[…]
In the new blog post, Google’s Matthew Forsythe confirms that the developer verification system is slated to come online on September 30 of this year. The initial deployment will be limited to countries with a high level of app scams: Brazil, Indonesia, Singapore, and Thailand.
[…]
Google released its new developer console back in March, inviting external developers the opportunity to pay $25 and verify their identities early. Developers who don’t register will find that their apps cannot be sideloaded on Google-certified Android devices once verification has rolled out. Google says that almost every app in the Play Store is now ready for the change, and a “large majority” of apps outside Google Play have completed verification.
[…]
Google says it will verify the apps in the following stores when it begins enforcing the new restrictions.
Google (Google Play)
Honor (HONOR App Market)
OPlus (OPPO App Market)
Samsung (Galaxy Store)
Transsion (Palm Store)
vivo (V-Appstore)
Xiaomi (GetApps)
[…]
The next step toward verifying apps will come this month as Google deploys a new system service on most certified devices. The package (com.google.android.verifier) will appear on phones and tablets running Android 8 or higher, allowing Google to block the installation of unverified apps. It will remain dormant until verification is activated in your specific region.
In July, Google plans to roll out the new developer APIs and begin testing for “limited distribution” accounts. This is Google’s solution for hobbyists who want to make their own apps and share them with a small group. Limited accounts won’t require a fee or government ID verification, but you can install these apps on up to 20 devices.
In August, the advanced flow will become available globally ahead of verification becoming mandatory in the first markets. As detailed a few months ago, the advanced flow will allow users to bypass verification, but the process isn’t easy. You’ll have to navigate to a buried menu, confirm you understand the risks multiple times, and wait a whole day before completing the process.
And that brings us to September, when Android devices in Brazil, Indonesia, Singapore, and Thailand will begin checking verification status before installing apps. However, things get murky after that. Google will undoubtedly monitor how verification works as millions of users are suddenly limited to verified apps, which could affect how it moves forward. Google says it intends to expand developer verification in 2027, eventually making it a global device policy.
And now I’ll never be interested in creating software for android. I hope google’s LLMs are up to the task.
LineageOS is the way.
GrapheneOS, too.
Let’s see. I won’t ever buy a Pixel. And Motorola is… iffy.
You can buy a used Pixel. Motorola has some useful hardware, but this is about freedom, not best price performance.
Used pixels are usually oem locked
See the “socialist” up there ☝️?
Price is a component of “freedom”
An additional sting for some of us -
In Australia, not only is 3G deprecated (I miss my Nokia n91), but 4G / 5G must be of the VoLTE variety. To date, there is no after market OS that is fully VoLTE compatible (Legacy, Graphine etc) here - its hit or miss. Additionally, most (but not all) overseas phones are on IMEI black lists by default.
Essentially, because the OEM are lock step with Google, you can’t avoid this issue by purchasing a common phone, unlocking your boot loader (assuming you could in the first place) and flashing CFW. Do that and you can’t make phone calls. Don’t do it, and you get caught up with this new app verification slop.
They think they’re winning… but I think “lol. Keep going. I have a flip phone.” As soon as this Samsung dies (adb debloated and all), I’m out entirely.
My Galaxy A20 has been going strong since 2019. If I get anything, I’ll either be something from that era or just go full flip phone.
PS: someone mentioned the commodore flipphone. I like Perri and the C64 revival but let’s be honest here…the Callback 8020 phone is $$$ for pretty bog standard dumb phone parts. The components don’t justify it (barring perhaps the 48MP camera), let alone some of the design decisions.
If you look, I imagine you can find a local equivalent of this instead -
https://www.officeworks.com.au/shop/officeworks/p/opel-mobile-touchflip-4g-flip-phone-optouchfp
(TTfone or Sunbeam I think?)
With right launcher and larger battery, I find it perfectly cromulent, with very good keyboard. It even runs FUTO voice STT (albeit slowly), my banking apps, Signal, FB messenger, maps, 5MP camera etc. It’s not going to replace flagship anything… but maybe it doesn’t need to. And it’s 1/8th the cost.
There’s a good YouTube channel for anyone considering such devices -
What sort of incompatibilities are present with VoLTE? I’ve used Graphene for about a year and a half without issue but then again I pretty much only use my phone for calls messages and lemmy
Yeah, that’s the fun bit. It’s not that Graphene can’t do calls.
It’s that in Australia, post-3G, “works on 4G” is no longer enough. The phone / firmware / carrier combo has to play nicely with VoLTE, IMS provisioning, and 000 emergency calling. If the carrier doesn’t like that exact combo, you can have perfectly good LTE data and still lose service or get nuked by IMEI/TAC filtering.
Graphene on a supported Pixel is probably the best-case scenario. Sadly, that doesn’t generalise to other phones here. It’s a dice roll.
