@[email protected] 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.
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.
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.
https://github.com/evanman83/OURS-project
Doesn’t really slide into the back pocket but…
Haha nice! There’s also this gizmo that looks really promising. I think this is the one where they were talking about an LTE module. Or yeah, could always just tether!
https://mecha.so/comet#overview
Also this DIY project that seems a bit more… Involved.
Enable Wireless debugging
not everyone has wifi at home, and this doesn’t work without one. It’s also very complicated for people. it is basically a wall around a garden.
also you either have to set adb over wifi to automatically turn on when connecting to that wifi, which is not that safe, or turn it on manually every time you want to install apps or updates. with that, the recent android feature to allow 3rd party stores to update their apps without a prompt goes out the window.
Petitions are useless.
Petitions are useless
Protests are useless
Governments and corporations conspire to implement surveilance knowing what comes next
<-- we are here
Actual resistence
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.
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.
Nah! If they kill it Linux mobile will get better!
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.
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?
Yes, lots. Here - try the dumb phone finder tool here; it’s region specific
TCL Flip.
Its also like $100
Start working on a Cydia-like app for android or graphene. Look into the development of how to code an open source repository style app store that’s accessible through custom firmware. if one person can make one for the iphone via a custom firmware then, we can 100% do the same with android.
I genuinely appreciate the cause, but to sign this, I have to provide PII, agree to their terms of service and privacy policy, and get automatically opted-in to their mailing list that I’ll have to unsubscribe from later.
So to petition against this shitty tech stuff, I have to go through this other shitty tech stuff. It sucks how normalized this all has become.
here it makes at least some sense to verify that each person voted once. the mail list stuff is of course to much and should be optional from the beginning.
Anyone know if this affects GrapheneOS users? I can install GrapheneOS like 50x faster than it would take to understand what I’m legally binding myself to by signing the petition.
custom OS shouldn’t be effected by it. I’ll probably change soon as well.
anyway, that is rather independent on the petition. a petition is usually not for your own short term benefit, rather for the common good, or outreach of the general problem. so doing either is for different reasons, both reasonable
Really starting to wonder what they signed with apple to get RCS. Seems to be they sold the soul of android.
In what way does this have anything to do with RCS or Apple lmao
Google apple agreed to increase android security for the deployment of RCS to both platforms. This directly looked like enforcing root detection and safety net(now play integrity) enforcement to use RCS. I’m speculating restricting side loading is also part of that agreement. It would make sense considering it’s forbidden on apple.
Sorry, but do you have a source for this at all?
As far as I can tell, they have added some Play Integrity checks (with root detection being part of that), but the reason was cited as spam prevention, and I can’t find anything claiming they had any sort of agreement with Apple to do so.
They kept pushing for Apple to implement it, but I don’t know of any cases of them making any promises about what they’d do on their own platform in order to convince Apple or anything like that.
I cannot find my source unfortunately poked around a bit. Unfortunately this article was better than even the ones I was finding.
Wait so you’re somehow trying to blame THIS on Apple too?
MAKE AN OPENSOURCE STORE THROUGH CUSTOM FIRMWARE DUHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH Example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cydia
“In August 2009, Wired reported that Freeman claimed about 4 million, or 10 percent of the 40 million iPhone and iPod Touch owners to date, have installed Cydia.[17]”
Mandate that all boot loaders can be unlocked by consumers/device owners!
That single change alone would open the floodgates of development.
Manufacturer locked boot loaders was the single biggest mistake made in the phone world. Now just consider all the work it’ll take to reverse that simple misstep made years ago that nobody gave a single thought to.
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…
Yep, just reinstall the OS so that’s removed, and you’re unimpacted. Easy.
Like herpes, it comes back :) The second you connect to WiFi or mobile data…
If you want to avoid it - for good - you need to install CFW. Or you need to play whackamole with firewalls. But those come with other issues.
Big evil knows what they’re doing - switching it off and on again won’t fool em for long (if at all) :(
No, it doesn’t come back. Google will not be installed by default.
I’ve never had it on my phone because I never add gapps when installing Android.
Well sure, if you’re installing CFW or aosp and you don’t need the ever increasing cruft that seems to rely on Play store authentication. Never install GApps, done.
Some folks (not you or I) need to access play store to install their apps (I think even WhatsApp and Signal need it now; I couldn’t install it on my phone), 2FA, transport apps, bank apps etc.
Catch 22 for them.
- degoogled phone…but can’t install all the apps they need
- Google ecosystem… but at whims of Google.
Try to uninstall it with ADB if it’s already installed on ya phone, i use ShizuTools personally
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.Most people can’t live without the apps that are available only on Google’s store or that require Google Play Services
Example of that: governments apps, like the eID app for the european eID (which, it’s not a must for everyone but it may be for some specific people or just everyone in a country)
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’re right. The green fascists will probably change their minds and just be cool about this.
You’re right, we should just roll over instead of fighting for a better future.
My original comment’s point was we should push as hard as we can into Linux and abandon green fascism all together
And my point was that putting all your eggs in one basket, especially if they’re not even laid yet, is foolhardy.
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
Oh cool so nothing to worry about then. You’re safe from the fascists coming to take your phone in that case…
…right?
Oh you still need to ditch android, as Google is going the way of apple. Not sure what I will do for a new phone right now.
But as android has a Linux kernel, the amount of Linux things is amazing
There we are. Pedantry aside, welcome back to the conversation
It’s Linux-ish under the hood really. No Android device I’m aware of is running the vanilla kernel.
deleted by creator
More freeBSD
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.
@DosDude @NotEasyBeingGreen The fun thing about this whole saga is that there’s linux phone stack stuff that’s been completely neglected for the past ~15 years that we’re now having to bring back to functionality because of projects taking up pieces of maemo/meego.
