Google: 'Your $1000 phone needs our permission to install apps now'". Android users are screwed

You're gonna own nothing and you're gonna be free...

Yeah this is going to affect android in multiple ways. I'm guessing that the emulators and YouTube apps are out, the Devs will have all their apps banned if they bother to register.

Personally I have a developer account but some apps I give away as open source. Now I'm going to have to register those apps and if one of them isn't up to Google's standards (whatever they say that is on the day) then ALL of my apps get banned!

I have multiple old android devices which can't use lineagos because they are locked or just too obscure. But right now they can be used with f-droid apps for games and ad-free content. I'm guessing that's going to change.

The barrier to entry will go up and even more old android devices will be thrown away. Make sure you buy a mainstream device that has a chance of being supported beyond the manufacturers 2 year support window - in my experience mobile and tablets actual lifespan is 4-5 years, up to 10 with new battery. Why are we forced to throw them away after 2 years? It's a total scam.

Of course it's a scam. But its also a money grab and a power grab. Google is completely gone from "do no evil" to "heil Trump"
What's worse, is that I do self hosting and almost all self host apps are open source on the android side, so now I may loose several of those apps if they don't want to sign or are banned by Google.

The infuriating part is that chain-of-trust certificate signing has been a fundamental part of the web for decades. It would be trivial for Google to allow third party signing authorities, for the benefit of people who aren't comfortable handing over all their personal details to Google.

The only reason they've chosen not to is because protecting users isn't as important to Google as sucking up all that sweet sweet verified personal data.

I don't think it's about the data. There's not much volume here. I think instead it's about blocking apps they don't like. Like some pesky ad blocking apps for YouTube. They know more people would reach for YouTube adblockers as they keep increasing the ads on the free tier as well as the price of the Premium tier. The way to prevent that is to make it extremely difficult to install such apps.
- They don't verify apps, they verify developers. Developers aren't required to send their apps to google for signing.
Code signing is expensive, and will force out some smaller devs from the market, and is the main scare tactic Microsoft is using on Windows.
plus using it to train an AI

Side note. We need to do something, now. Only problem is, I don't know what

The solution is what it has always been.
Since DAY ONE phone hardware should have been as standardized and open as normal PC hardware - able to run any operating system that you want.
But every time it got brought up for DECADES, techbro corporate apologists were ready to line up and talk about all the reasons that wouldn't work and how companies would NEVER do that, as if that was some kind of sensible counterpoint.
Now the noose is closing and all it's going to take is the combined forces of the richest companies in the world to crush what little competition remains. Undercut or sue Fairphone into oblivion, for example. The lawsuits don't even have to have merit - they can eat the costs for a few quarters to ensure no viable alternative to the walled garden ever gets a foothold.
The thing to be done now is minimize your mobile usage altogether and try to make it to the tech dystopian endgame with a few local files of your own left.
It's the year of the linux phone
- wonder if my phone carrier would be ok if i show up with a phone with a new OS they haven't heard about
- Jumping ship isn't really "doing something"
Go to the Android developer verification site and fill out the Google Form in the bottom of the page on the right under Share your feedback.
Give any employees inside google that agree with you the materials they need to show management it's unpopular even with developers, (even if you aren't actually one) and give Google's shareholders concern that this isn't just media speculation, it's real people with real concerns.
- Thank you for this
If you are an EU citizen then you need report this to the consumer protection services.
Here are some links I have found. There might be better ways to contact them but this is what I got for now. Feel free to correct me or add more ways to make our voices heard.
https://commission.europa.eu/
https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/selling-in-eu/competition-between-businesses/anti-competitive-behaviour/
If you are unsure about the problem, you can contact the European Commission at: comp-market-information@ec.europa.eu or write to:
European Commission, Directorate General for Competition Antitrust Registry B-1049 Brussels, Belgium
difficulty: 99% of mobile phone owners either won't care or will consider it a good thing that their apps are all signed. As though a professional cybercriminal doesn't have a dozen ways of getting a fake ID.
The answer is likely a de-googled phone. We have some aftermarket variants of Android available. Though installing a new operating system on a phone isn't very mainstream. And skipping the Play services comes with consequences. Push notifications sometimes won't work, some apps outright refuse to work, and things like contactless payment are impossible. I've lived without Play services for a few years. Now I have them sandboxed in GrapheneOS. I wonder what they're going to do to address this.
- Even with Play Services enabled on GrapheneOS through Sandboxed Google Play, this wouldn't affect it, as this would be a system-level change that only affects stock Android and OEM-modified variants of Android that are "Certified Android"
  GrapheneOS would not have to put much, if any effort into blocking this.
Honestly, given the ID requirements this feels like more efforts to track everything everyone does. It means any app with sufficient user base is trackable back to a real person. A real person they can arrest, bully or otherwise deal with if they don't like what they've built.
Fork Android?
For years Android people were yapping about how it’s open source, open platform and the competitors are not. So why not just fork it and keep on? Isn’t that the strongest point of being open source?
- There's already a bunch of forks, GrapheneOS and LineageOS being two of the most popular.
  Trouble is, this affects the app ecosystem. The overwhelming majority of applications are only available through the Play Store. Sure, there are alternatives like F-Droid, but your bank isn't offering its app through F-Droid.
It all sounds very anticompetitive / anti trust to me.
Local laws may vary. In Australia I imagine the ACCC would the place to contact (TIO and ACMA don't sound right)
We need reboot of N900. Although it lost support long time ago as it was launched in 2009, you can still install latest PostmarketOS onto it: https://postmarketos.org/install/
A commercial Linux phone with backing from some larger company could succeed.
- I picked one of these up around 2015 and used it as my main phone for ~2 years. It's a cool phone and I had a great time messing around with it.
  Unfortunately the hardware is just into up to modern requirements - old modem means bad signal, old WiFi standard, really low RAM, very slow processor. The browser was barely usable even with an adblocker.
  Sadly the Neo900 never got off the ground.
LineageOS? Aosp is still under Google control, so maybe not.
- I think the problem is that this is one part of the puzzle. Samsung are doing the other half. Locked bootloader. I fully expect the bigger manufacturers to go with both for a "fully trusted platform". That's how they will sell it at least.
  The only question is, who will be making the unlocked phones and how much will they cost us?
- My man I hate to say this but pretty sure lineage kicked the bucket last year, at least that what was happening when I had to change phones last year and Got the community notification

