I heard that they’re probably going to be using the Google Play store and probably similar modules to play protect to enforce this. So the question becomes will disabling the Google Play store bypass this? It outright kills play protect dialogue as well as its app disabling capability as a whole since play protect is part of Google Play store.
How can that be legal?
Because Apple does it
Fuck.
Wasn’t it made illegal on Europe?
Time for a hard fork.
Yeah, need them hardware manufacturers too.
We would have plenty of Linux phones if drivers were open sauce or even just available closed sauce.
any good replacement phone OSes out there?
Not until this pain is felt and developers see an opportunity
For your security we’re going to block your access to FOSS and apps that let you avoid our ads. This is totally not a business decision. Pinky swear.
for the greater good
This good is gonna be so great after we lose everything to the worst of us.
My phone is not an airport. It’s a garbage collection machine found in a trash, with a battery so it looks portable. I don’t need an ID to use it, nobody will ever need.
No one talking about how this could completely annihilate open source .apk development? First off the lead dev has to get identity verified to get a key, which will reduce the number of devs willing to push through friction to start a project. Then when the key is issued and it is posted to the repository, what keeps anyone from grabbing it and using it for another repo? We’ll they have an official app registration of some kind, ok, what about version control? Does every new version have to be registered before it can be loaded and tested? Same for forks?
This is about to be a terrible mess, Google is assassinating FOSS with this.
You distribute the code without your key and a built package that is signed. This isn’t exactly rocket science.
Anyone who forks the code will have to use their own key to install a package they built.
It’s just unnecessary red tape.
It’s just unnecessary red tape.
Which will reduce the number of people using foss apks, which will in turn, reduce the motivation, and then the number, of foss apk developers.
Google says it’s no different than checking IDs at the airport.
You’re not a fucking airport, Google!
i dont need to show id to fly domestic…
Also we bought and own the fucking plane! Don’t tell us where we can fly to!
Bettler. We bought the airport. Google was paid to pave the runway and maintain it for a couple years after. And now they try to dictate that only planes they approve may start and land.
Google has been been cracking down on installing .apk’s on your phone for years and they’re getting more and more aggressive about it. It’s not a question of if they’ll disallow it completely, but when.
It’s already extremely tedious. Back in the Android 2.3 days (oh, good old Gingerbread) you could just get an APK and install it, but those times are long gone.
Years ago they threatened the developer of Total Commander to remove his app from the PlayStore unless he patched out an APK install feature, so he was forced to do that.
Now another example: Try to install eBay on a phone that is not passing device integrity. It is not listed on the PlayStore because your device doesn’t pass safety checks. You can grab an APK and install it, but the OS will check if the app has been installed through the PlayStore and if it hasn’t, it will complain and close itself.
GrapheneOS has patched that bullshit out, btw.
And this behaviour happens with all apps where the developer has enabled the “App Integrity” option, which is heavily pushed as a super-great security feature. So developers might just enable that feature, not being fully aware of the implications.
As you can see, it’s one method at a time, slowly but surely, until Google fully controls the ecosystem. The intention behind that is pretty clear: They don’t want people to have AdAway and Revanced, they want money and user data. And they also want you to login to the PlayStore, get hooked on their stupid daily points challenges and spend your hard-earned money on virtual crap.
This is textbook enshittification, it will only get worse from here on.
AdAway can be easily emulated using a DNS server…
Yeah I carry that DNS server around with me in the other pocket /s
Idk why you’re meming, it’s easy as hell to run it on device, or you can just use dns.adguard.com instead
To be fair, unless you’re using a private, controllable DNS with a frontend interface (like NextDNS, Pihole, etc) – DNS ad blocking is “all or nothing”. Those apps let you control which apps and services and domains come through.
I’m aware, I choose to use the adguard one but I’ve used the on-device ones in the past
Oddly enough your phone is more than powerful enough to do that.
Hve linux nerds invented a new OS for phones yet? I think I’m gonna need one
Postmarket OS is getting there. It only runs at all on a couple dozen older phones. And they don’t currently have receive voice. But 2 months ago they didn’t have 4G data or send voice so…
Oh, and battery life is not good.
My next mobile device will likely be a small tablet running Linux and a Wi-Fi hotspot.
They did, it’s not great and device support is very limited.
At this point I’m thinking of just carrying around a small touchscreen laptop
From what I can tell most of the roadblock is drivers for hardware support. Basically every price of hardware has to have a reverse engineered driver to work. We need hardware mfrs on board to really gain traction in this arena.
Still, I’m pretty sure my next phone is going to be a Linux phone. I know I’ll lose functionality but if I can make calls, send texts, and browse the web I’ll get by. Hopefully that space keeps gaining traction and it won’t be long until it is a truly viable option to replace google/apple products.
imho the biggest roadblock is more general applications. Most desktop apps don’t scale well or at all to mobile screens, but it’s better than nothing.
Yes, and its pretty great on devices you can install it on.
Problem is? Its not possible to install on most phones.
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.
It also becomes no different than iPhone, so… what’s keeping me to android if they do this? Or hey, maybe I’ll commit to de-googling. I have CoMaps, I’m planning to setup nextcloud soon… Hell, I don’t even buy anything on Google play anymore since it’s so shit, i have no purchases tying me to the OS. Maybe I’ll buy a cheap old iPhone so I can finally use imessage with everyone that’s been bitching about me and use other tech for everything else.
(I’m not going to iPhone, but the point stands)
The only reason I still have Android is work apps in required to have that won’t work properly without the Play Store. I guess I could carry two phones but I am definitely not that guy.
I’m wondering why I even need a smartphone at this point. I’m tempted to go back to a flip phone.
That is precisely one of my main lines of reasoning; I’ve thought about this for a long, long time, and I’m switching to Apple iPhone. I’m keeping a Oukitel Titan for Android stuff ((Grayjay)). But I’m getting the 17 Extra Pro Max Plus Plus or whatever for a main.
Let Google know what you think: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfN3UQeNspQsZCO2ITkdzMxv81rJDEGGjO-UIDDY28Rz_GEVA/viewform
Not touching that website with a 10’ pole, spyware confirmed.
It’s the official feedback form from https://developer.android.com/developer-verification
You didn’t confirm anything.
Last time I check google is willing to log every keystroke you make on their sites, doesn’t matter if it’s YouTube.com, Gmail.com or Android.com if google owns and controls the content its spyware.
A fair point, but you misrepresented the nature of the link all the same.
I know it’s not for everyone, but my Light Phone III arrives soon and tech headlines of late aren’t making me regret my choice.
This device looks really interesting, but I don’t see anything on their site about how I can write software for Light Phone, or install anything except what they provide through their app.
How is that any different from what Google plans to do to Android?