Google: “Based on this feedback and our ongoing conversations with the community, we are building a new advanced flow that allows experienced users to accept the risks of installing software that isn’t verified. We are designing this flow specifically to resist coercion, ensuring that users aren’t tricked into bypassing these safety checks while under pressure from a scammer. It will also include clear warnings to ensure users fully understand the risks involved, but ultimately, it puts the choice in their hands.”
Thank god. I would’ve ditched Android for good if this went through, and while it sounds like it would be annoying for casual users to enable unverified apps, at least we can still install them.
Good, but I still don’t trust Google and I really want Linux (you know what I mean) on my next phone.
That’d be nice, but Linux on phones is still a pipe dream.
AFAIK Faiphone 4/5 and OnePlus 6 are in a very good state on PostmarketOS and continually improving. I don’t think it’s unrealistic to say we’ll have fully working devices in half a year - year with the amount of progress that’s happened since the PinePhone and was boosted again by the original Google announcement.
I mean, you can run a Linux phone now:
Downside is that aren’t going to have a large software library optimized for touchscreen use. The hardware options are pretty disappointing compared to Android. Not all hardware functionality may be supported, if it’s on a repurposed Android phone. Android or iOS software is mostly designed to expect that it’s on a fast/WiFi connection some of the time and on a slow/limited mobile data link some of the time and be able to act accordingly; most GNU/Linux software is not. Battery life is often not fantastic.
I still haven’t been pushed over the edge, but I’m definitely keeping my eye on it. I’m just not willing to develop software for Android. I know that GNU/Linux phones will stay open. I am not at all sure that Android won’t wind up locked down by Google at some point, and over the years, it’s definitely shifted in the locked-down direction.
My current approach is to carry around a Linux laptop and try to shift my usage more towards using the Android phone as a tethering device for the laptop, to get Internet access everywhere. That’s not always reasonable — you need to sit down to use the laptop — but the only thing that the phone really has to be used for is dealing with text messages and calls. If you really wanted to do so, as long as the laptop was on, you could run SIP to get VoIP service off the Internet from a provider of that from the laptop over the phone’s data service, not even rely on the phone’s calling functionality. The laptop isn’t really set up to be able to idle at very low power the way a phone is, be able to wake up when a call comes in, though, so it’s not really appropriate for incoming calls.
If I need to access something one-handed without sitting down, I can fall back to using the phone.
And it does have some nice benefits, like having a real keyboard, a considerably more-powerful system, a much larger library of software, a better screen and speakers, a 3.5mm headphones jack (all those phone space constraints go away on a laptop!) and so forth. You can move the phone to somewhere where its radio has good reception and just have it relay to the laptop, which isn’t an option if you’re using the phone itself as the computing device.
You can, though I don’t, even run Android software on the laptop via Waydroid.
I don’t presently use it in this role, but there’s a software package, KDE Connect, that lets one interface a phone and a Linux desktop (well, laptop in this case), and do things like happily type away in text message conversations on the laptop, if one has the laptop up and running.
I’m thinking that that approach also makes it easier to shift my use to a GNU/Linux phone down the line, since mostly, all I absolutely need from a GNU/Linux phone then is to act as a tethering device, handle phone calls and texts. It’s sorta the baby-steps way to move off Android, get my dependence down to the point where moving is no big deal.
Yes, Open Google free Android or a Linux without Google.
Isn’t the first just AOSP? GrapheneOS ships Google free.
AOSP has been neutered as much as Google has been able to. This was the reasonable next step.
So I just read what they are going to do and this article is just clickbait. Basically they still want you to dox yourself but it’ll still work like iOS Test Pilot. Google is still full of shit and lies but hey at least you don’t have to pay them money until enough users download your app if you want more.
So it’ll basically still kill apps like F-Droid or you downloading an app from the internet to run on your phone. You’ll basically have to signup to install third party apps on your device per app in general and alot of the convenience and developer community will still just leave android as a whole.
All in all really bad decision on Google’s part while also extending this to things like fireOS or whatever the fuck the Quest 2 and 3 will run as a skin of android. This will make sure they would be forever stuck on older versions of android; lest they have to contend with the new upcoming android features that will enforce this that will be baked into the operating system next year. Even without Google Play Services like I read.
Personally I don’t think developers should have to sign up to Google and provide ID cards to basically have a limited amount of users use their specific app outside the app store.
Google obviously is feeling threatened by better apps that more people are using on platforms like F-Droid compared the outright subscription based shitware and adware on the playstore. Which is why they are doing this. But like platforms before like inturn Symbian. I personally think it’ll fuck them over so hard that’ll they’ll never recover while China or whomever else makes a new platform for you to run android apps on for a time before going all proprietary fucked up Linux. Just like Android again.
It’s not sideloading, it’s installing. Stop giving into this idea that installing other apps is somehow bypassing normal methods!
I heard that if you don’t get your groceries via Walmart+ delivery, then it’s smuggling.
That’s not good enough. They’re just going to keep lightly pushing against the bad publicity until everything not controlled by Google on your phone goes away.
We need an alternative made without googles shitty hands in the mix. This forced duopoly between Apple and Google sucks. No phone competition in the US also sucks. Overpriced Samsung or a Google phone, while companies Like Red Magic have fan and liquid cooled phones with huge batteries, more ram, and more storage, for less than a grand being sold around the rest of the world outside the US.
Stop it. You’re reminding me why I want to move my family out of the US. Its not just phones, everything is a facade here.
It’s always the same, big shocking announcement, public outcry, pushing forward with a less shocking version, public acceptance, and then rolling out the rest of the initial plan. Why do we keep falling for it?
Its like getting robbed at gunpoint. Not much you can do about it.
This is…actually a really good analogy for consumerism. When the market has little to no competition and seemingly insurmountable barriers to enter it, it can really feel like a hostage situation. At best it’s like two dudes sitting behind a desk, ripping off their hook-and-loop patches to caress their nipples while listening to our feedback.
What do you suggest we do, not push back?
And btw this isn’t true. Look at how their attempt to get rid of third party cookies is going. The just rolled back like their fifth attempt/rebranding of it
Breaking up the Google/Android/Chrome monopoly would be a good start
Don’t consider this a win, guys, this is more of an ‘Oh shit, we’re screwed if we follow through with this right now’ moment, there’s nothing stopping them from walking this back at a later, less turbulent date when no one’s paying attention, and locking Android down anyways, as this directly reminds me of the situation which caused WEI to be scrapped.
Also, the EU pushing Chat Control through the back door might embolden Google to both try an Android lockdown just like was going to roll out before, and try WEI again, and get both actually pushed through somehow.
I wouldn’t even be surprised if MS were emboldened to try to lock down PCs… Again…
Straight from the playbook. Announce something terrible, then back off with something bad. Everyone calls it a win.
See: Wizards if the Coast, Unity
