the best compatibility with apps in terms of the apps not blocking your phone. Maybe there are some rooted phones that patch apps to bypass “integrity” checks. Some features of your phone just will not work, even if you have a third-party OS with official support for your phone (contactless payments). Hopefully the EU gets on this and at least Europeans or people who can trick their phones into thinking they are Europeans will get some of their control back.
D. Most people can’t live without the apps that are available only on Google’s store or that require Google Play Services. That’s most apps. Even if you don’t need those specific apps, you will need to deal with other stuff like setting up Unified Push if you want to receive timely notifications. My parents are not going to set up a Unified Push gateway.
All this effort going towards “saving” green fascism when we should be pouring these efforts into Linux
There’s diminishing returns, and we have lives outside our phones. Well, most of us. We can put a limited amount of time and energy into this, but pushing Linux requires a great deal of effort and time.
Not saying we shouldn’t also do that, but in the mean time fighting to keep the options we do have less shitty shouldn’t be completely abandoned.
You do know that android is Linux under the hood right?
So we have a Linux phone now, it’s just got a crappy front end on it
It’s Linux-ish under the hood really. No Android device I’m aware of is running the vanilla kernel.
That’s great and all but the current linux phone offerings are… not suitable for general public use. The iPad generation will simply not be able to use them in their current state.
We were so close to a phone usable by non-enthusiasts with the Nokia N1. The Nokia Linux phones were killed when Nokia hired a former VP it Microsoft to be their CEO. I’m still bitter.
Jolla, ex nokia employees, just sent out their first batch of the Jolla phone. It uses sailfishOS, a Linux based operating system capable of running android apps.
I’m in the wait list for my own.
Unfortunately not available for in the US :(
I want one so badly
Nah! If they kill it Linux mobile will get better!
the year of the Linux smartphone
Nah…we need digital divergence.
Dumbphone + tethering.
Let the phone manufacturers and carriers handle the “phone” part-with all the messy IMEI whitelisting, compliance and VoLTE shit.
The good stuff can live on a small Linux tablet.
No need to wait for the perfect Linux phone OS, working diallers, carrier support and all the rest of it.
The solution is already here. We just need to stop insisting that it all has to be one device.
Btw, do you know a dumb phone that can tether?
Only if efforts can transfer over, which means devs currently standing on the paid side of Google!Android would have to move over to develop Linux mobile and develop for Linux mobile.
Petitions are useless.
That is simply wrong. Public pressure can certainly be effective. In any case, it’s definitely better than doing nothing at all.
Public pressure can be effective, but this isn’t public pressure. This is the “click a button if you agree” type of action. Online petitions are extremely ineffective unless they’re part of a broader, stronger campaign. This petition isn’t part of anything in particular.
From what I see, some student started it and there are no goals, and no planned actions. According to change.org, this petition mentioned in a medium.com blog and some tech website most of us have never heard of. That’s not much.
It’s just a place to vent your frustration.
it’s definitely better than doing nothing at all
It makes one feel better because it gives people a false sense of accomplishment.
Look, vote if you want, I just think this is off-topic and isn’t directly relevant to self-hosting. Hence the comment.
The petition is only one part of the puzzle.
Keep Android Open also says to contact your regulators and fill out Google’s developer verification survey, both of which either directly affect Google by influencing internal processes, or put regulatory pressure on them to back off.
The Change.org petition is moreso just a way to count overall total supporters, and add one more lever of pressure that can be leveled against them. (e.g. instead of “we’ve had a lot of people contact regulators” it’s “218,000 people are actively taking the time to tell you they don’t like this”, can be cited by lawmakers, advocacy groups, etc)
That said though, I do agree that a change.org petition on its own is… generally ineffective most of the time.
Petitions are useless
Protests are useless
Governments and corporations conspire to implement surveilance knowing what comes next
<-- we are here
Actual resistence
Eh, I wouldn’t say useless.
I’d say they only account for user sentiment at best. Which can have an impact, but I’d say incredibly unlikely that there will be an impact on this one.
Not using android as much as possible will have a much higher impact though.
