verified but still not responsible.
this post was submitted on 21 Mar 2026
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Android
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Google is the biggest threat to anything good in technology, this cancer must be eradicated
There actually has been an update on this. The advanced flow has been revealed and it's like a 24-hour wait and a few prompts to go through and I'll reboot and enabling developer mode... Bit of friction but all in all it's better than nothing I guess.
The dev verification is "optional". With the condition that if a developer doesn't then users can only install after jumping through a few hoops.
Yeah at least it's better than Apple's approach, where you have to connect your phone to a PC once every 7 days to reactivate Developer Mode. Don't have a computer? Fuck you!
That said, I have zero faith in Google sticking with the compromise solution in the long run. They're going to try to force the change on everyone again in the future, once they've broken us down a bit more.
Meanwhile at least we have a little longer than September before they actually ruin the platform completely... How long? Who could say but I'll take what small victories I can get
google can eat shit.
the moment I see a viable linux phone, I'm out.
But they did this knowing that at this point there is not a viable alternative. It's both monopoly, vendor lock, eee and enshittification all at once..
by 2027 there will be a linux phone. consumers won't put up with this shit and vendors aren't so blind to see an opportunity.
2127....
2227...
2327...
2427...
Surely 2527 will be the year of the Linux phone...
There was already a Linux phone and even a Firefox phone, but with no wide app support it's going to be a failure, just like it happened with Windows Phone.
And I'm saying this as a person who would love for a true Linux phone alternative to succeed.
All a Linux phone needs to succeed is an app store and to be able to securely process payments without google and then developers and companies are interested.
Wait that’s not a thing already?
So people can just make scam apps and once you report it to the App Store there is no recourse because even the company doesn’t know who they are?
The recourse has been removal.
And the solution proposed is not requiring identification specifically for Play store developers, but any developer at all.
Removal but no means for consumers to seek money back or damages because it’s just the Wild West?
I think if you’re publishing an app to a public store then they should know who the fuck you are.
This includes not in the Google play store so like f-droid or like how people would get software from a places website or GitHub or sourceforge or wherever and installing it like you can on Windows or a Mac or Linux
Starting to think phones should just go back to being exclusively for calling and texting anyway, maybe emailing too. Everything else can be done from a laptop. Does it really make our lives better to have access to everything through our phones?
Yeah, I'm not dragging a laptop around everywhere with me to search business opening hours / locations etc
Sure, mapping and locale data is extremely helpful and makes up a significant portion of what I use my phone for when I'm out and about. My question is more geared towards whether the ability to bank, shop or use social media from my phone is really necessary.
Obviously, it's a personal choice and I'm more thinking aloud when I question whether I'd be okay with the trade-off of having a phone with fewer capabilities.
I do like being able to look things up on a browser and I use the gps mapping a lot but most of the other stuff is fluff.
Fuck them. I hope open source / de-googled android can somehow survive this.
So much for their “don’t be evil” policy
didnt they drop it like decade ago?
Yeah, about the same time we started cutting Google out of our day to day. Every time we hear about Google it’s just getting more and more evil/greedy in one way or another
I don’t get it… Google‘s main appeal over Apple is that you can install anything on Android. It runs worse, is less stable and sometimes just does dumb stuff. That’s like if Nintendo would get rid of Mario/Pokémon
I don't think that's really the main appeal, honestly. The main appeal is just that it isn't Apple. And were I someone who didn't care about the installation of third-party applications, I wouldn't be running to buy an iPhone. Android is just plain more customizable and if you need a quality of life feature, you're probably going to find some way to have it.
Android is just plain more customizable and if you need a quality of life feature, you're probably going to find some way to have it.
Yes.
I used to feel that way about stock Android, but the really useful apps dried up on Google Play a few years back.
Discovering F-Droid brought back the joy of customizing Android, for me.
My conclusions:
- Much of the charm of Android is already gone for the average user, but many haven't noticed.
- Making F-Droid harder to install isn't going to help.
I'm not sure what Google has done to alienate the folks writing quality free apps, but whatever it is, most of them are only on F-Droid, already.
This feels like Google is just shutting the door on the walled garden they've been building for awhile.
Except now that feature is locked
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Android's own appeal probably died somewhere in 2013 or 2014, but it has always kept strong for a very simple reason: phone prices. You could either pay 700 dollars for an iphone, or 200 for an android
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I hope projects like Postmarket OS and Sailfish get big enough soon and have compatibility in banking apps so we can make the switch to Linux phones. Android is a sinking ship tbh.
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