TL;DR: VoLTE is carrier-blessed black magic. Same bands, same radio hardware on paper…very different outcomes.
Very cromulent system. Much consumer choice.
I hope this leads to the death of Androud and the rise of something more open to replace it. There was a huge market for it when Android came out in competition with Apple’s closed model, but now that Google is closing up Android, let’s hope alternatives get some attention. Unfortunately, alternatives will mean no tap to pay, no RCS, etc., for a long time, since Apple, Google, et al., turned these things as proprietary as possible, but I’d still like a decent alternative to get enough power to eventually change those things.
Problem is things like corporate banking requires an Android or iOS app. Or a GPU with traffic info. There are problems the lack of anti monopoly laws enforcement.
This is a crazy thought, we could elect people willing to enforce anti monopoly laws that are already on the books.
Fantastic idea. As soon as we have that option, that’s what I’ll do. Until then I suppose I’ll watch the two parties full of right wingers ruin everything.
So just because I refuse to forfeit my soul to the Satan’s company, I won’t be able to use my phone? Fuck this and fuck Poogle, I’d rather switch to Nokia 3310!
does anyone know why would anyone use any of the mentioned stores instead of the play store? using f-droid has a clear benefit (they are also not on the supported list). but what is the purpose of those mainly manufacturer specific stores?
If you buy a mainland China phone the app store will be local, for example Oppo store, and Play will be only available as a workaround. I think mainland China phones will be unaffected by Google’s sideloading restriction.
yeah, I am also considering buying a huawei phone with HarmonyOS
Money, and monopolistic behavior. Samsung, for instance, constantly pushes the “Samsung Account” on all their devices. Constantly. For the first two weeks after getting a new Samsung device you will be spammed with “finish setting up your phone” notifications that just want you to sign up for their tracking, and conveniently, when you’re logged into a Samsung account, their app store is the default. And you will get notifications from their app store to download or buy whatever app they recommend. I can only assume the other stores mentioned do similar things.
I think they’re asking why a customer would (actively) choose those app stores over the Play store.
The answer is they don’t choose.
Most people just use whatever the default is, and don’t really know a better option is available until it’s presented explicitly.
Unlinked, code 7919e0d4
?
I hate this timeline
Sooo if I just use adb to disable that service
com.google.android.verifier
I wont have to put up with google’s bs?
Or just reinstall the OS without google.
We’re about to see a bunch of cell phone repair shops offer this service.
Reinstall the os without google? And then have no push notifications? Kinda need push notifs
Why? I have never owned a phone with google. Works great.
Glad it works for you. I need push notifications
Doesn’t MicroG (foss reimplementation of Play Services) fix that?
If thats one of the fixes available to grapheneOS users then yes Im pretty sure thats how you can get push on GOS
Not super sure you can strip google out of your android install and replace it with MicroG though (id love to be proven wrong though) and my bootloaders locked down (fuck you Semensnug you filthy animals)
Wym without google? I couldn’t find anything related to what ur talking about
AOSP is lacking google.
It actually requires an extra step to install Google when you install an OS on an android device.
Just go through the process of installing the OS yourself, and skip the “install gapps” step. You’ll have a phone without google, and this app blocking shite will have no impact on you
Maybe at first, until their customers realise that all their apps need those services. And this is assuming the average person even notices the change in the first place and cares about it.
With MicroG you barely feel the difference these days
I meant the change in Google’s policy.
No I was referring to the line about users needing google play services
Yes, but forcing all users to do that will kill off 90% of the market for F-Droid.
Installing F-Droid (or anything outside of “official” stores) already gets you a bunch of scary warnings that non-techy users would perceive as “omg malware!!” and withdraw from. I’m confident that the Venn diagram between F-Droid users and people who would be willing to use ADB to keep it is a circle. The real problem is that this cuts off anyone without a computer
That kind of behavior calls hard fork. Fuck off google.
and who exactly will benefit from the hard fork? those few who already run a degoogled android and won’t be affected anyway?
Oh I didnt mean anyone else should I was just trying to confirm my thoughts on whether this would work
Trust me fuck Google and this is horrid news for FOSS so I hope there can be some fight back against this dictatorial censorship… Google is evil for trying to create a walled garden like Apple’s out of android
That’s not what I meant. I meant that yes, there are technical ways to get around this garden wall.
But only a very small percentage of users will know of it, or dare open a terminal to issue adb commands to their phone.
So the majority will be locked out of open and free app stores despite the technical possibility to keep using them.
And with fewer users, there will be fewer developers and fewer apps available.
Maybe Commodore saw this coming and that explains the crazy pricing of their linux flip phone.
$500?
I thought that was reasonable. All electronics are expensive these days.
Considering the hardware in it and that it is a flip phone, I’d definitely call it over priced. I realize that it is going to be a low production run and they want to make some money, but $500 is too much for what it offers IMO. I am quite literally the prime market for such a phone, but the price and the forced browser block are stopping me.
