Some poignant questions for these new platform requirements:
- How do you anticipate this being used against journalists and advocacy groups?
- What research and statistical quantification will be done to evaluate the amount of harm these restrictions can inflict?
- What precautions or safeguards will users have against malicious state actors or capitulating corporations?
- How can developers protect themselves from liable damages due to service interruptions caused by third party verification?
- Do you foresee legal restrictions in rollout due to national security concerns from differing nation states?
Just today apple showed how stupid is this policy as they revoked the publisher certificate for a torrent app, proving that the end goal is not locking malware but stuff that they don’t like
This is just a way to capture negative feedback in a way that leaves you feeling like you did something while impacting none of their business which they can then ignore and throw away with no issues. Make noise on social media, not feedback forms. Make them hurt.
What a disappointing week. I was looking to replace my five year old iPhone with an android phone and now I’m just stumped. Pixel 10 looked pretty good but then this sudden verification requirement news hit. Both platform are now equally crap. The hell with both of these shitty companies. Maybe I’ll go full retro and get a dumb phone instead.
Get a pixel secondhand and put an android fork on it. Its what I will likely do because I am sick of Google in my life and dont want to pay through the nose for a glossy shit that doesnt even have a file manager from apple.
iOS/iPad OS has had a file manager for years? It’s not great, and heavily restricted, but it for sure exists.
It’s not great, and heavily restricted, but it for sure exists
That’s kind of the point though. Apple’s file manager portrays a “flat” filesystem, where all of your data is laid out neatly on the table - so to speak - and the actual locations of those directories within the system are buried inside vague and protected locations “for security”. Android file managers embrace a more traditional Unix-like filesystem hierarchy.
Straight into the garbage.
if this policy is implemented. the easiest thing for noobs will be get a Chinese phone without certification from Google https://storage.googleapis.com/play_public/supported_devices.html like huawei (you can get a GMS support with emulator like Gbox)
This is silly. Google doesn’t give a single fuck. This decision will make money for key players and that’s the end of the conversation.
It’s very likely that no amount of negative feedback will change anything. Why not waste some of their time anyway? Write to them, call them, spread the word. This is the only thing we can do. Even if it goes through regardless - at the very least we can make it as unpleasant as possible.
Their AI will be looking over all of the responses, not people. No important person at Google’s time will be wasted on this.
That’s why keywords are important. For instance I added the fact that if they continue in this course I will seek to de-Google my phones.
Like I said in another comment, unless they get tens of millions of actual unique-not-spam responses they will not even consider reconsidering. People aren’t going to de-google in any great numbers from this, because most of the people this will affect are already de-googled.
Rather than degoogling telling them you will go to Apple and opt for apple services is likely the more powerful response, since that is what the regular person is more likely to do. If degoogled is used they’ll likely dismiss it assuming it is just one of those niche nerds. But an exodus to Apple is a threat that is more realistic.
But that makes no sense - they’ll go to someone who is even more restrictive in side loading?
Google won’t reverse this because there’s no alternative for the relatively few people this will affect. They already don’t use Google things, and Apple don’t accomodate them. They’ve got them by the balls and they know it, which is why it’s all just empty threats even from people in here.
The ones that don’t sideload obviously won’t care. But the ones that do are going to have little incentive to stick around if that was the main selling point for them, and the devs for non Google play apps leave because they don’t want to hand over info to Google.
At that point why not go to Apple if Android no longer delivers the type of sideloading experience they desire? Apple is more polished, has longer support, battery life, and better peripherals.
And those types likely will push family to move to Apple too if they are jumping ship, since they might be the ones overseeing tech support for the family anyways.
Closing the side loading option is a path to antitrust suits, a slap in the face to privacy, a kick in the teeth to independent devs and personal use.
There is zero reason for this other than wanting full control of how I use my own phone and how much money/data google can squeeze out of everyone.
I did not purchase a phone to have it later be functionally broken as features it had have been stripped in the name of ‘security’.
A warning message is all that is needed. The current toggle is enough.
We are not toddlers.
There are not possibly enough cases that it warrants such a restrictive policy aside from the stated reasons above.
Give me liberty or give me symbian.
How’s that?
Public pushback on stuff like this does work on occasion. It even worked on Apple when they proposed upload filters for CSAM.
Google’s intent in the short term probably is just about malware, but in the long term it gives them, and governments which can pressure them the ability to ban any app from nearly all Android devices. Once deployed, there’s a near 100% chance of such a mechanism being used for evil.
The malware argument falls like a house of cards when you just dig a bit nd see that Play Store is full of indiscutible malware like flashlight “apps”.
I couldn’t tell from the article, but does this impact ALL apps that do NOT go through the Google Play Store?
What about 3rd party App Stores? Amazon has one, there is also the FOSS app stores like F-Droid. Are those in or out?
F-Droid would likely be out because they rebuild many apps from source.
as long as your phone have GMS preinstalled and listed under Google certification. this will affect you. So, Chinese phone without GMS is fine.
I have a feeling that this is a retaliation for those as Epic is leading a charge against Google Play, and rightly so, not that they are an ally. I just like watching pigs fight.
https://techbriefly.com/2025/08/01/epic-games-store-coming-to-google-play-after-court-win/
