Google tries to justify Android's upcoming sideloading restrictions
Google tries to justify Android's upcoming sideloading restrictions
Starting in 2026, sideloaded apps will have to come from "verified" developers.
31 comments
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I read their justifications but I must've missed the part where it justifies anything.
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Stop calling this sideloading, it's just installing software on a computer. The term makes it an easy 'other' to be distrusted. And this concerns all apps not just apps coming from a different app store. Google wants to control all the apps you're allowed to install by them
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Sideloading is a perfectly good word for a legitimate act.
It's not "just installing software on a computer". It's installing software on a tethered device.
Don't let them twist the word's meaning in order to demonize people.
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Google calculating:
- no more sideloading, so the privacy and pro freedom people will buy our phones for GrapheneOS
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And before you know it, Android will no longer be open source for “security” reasons.
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I have absolutely zore faith AOSP is long for this world. The GrapheneOS folks need to find a way off yesterday
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The beauty of open source is that Google can't take it back. The worst they can do is close source their own future development. Meanwhile, the community can fork the last open source release of AOSP. Look at what open source devs did with Audacity, for example.
The real fly in the ointment here is Google already did with device trees and driver binaries for Pixel phones; no longer sharing these with AOSP will have a very chilling effect on custom ROM developers who must now reverse engineer needed configs and drivers.
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I’ll worried for GrapheneOS because I know the dev doesn’t really want to implement QoL improvements or design updates, so we’re currently only relying on Google's good will with AOSP for that, and we can’t expect much I’m afraid
Don’t get me wrong, GOS is good and all, but some nice features are bugged or getting killed. It might be worth delaying casual updates to fix those
Now we have a new threat: no more third party stores. At this point iOS would even be better, at least there’s some very limited sideloading
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I am saddened by this news 😢
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So like what mobile OS is there now? Graphene which itself is forked from Android? Like we have barely made it to 20 years with this tech and its locked the fuck up with no options for the people. Boutta be using a dumbphone for sure.
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There are Linux Mobile OSs making promising developments, like KDE-Mobile. I'm planning on tossing it on a second-device, just to test it for myself.
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Good luck with that too, with carriers sunsetting legacy networks, old dedicated dumbphones will no longer work in most cases. KaiOS is sometimes used on dumbphones, but most these days just run a fork of Android designed for dumbphones.
Maybe Meshtastic with an SMS API gateway is the way to go. Or cans and string.
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If you want a half functioning phone I've seen something called PostmarketOS. Seems nice and barely working
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Graphene is not a fork. They just harden the code published by Google. This is why the recent changes by Google have been causing them more work.
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Yes, that is what a fork is.
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It is absolutely a fork.
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Oh, is this gonna put the kibosh on the Vanced series of apps?
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And we have to pay for this? I thought it would be free. What a scam.
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Think of the shareholders!
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problem is that you can fork android or make a new linux based os but with manufacturers continuing to lock down bootloaders, good luck getting it on there without making a deal with a phone manufacturer.
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plus you can say goodbye to all your banking apps and others that enforce integrity and stuff like that
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Yeah, the hardware realm is the real difficult piece, and even if one can manufacture a device with off-the-shelf parts and manage to find chips with enough support for bands/modes for usability on carriers, getting carrier certification is a PITA.
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31 comments
Break up Google now.