Ehh, if they had foresight, they wouldn’t be putting a hardcoded block for all web browsers on the Commodore phone. Instead, it’s mostly just Peri commercializing his personal ideas of what a phone should be based on his past videos.
GrapheneOS is the way to go
I switched a couple months ago and it’s been absolutely fantastic
May a thousand bricks breach Google HQ’s windows.
Bricks aren’t enough, every Google building needs carpet bombing while the assholes who’s main purpose is to do evil are locked inside.
Oh, cool, didn’t know there were so many alternative app stores. Based on a quick google search it seems Xiaomi is the only one with a web interface and that hosts Qobuz and Discord.
Up until now, I haven’t been overwhelmingly emotional about all the horrible things happening right now.
I don’t know why this news hit me particularly hard. Reading it made me feel like a part of me died. Got glassy eyed. This kind of feels like the final betrayal in a sense. Not the ultimate betrayal, but one super close to my heart.
Hey, it’s gonna be alright
- You still will be able to sideload apps, they just add a nasty 24-hour cooldown
- In the meantime, it’s worth having a migration strategy to a mobile OS that actually respects you - be it Graphene, Lineage, or Linux/Sailfish.
be it Graphene, Lineage, or Linux/Sailfish.
The prob comes when the ONLY mobile OS that work for the things ppl want to do are IOS and Android. We could see a world where MOST web sites are locked behind chain-of-trust reqs. Certainly all the important ones needed for normal life.
We’re not quite there today. But it is the direction.
Then you cancel that service and let them know exactly why you did. Hit them in the only thing they care about - money. One doesn’t matter, but 100k would.
Be the change you want to see.
One doesn’t matter, but 100k would.
Yup I agree about that. Financial pressure might be our best hope. Prob is, the HUGE majority of ppl don’t care about things like this. Or even know about them. It’s too abstract for them.
TBH I’m not sure Google would care about 100k! There are allegedly about 3-4B Android users in the world. 100k would be like 0.0033%. Maybe 100 million, and they would begin to notice. That’s a lot to get on side, tho.
I dispair badly. So many ppl have no clue when it comes to their own tech future. Also what is their alternative? IOS is even worse in this way. The masses aren’t gonna install Graphene or w/e. What alternative may we even suggest to them?
I’m not happy about this but they really have no choice.
The android app marketplace is infested with spyware and Android devices were recently found to be the vector for one of if not the worlds biggest botnet (super/bad box).
If you wanna be able to keep using your os to make ad money you gotta lock it down and since Android is largely open source and used by tons of oems that means locking down some part that you could conceivably do without but no one really will.
look, I trust F-droid and open source apps more than I trust the sponsored garbage on play store alongside shit like kalshi and candycrush. The security point is moot. The call is coming from inside the house.
As for ad money, being one of the most grossly profitable corporations in the world isn’t enough? Must line go up always? At what point is having an absurd amount of profit enough? Where is the line?
Google already does what it should: sideloading apps requires you to manually approve the source, and when you do, a popup appears warning user of potential dangers. No need to play daddy any more than this.
Having a locked ecosystem is very convenient and profitable for Google, but terrible for its users. Google wants this walled garden not out of safety, but to get a tight grip on the app stores - and get a solid buck while doing it.
None of this even attempts to address the problem of Google Play (the primary android app marketplace) being filled with malware. Every single app that’s being distributed through Google Play today already has a “verified” developer by the same criteria they’re applying system-wide. That malware can continue working as it already does without any changes.
This is exclusively about Google imposing control on all apps distributed through channels that otherwise used to be outside Google’s control.
Google’s claimed reasoning is that this control is a good thing and makes them be able to block apps made by malware developers in the same way they already do in Google Play, even for users who install apps from other sources. Critics disagree because Google forcibly taking personal information and money from all software developers and wielding the ability to remotely kill any app they don’t like for any reason have far wider consequences than protecting users from malware, and the proliferation of malware on Google Play shows how (in)effective Google’s measures against it are. Neither side believes or claims this can or will make Google Play any safer.
Yes it does.
It forces developers to register if they wanna distribute software. Now they can’t just pivot to a new identity whenever they’re under investigation.
It prevents devices from running software from unverified developers. Now the malware developer can’t just use a third party store to bypass the verification requirements.
That’s both sides of the coin, but wait, there’s more:
End users can disable it if they’re willing to go without play services or can do their own sideloading and support with a “limited” developer account.
The end result is not a panacea that fixes every problem with Android but a move to bring the various official android marketplaces in line with the ios app store.
It prevents devices from running software from unverified developers. Now the malware developer can’t just use a third party store to bypass the verification requirements.
they didn’t need to use a third party store to begin with. the play store is filled with malware.
