Google says it’s no different than checking IDs at the airport.
Fucker, if I own the airport, own the planes in the airport, am the only person using my own planes in my own airport, then nobody is asking for my ID.
Our phone, our software choice.
Fucker, if I own the airport, own the planes in the airport, am the only person using my own planes in my own airport, then nobody is asking for my ID.
Okay, but what if Google owns the airport, the planes, and thinks it’s entitled to own the people flying on them, to boot?
Our phone, our software choice.
But what if you owned nothing and were happy about it?
Read the contracts you sign when you buy your phone and you’ll understand how wrong you are. The problem here is we have very little choices. Monopolies kill consumer choice.
Read the contracts you sign when you buy your phone
Contracts? Unless I’m buying a subsidized phone where a mobile phone plan is required, I’m not sure what other contract I’d be signing. I never got one from Samsung, OnePlus, Google, any used marketplace, or Amazon.
They get paid, and I get hardware to do what I like with it. If I can’t do what I want with it, then I’m renting, and I should be paying a rental fee, not a “full price”.
Good for you, you are the 1%
99% of those contracts are not enforceable. And I bought my phone used. No paper, no contract.
I didn’t sign a contract. Also just flashed the Pixel to GrapheneOS, and bye bye google
If you use the term “sideloading” you already lost the battle before you finished your sentence
2026 - year of the Linux Phone :D
Google getting rid of all the things that made people want an android phone over an iPhone.
Yep, if this happens there is no benefit to android.
I mean, there is still UI/UX, app store policies, and general cost/options.
This definitely makes Android a lot less appealing. But it is also questionable to act like the biggest reason to use android was sideloading apps since the vast majority of users don’t even know that is an option (and probably shouldn’t since they have no understanding of how to vet them). Especially since Apple isn’t any better (?).
Comrade, the ignorance of the masses should not dilute our anger
Ui/ux is honestly worse on android compared to something like ios. The playstore is honestly stuffed with ads and seems to be actively regressing in ux (the update apps menu is hidden behind like 3 layers of dialogues). Cost wise a used iPhone is probably a better deal than a cheap new android phone.
I used android primarily because I could install apps Apple basically doesn’t care about (and after the 5th time gba4ios broke).
Maybe it’s because I’m used to android, but iOS feels user hostile in ways that android never has been, especially when it comes to storage management and pushing iCloud subscriptions.
Well android phones dont have removable sd card slots anymore, the only way to transfer files is over the weird protocol that’s slower than directly writing to disk, if you use pixel or Samsung youre already inundated with annoying ads. The ecosystem is pretty awful now. Installing a custom rom is a good idea, but depending youre phone model it could be a step down and if your on any Samsung phone with knox it basically irreparably damages some attestation fuse. Apple ain’t much better. I might try a Linux phone next.
There is a lot wrong with android, but it’s super easy to transfer files over USB or just download them. I use Nextcloud personally. Then you can manipulate them with your choice of file manager.
I got a new phone recently, Samsung with Knox, the worst part about it so far compared to other Android has been how it is quick to kill background apps, and the UI is honestly disorienting compared to how I’m used to doing things. I haven’t been shown ads yet, but I did go ahead and disable all the Samsung apps I could find. This includes not being able to control how quickly it kills background apps, but it’s the lesser of two evils.
I’m not sure what Knox attestation is, but it sounds really unfortunate, and I want to search it now. I agree the phones of today are awful and the only reason I got this one was the price.
Linux phones are moving fast but it feels like Android is moving faster on the other direction 😥
(Yes I know Android is built over Linux, I mean more traditional and open distros like postmarketos)
Are they moving fast? It’s been like 18 years since the iPhone came out and there really isn’t a viable Linux phone.
There was a viable Linux phone 15 years ago: Nokia N900. Microsoft took care of that when they bought Nokia. At least Windows phone was a resounding success…
Whatever things made people get into Android some 20 years ago are no longer relevant to the majority of people.
The biggest benefit will remain the apps. People love apps. In that regard, their only competition is Apple. It’s why no one can make a new phone OS.
The other reason is cost. If you want a cheap device, Apple has no such thing. There are hundreds of Android devices you can buy for a couple hundred dollars.
For those who buy Samsung flagships for more than an iPhone, well those people I can’t explain.
I can see apps becoming less important over time. PWAs were basically what Apple originally planed for the smartphone anyway and now they are capable of damn near anything you would want an app to do. No store to rely on. No updates to install. No storage space being eaten into. The browser engine functions as a layer of abstraction between the scary untrusted app and your own OS. It’s kinda perfect.
You might think so but PWAs have been around for a long time and seen very little adoption.
They haven’t been promoted or supported well until fairly recently. Also, Firefox is not compatible with PWAs but chrome, edge, and safari are.
They’ve been well-supported for many years.
Open Firefox and pin a PWA. I’ll wait.
Wait for what? I’ve done this many times.
I need an OS for phone which is completely controlled by community.
Wtf is this
Isn’t this like 90% of the reason people prefer android over apple?
it was. Time for a new phone OS.
Wasn’t Apple sued for not allowing sideloading?
I’m probably going to spam this around a bit, since most people don’t seem to know about it, but a reminder that FuriLabs has a (GNU+)Linux phone with decent spec.s and the ability to run Android app.s (from what I’ve heard) pretty decently: https://furilabs.com/
Biggest drawback is it’s based on Halium. Usual growing pains of a new product/company apply but apparently the company is pretty responsive and their dev.s have worked with customers to get things like calling working with the carrier and bands of their country where it hasn’t worked before so improvements move pretty quickly.