Are there currently any viable alternatives to Android and iPhone?

the easiest path would be Chinese phones without GMS like Huawei,OPPO,vivo,Xiaomi,Honor
- Or use graphene os without google play services. No google play, no restrictions.
- Didn't they ban Huawei phones in the US

Oh cool, looks like my next phone is going to be an apple huh...

Minimal apps, heavily browser reliant, and android can go fuck itself.

Out of the frying pan into the fire...
My man, I get the sentiment, but as someone who regularly has to do work on an apple for my fiancee, it's still not worth it.
- I'd argue as a transitional device / threaten the shit out of Google.
  In the mean time, governments that still function should fine Google for purposely generating millions of eWaste devices in software.
  Maybe they'll correct, maybe not, but in the mean time, one can spend the time on iOS to pare back what they do on a phone, with the end goal of ending up on a dumbphone/home brewed/linux/alt phone that will then be available.
  Some really sweet simple phones like light phone, keyphone, minimal phone, punk mp02 and more already.
- If enough people do it, Google could be more likely to revert the change. The only thing Google loves is money, so take that away.
You realize Apple is already the same way, right? You have to jailbreak them to install anything outside of the app store.
- I would say maybe the user is in the EU but apparently apple can still pull sideloaded apps in the EU so what’s the damn point of the DMA, Europe?

Graphene OS is working well for me and installation was pretty straightforward. As people have said, though, it needs access to the bootloader.

And a Pixel - the only device it currently runs on (not a criticism, it's because Pixel is the only device with a TPM).
Lineage runs on a lot more phones. It's nit as secure as Graphene, but arguably more secure than what a phone ships with.
- I'd say its as secure but not as private as Graphene.
- Yep. Unfortunately, Graphene requires further investment in google products. Buy used/refurbished! Or go with Lineage.

I'm curious to understand how Google defines "malicious apps" that they're using as the justification for this.

Conceivably, google revoking a certificate will mean an app installed outside of google play, will stop working for users.

How do they feel about celebrite? And the other companies that violate user privacy as their sole reason for existing. Will they still get "permission" for their apps? Seems like a great way to protect users by not issuing one to them...

They don't care as I understand, they just want to hold an iron grip over their ecosystem

I find this unbeliable.

But, maybe, this will finally make some viable mobile Linux alternatives exist?

unbeliable.
is that a word i haven't learned yet or misspelling?
- Liable
  Be liable
  Un be liable!
- belial-iable

It's so upsetting. Makes me want to start recommending iPhones (only partially out of spite).

Edit: you can downvote, but can you tell me what the difference is at this point?

You can still get some Android phones with relatively easily repaired hardware. And for innovative third party hardware your only option is still going to be Android.
I wish there were some way to effectively protest this decision they've made, but I can't think of anything they'd actually care about unless nearly all developers objected.
- I may have been a little hyperbolic but it's still a huge selling point lost for the majority.

This only affects android phones with Google Play Services installed. So degoogled phones won't have any issue. Please look into custom ROMS or alternatives.

Sadly they are clamping down on that front too. AOSP is no longer being developed in the open. They are also moving to a standardised internal emulator instead of releasing the "recipe" to build on real hardware development platforms (aka pixel phones)

Use Ubuntu Touch?

I thought Tizen was cool, though I never used it.