End users can disable it if they’re willing to go without play services or can do their own sideloading and support with a “limited” developer account.
that is wrong on multiple counts, fortunately they did not lock it down that much (yet). that wouldn’t just be very complicated but that would alao disable a couple of unrelated features of the phone.
The end result is not a panacea that fixes every problem with Android but a move to bring the various official android marketplaces in line with the ios app store.
as if that’s a good thing.
Part of what made badbox/superbox so successful (along with the marketing, mlm stuff, glut of cheap arm/risc decoders, environment of 69 fucking subscriptions a month your average person has to maintain just to watch terminator when they get home from a shift) was the presentation of malware payload apps from third party marketplaces alongside “legit” apps from the first party ones.
It’s the gas station effect. Of course you can trust the Tamriel rebuilt branded rhino pill, it’s on the same rack as the goodys powder and tums!
That same mixing made it very difficult for everyone trying to figure out what was happening to actually get something taken down. Apps on the play store would be barely legal or skirting the law but interacting with or funneling data around apps from third party stores that were definitely doing something “wrong”.
When takedown notices were sent for the play store apps they didn’t have any effect on the third party hosted ones.
So for the whole thing to run how it did, yeah, they needed third party repositories.
You might not see this as a good thing, but Google does. And tbh they’re right. It’s bad for the minuscule number of users who actually load stuff from third party sources, but its incredibly good for them as a company and a brand.
You might not see this as a good thing, but Google does. And tbh they’re right. It’s bad for the minuscule number of users who actually load stuff from third party sources, but its incredibly good for them as a company and a brand.
oh, sure they are right. it was almost harming their profits! they were on the brink of the current quarter performing worse than the last one! oh, no, the shareholders… we couldn’t want them be starving!
Yeah. The company cares about its identity and profits and is taking steps to protect them.
They should police their own store then. Fuck this “oh they have to” shit.
This is what it looks like when they police their store.
The phone someone purchased from Samsung isn’t “their store” bud. The play store is.
And someone can either disable the system service that does this and go without play services (which is their store) or get a “limited” developer account and keep doing whatever they’re doing.
you have no idea what you are talking about. almost every statement in your comment is incorrect.
- the system service cannot be disabled
- the system service does not need to be disabled
- the system service doing the verification is not the play services component itself, that just installs the verifier
- “going without play services” is easier said than done, that would break tons of apps, including mandatory banking and gov apps, just to regain your agency of deciding for yourself what apps you want to have
- disabling play services does not fix the issue
- disabling play services is not possible on all phones without bricking it
- a limited or any kind of developer account wont do any good to the user
- a limited or any kind of developer account would still require you to submit your private info to the advertising giant. even if that actually woukd be required to keep being install apps, it wouldn’t be acceptable
you have also ignored the other user pointing out that with this change they are going much further than policing their own store (something they have been consistently failing at for many years).
This, again, is what policing an application marketplace looks like.
The point isn’t to protect you the user, but to protect the reputation of their platform. Right now, and I know this isn’t easy to hear, Android is the scam/insecure platform.
I am a user of Android devices everyday, btw, not just some random hater.
From googles perspective it doesn’t matter if users are unable to anonymously install whatever they want if the various marketplaces and therefore the Android platform gains trust in the eyes of consumers (and law enforcement/security professionals).
They aren’t policing their platform to protect you, they’re doing it to protect themselves.
This, again, is what policing an application marketplace looks like.
do you have issues with reading comprehension? the marketplace stops right at the google play store. that is their marketplace, nothing more.
From googles perspective it doesn’t matter if users are unable to anonymously install whatever they want
I’m sure about that, and they are also happy for the increased amount of analytics. apps a user knows is a good way to make an advertising profile more accurate.
if the various marketplaces and therefore the Android platform gains trust in the eyes of consumers (and law enforcement/security professionals).
google can only thank that for its own false advertising, promising “security”, lockdown against the owner for the advantage of the businesses. android phones should not be about the device owned by your bank and your government, but the thing owned by the individual who uses it.
They aren’t policing their platform to protect you, they’re doing it to protect themselves.
and that’s a huge problem, because they are trampling on ownership rights. they are making money out of nullifying the right to privacy, and actually by convincing people that it is an obsolete right, and that they should criticize their peers who want privacy.
they can only protect themselves in such an abusive manner because they have an effective monopoly. if google did not become too big, people could just say no to all this bullshit.Its shocking how wrong you are in everything you’ve said. Give up on this conversation and let the grown ups talk
This is what it looks like when they try to police the software that’s NOT from their store (or their partners).
All the Google-verified malware that infests Google’s marketplace will continue to be a problematic vector after this change. But this change will put obstacles in my attempts to install safe alternatives that are free of malware and not part of Google’s junkyard or spyware full of anti-features.