Unfortunately not available for in the US :(
I want one so badly
I’m in Canada. I got myself a Sony Xperia and bought a Sailfish licence for it so I could get the Waydroid integration and predictive text keyboard. Works pretty well. So if you are interested in the OS rather than the hardware, that could be a route to go.
Technically, the licence is not for sale in Canada (or US), but meh, it did work at the time. Probably still does.
Anyway, I quite enjoy Sailfish. Been using it for about 4 years now or thereabouts. There’s a fair number of native apps, especially with Chum and Storeman. With Waydroid, many Android apps work too, though definitely not all.
Historically the most technically inclined are always the first to a “new” technology. I don’t see why this round should be any different a the ipad generation will come when it’s their time.
A 24hr waiting period to use a competitor’s product has to be one of the most blatant anti-competitive behaviour in history.
I‘m curious I read the petition and didn‘t see mention of „24h waiting“ anywhere could you tell me what you‘re referring to?
The 24h wait period is a part of the so-called “advanced flow” which will become the only way to install apps not verified by google once their new rules go into effect, as described here: https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2026/03/android-developer-verification.html
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.)
That’s it gents! Wax up those mustaches, load the cannon with grape, storm the White House! We’ll give those bastards a day of reckoning that won’t soon be forgot.
Also kilts and face paint 🤣
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
Or just call a constitutional convention and write a new one.
That surely won’t backfire spectacularly.
I am not from the US but can’t you interpret the first amendment in a way that would work here?
Code is just information and you could argue that a platform is infringing on private free speech.
i am American, and yes we have a long history of interpretation that is expansive. the problem is we have narrow minded people running the institutions now who don’t even want the narrow interpretations to be in effect so they do everything possible to limit them.
if you pay attention long enough you will see them use one argument to get their way, then later use the opposite to get their way on a different issue. there is no moral consistency because morality is just s tool to them.
What competitor?
Welcome to McDonald’s credit! You’ll have to wait 24hrs if you want to eat that Whopper you want to buy!
The number of times that signing an online petition has prevented the plans of an evil corporation is exactly zero.
There are already some movements, like #Keep Android Open that ask to contact local regulators and law makers, this petition is useful to have a concrete number of people that agree and that can be used officially
I am not so sure. It creats activity, being passive is worse. We should encourage all type of protests, even petitions.
It dissipates righteous indignation by making sure that people feel the satisfaction and the release of “doing something” (and thus not act any more forcefully) whilst said “something” is the least impactful thing imaginable.
It ultimately makes those who would do more do less instead.
Fire also creates activity.
I’m highly active at a molecular level doesn’t mean I’m getting shit done 😊
at the molecular level at that.
Companies have reversed unpopular decisions in the past (just saw a thing about Facebook reversing some AI thing). So there may be some possible chance of them reversing this decision. I’m not hopeful but the cost is cheap, and it has a better chance of success than doing nothing
Hence the proliferation of spam… It cost nearly nothing to do and has a very limited chance of return… And yet my inbox has still got 10,000 messages in it which I do nothing about.
I agree. Doesn’t do anything it would be better to get people to buy stock in the company and vote on what you want. Get enough people and you can make change.
But that process is also… Gross. And expensive.
You aren’t going to keep Android open. Respond by shoring up Linux phones.
Not only would that solve this little problem, it would reduce Google’s power and remove one’s data from the claws of US authorities (were the Patriot and Cloud acts let them mass track everybody using a Google product).
Just make sure you chose a non-US Linux phone.
I don’t want to buy a new phone
Awww
I don’t want to, but I will if I have to
Google doesn’t give a shit about what you want. It only understands two things: credible legal threats and not giving them your money.
I’m saying I don’t want to buy a new thing, so saying “just buy new phone” doesn’t really help for a lot of people
These people are screwed, then. You can’t expect an uncaring universe to accomodate your wishes, if you’re not willing to move yourself. Stopping using stuff is always an option that doesn’t cost money.
or making a cydia-style open source repository style app store that’s accessible through custom firmware.
This will not work either. Stop using Android.
deleted by creator
Most of the world can’t afford to buy one specific android and hope not to brick it. Most people can’t afford a google pixel and if they can, are going to risk it.
And what happens when google cuts off third party tools like MicroG. I need WhatsApp for almost everything from talking to family and friends to Work. Most of the world does, and th3 space is true for Facebook.
Which is why you stop using Android and use Linux phones instead.
Most Linux phones are android phones that have a Linux rom available to them, hence why they said most people wouldn’t risk what they spent a lot of money on
I didn’t say put a Linux rom on an android phone. I said use a Linux phone.
Most people can’t afford a google pixel and if they can, aren’t going to risk it.
And they shouldn’t. By buying Pixels you are supporting Google, the same company that is destroying Android freedom.
Today’s best alternatives are phones that come preloaded with custom ROMs (Brax3, Fairphone, Murena, Iodé, and so on), or if you’re feeling more adventurous, a Linux phone (I have heard good things about FuriLabs FLX1).
“I need WhatsApp for almost everything from talking to family and friends to Work. Most of the world does, and the same is true for Facebook.”
Whatsapp and Facebook bring convienence for sure, but you can live without them. All those that know me, know i refuse to use Whatapp. Those that want to keep up with me have installed Signal. I admit that for business it can be tricky but we have to start somewhere?
Then you are fucked right? What’s app and Facebook have you.
I too live somewhere this is expected. I said no. I won’t do it. Facebook is easy, because whatever.
WhatsApp is harder even the doctors want to use it. But I won’t. Someone has to start saying no.
Fuck you Pichai.
This feels like the last stop for this. I swear it got posted 3X a day to every other sub for weeks last year.
Am I ignoring the actual post and just looking at the logo because I own a 7 year old iPhone —also yes.
