Openness was the primary reason I always stuck with android. Without that, fuck them. If I have no options I’m just gonna use Huawei.
If some company did this with computers 20 years ago they would probably go bankrupt the next year. This is what happens when tech oligarchies are allowed.
This is almost what apples infrastructure is…
The main difference is they (Apple) have been clear with their design choice since the beginning and they had their own market. Google here is imposing this change on many users who did not want such an ecosystem to start with. But I suppose the market share of people who won’t care about this will be large enough that they will survive, because they are a tech monopoly.
Yeah, it’s pretty crazy comparing this to some of the stuff Microsoft got in trouble for with Internet Explorer back in the '90s.
And then after doing all that you still need to confirm a scary warning every single time you install an app. As if it wasn’t enough.
With these steps, you might as well unlock your bootloader. WTF.
Can anyone explain how this isn’t an illegal monopoly? I’m genuinely curious
Because there are more iPhones in America.
Ignore that Apple also makes it impossible to side load apps.
I’m not criticizing you because that’s the typical term, but we really need to stop calling it side loading. It’s just installing. Calling it that makes it sound like something special and different.
Apple was the canary in the coal mine for this behavior in the EU. Apple was forced to allow third party apps, so Apple mandated that everyone had to register with them, and pay them their yearly fee, and then developers had to pay Apple another fee (core technology fee, still double dipping), and governments were completely fine with that. (And developers will happily jump through more hoops to develop on iOS).
Google saw this and decided if they can, so can Google. And this technically is the easier of the two as at least this doesn’t require every developer to register with Google this way.
Really good point to illustrate how liberal reform efforts just redirect capitalist control into an increasingly contrived legal system.
Because there are alternatives. No one is forcing you to use Android.
Doesn’t matter when the CEO sits at the table with the US president. If it’s illegal it won’t be enforced. Or it’ll be made legal. Or it won’t be made illegal. And if you want to make it illegal in your country - there’s punitive tariffs coming your way from the US president.
Still worth it for revanced!
I’d be interested in seeing a statistic of how much this reduces the impact of intentionally malicious apps. I know it’s not the real motivation, but still.
It’s possible that part of why those attacks don’t really happen is precisely because it’s already so controlled. That said, I still think this is BS. Dint mistake me as defending Google here.
Given that the official Google Play store has distributed intentionally malicious apps in the past, I’d say it reduces it by approximately none.
I’m sure it’s a non-zero effect.
It’ll also paint targets on the backs of people who are using newpipe, greyjay, and pipepipe. I’ll be interesting to see if they try to coorelate people running adblock as pirates and start dumping google accounts. You could run those apps logged out prior and remain anonymous. It’s very likely package installed will rat you out now.
Confirm with biometrics… WTF?!
People should have the universal right to live a cellphone-free life. In my country, it is assumed that everyone uses an iPhone or a Google Android phone as if it was part of your own self.
I’m confused by this comment. The outrage is that if you want to use your phone, in the modern smartphone sense of the word which uses apps, then you have to do so by Google’s rules which excludes a lot of apps you might want to run, or jump through ridiculous hoops apparently including biometrics to do so with your own device. That’s terrible, but, this particular outrage is quite separate to one’s ability to live a cellphone free life. I’m not going to pretend like that’s not increasingly unfeasible, but this issue with identified developers doesn’t have much to do with it since it’s only an issue for you if you’re even using a phone in the first place and then it just makes using it a much shittier time then it ought to be, it doesn’t lessen or increase the dependency upon phones in general.
It’s about control, in the end. Citizens are now linked by the governments to their phone numbers, as well as companies make it a priority to get your phone number and data.
Somewhere in the middle of not using a mobile at all and having a device that monitors everything you do, non stop, are owning a dumb phone and having some control on the apps you install in your smartphone.
They used to publish a whole book that had your name, and often address linked to your phone. B don’t perfect that this fake outrage by you is anything but disingenuous for what phones and any other hundred identifiers of you as a person to the government or anyone else. Your argument is infantile in it’s temper tantrum for it’s argument.
Or, just use ADB and be done with it.
They’ll come for that next, don’t worry
All for a scam, that rarely happens…
and worse, scams that are ALL over the play store
Graphene os is a good alternative to android. Its privacy and security focused, and also does not come with google serviced preinstalled. The only problem is that its only supported on google pixels, and porting it to other devices is impossible.
Didn’t I hear that they’re planning to release graphene on Motorola?
Thats it, planned, and not yet released. But its good that at least in future there will be more options for a smartphone with foss operating system.
Also, while in practice it would propably never happen, i hope that in the future, more smartphone makers will put alternative operating systems on their phones, or at least make it easier to install third party operating systems on their phones, like it is done on googles own pixels.
You never know. For the time being, foss supporters and enthusiasts are the minority. But with the rising surveillance and information restrictions, such as it is happening with ID/age verification checks in many countries, people will start looking for ways to walk around all this pathetic chicken wire. VPNs seem to do the job for now, but I wonder if maybe alternative OS will gain traction in a not so distant future. They would allow for more flexibility and options
Yes, that will be my next phone provided the price is decent and it has a headphone jack and everything else I need
I’m hoping for a MicroSD card slot. I’m on a Note 20 Ultra which I planned to run for far longer but it got the infamous “random green line out of nowhere” problem. I think Sony is the only one who still puts it in flagships
Pretty much. On a Sony Xperia 1 V and it works great (best phone I’ve ever had). Downside is that the bootlocker for the US version is locked (AT&T thing) so I can’t just put lineageos on it or something, so I’ve been on the lookout for a replacement recently, and the pickings are pretty sparse.
I’m probably gonna have to ride out the stupid Google bullshit for a few months until there is a decent alternative, as the graphene phone from Motorola probably won’t be released this year (and even then it probably won’t have a headphone jack and a micro SD card slot) and pretty much all of the Linux phones available now don’t really meet my needs (also no headphone jack on something like the jolla phone, which as someone used to Linux for years, I know Bluetooth headphones aren’t much of a solid option).
Shoot I also recently got the freaking green line a few weeks ago. Yeah I also refuse to have a phone without a microsd option, why TF are they doing away with that?
To sell cloud storage.
Really hope they’ll have an alternative to Google Wallet. One thing I’d miss.
De-googled Android ROMs:
- GrapheneOS
- LineageOS
- /e/ OS
- Volla OS
Non-android, non-apple smartphones:
- Pinephone
- Pinephone pro
- Librem 5
- Volla Phone 22
- Jolla Phone
- FuriPhone FLX1s
And pretty much every feature phone out there (way too many to list)
De-googled Android ROMs:
Aren’t most of them de-googled? Usually you install gApps separately, unless that’s changed
Non-android, non-apple smartphones:
Not non-android out of the box, but just to add to your list: Ubuntu reports that nearly everything except VoLTE works on the Fairphone 4 and 5, but sadly they don’t support the 6 yet. PostMarketOS shows more issues
I love my Pinetime watch. Really rooting for that company.
Stolen from elsewhere:
You are not getting screwed on this. Google is just applying lube.
Yes
I am not 100% clear on this. Is sideloading different from installing an APK from unknown source by simply taping on it?
It should be just called installing, but they call it sideloading to make it sound shady and complicated.
No that is side loading, and they’re making it more difficult
If I understood correctly, installing an app from any source that’s not GooglePlay or the official app store of the device manufacturer is ‘side loading’ in that regard. Thus, this also applies to e.g. F-Droid or Aurora.