Collection of different experiences I’ve variously seen online over the last year or so:
- https://clehaxze.tw/gemlog/2025/07-20-flx1-actually-usable-linux-phone.gmi
- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41839326
- https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1fa1ljn/furilabs_flx1/
- https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1j46f2w/flx1_linux_phone_display_out/
- https://www.theregister.com/2025/02/03/furiphone_flx1/
I don’t own one, myself, so I can’t give any personal experience but I’ve seen it around for a few years now but most people don’t seem to even know about it. Maybe there’s a reason for that? But none I’ve ever seen anyone say.
Democracy is dead. Welcome to the neo dark ages. Take up arms.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch
Malware-ridden apps made it into Google’s Play Store, scored 19 million downloads
https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/26/apps_android_malware/
Right, only install “verified” from Google Play, but that is where malware is, other 3rd party app stores like F-Droid, that really verify apps are at risk of getting killed by Google
This is very obviously step one in a plan to kill apps like alternative YouTube clients that block ads, just like the Manifest V3 rollout was intended to kill ad blockers in Chrome. Once they have everyone using this verification system, then they can just arbitrarily deverify anything that contravenes whatever new acceptable usage policy they just made up.
How about letting the users decide what to sideload? What the hell?
I hope the EU is ready to also sue Google.
The EU already forced sideloading to be officially supported on iPhones thanks to the Digital Markets Act, and that law applies to Google as well.
The US will likely apply pressure, just like they are trying to force their death machines to be legalized on European roads. Apple already tried to pressure the union and failed, but the political climate has changed a bit since then, and while EU bureaucrats can be fierce, European leadership tends to be weak as fuck.
But yeah, chances are that this change won’t apply to the EU. :)
Does the law demand unsigned software?
Google is clearly trying to find a loophole here. Their loophole clearly sucks.
In all likelihood it’ll end up in front of the Court of Justice of the European Union. And in all likelihood Google will lose again.
The Court of Justice generally seems unimpressed by American lobbyists, so the strategy of finding a dumb loophole is probably doomed to fail.
That didn’t answer my question. M
Does the law demand unsigned software?
The answer is no. It’s not phrased like that. But it’s all about ensuring free competition in digital markets. The sole purpose of Google’s move here is to hinder competition in their own digital market, and to keep control over it.
So the law does not have a paragraph stating that “unsigned software must be allowed”, but it has a bunch of other paragraphs that can be used to strike down on monopolistic behaviour.
Google are aware of the law, and will try to find a loophole by designing a system that they believe technically complies with it. Then someone will sue them, it will end up in the European court, and the European court will in all likelyhood tell Google to get fucked.
It seems american tech companies think they can get away with anything because that’s how it works in the US. We are repeatedly seeing that this is not how it works in Europe: the Court of Justice tends to care deeply about the intention of the law, as well as the perceived consequences of their rulings. And they don’t seem to care all that much about American capitalists.
But to answer your question very simply: No, it doesn’t. But thankfully that doesn’t matter at all.
I feel like there should independent signing authorities that the major platforms honor. But that’s its own can of worms. Who runs them, is it the government? A non-profit? How do we prevent corruption of that entity, etc.
And yeah, the tech companies have raced ahead of comprehension. At least the comprehension that reasonable and good lawmakers have. At the same time, it’s increasingly looking like the terrible people in power know just how far ahead tech is. (Thiel)
Why exactly do we need signing authorities? Software isn’t zero trust like websites. You do need to trust the developer - even a legitimate one. Signing apps with verified developer keys will only hurt small independent developers, open source projects and freedom enabling stuff like user patching.
It only works to solidify monopolies and doesn’t protect you against shit.
You can’t make laws for every single possible future reality. We need courts that uphold laws even when billionaires try to dodge them using shady techniques. The problem is that big tech often gets away with murder because they can afford expensive lawyers. Especially in the US laws are essentially meaningless for the rich. This is not so much the case in Europe.
I have heard some positive signals from the European Court of Justice that they are taking the challenge from big tech seriously and that they are going the extra miles to understand these issues. If you’re particularly interested, many judges talk about this in the Borderlines podcast series by Berkley law. But it gets really dry really fast haha.
I don’t believe in signing authorities. It’s not effective - Google can’t even keep malware off the play store - and it’s an authoritarian move. Hell, most apps in the play store spy on their users, profiling usage to sell to advertisers along with ID codes that makes it possible to combine data between apps and build detailed profiles of individuals. The problem is not apps that are not signed - the problem is the whole economy of apps that work as Google intend them to.
Also, it’s a basic question of rights. It’s my phone, I bought the hardware, I own it, I install whatever the fuck I want on it.
I guess it’s time to buy a linux phone
I wish a Linux tablet will be ready by the time the custom ROMs will be killed off.
Best I’ve been able to do is a Lenovo Yoga. Ubuntu runs great and touch works well enough. But yeah… not really the same.
Thanks for putting that option on my radar.
I honestly wish for the responsible people to die. A natural, painless death, but let it be quick. All of silicon valley is so evil it would be deemed unrealistic for a movie villain. They are selling out our freedoms and planet for what? They are already stinking rich.
Most moderate lemmy user when talking about digital freedom:
Moderates is what got us into this dystopia. We should have never tolerated greed and selfishness to begin with.
