Google's new rules could wipe out sideloading and alternative app stores, F-Droid warns
(www.androidauthority.com)
from throws_lemy@reddthat.com to tech@programming.dev on 29 Sep 08:06
https://reddthat.com/post/51076402
from throws_lemy@reddthat.com to tech@programming.dev on 29 Sep 08:06
https://reddthat.com/post/51076402
Google’s new developer registration requirements could make it impossible for independent Android app stores like F-Droid to survive, the group behind the open-source repository has warned in a new blog post
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bUt iTs aN oPeN pLatFoRm!!¡!
Just in the last couple of days, I read how companies avail themselves of FOSS without contributing financial support and end up costing end users exorbitant amounts. Socialized tech for exorbitant private profit. This is capitalism.
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Doesn’t this violate the EU ruling against apple for only allowing their app store?
IIRC you still need to pay Apple to push your applications on alternative stores.
I think that’s also something they are still being prosecuted for
Probably not, because you can still publish on alternative app stores. Just not in the way that F-Droid wants it to work - where they build the app from source for you.
Really hope Droidian gets a bigger following, as a consequence of this !
Linux on mobile isn’t really ready yet, is it?
The market really needs a third choice.
it's time for the return of Windows Phone! /s
Maybe not that one, but thanks. I guess.
😂 I’d much rather prefer Linux, but thanks for the laugh 😊
Not quite, though the Furi phone is, from the accounts I’ve read, fairly usable compared to most.
I’d recommend donating to PostmarketOS, if possible. They’re the most promising project.
I can and I will. Thanks for the hint. I appreciate it 💖
It’s close. With a big push and swell into at least a small userbase I think it can be.
Besides myself, I think I’ve only ever met one or two other people who know enough about technology to even be capable of using something like that.
What do you mean? We’re talking about phones that run an OS that looks similar to Android/iOS but are based on Linux and more open. It’s still touch screen, still have an app store and home screen like usual. Ideally a user who doesn’t care would never know and never have to open a terminal or anything.
I know, I’ve played with postmarket os before on an old Pixel. The issue is that the usability gap between even AOSP (which is barely usable) and the latest and greatest mobile linux distro is enormous. The issues that exist right now may or may not bother you and I, but they are showstoppers for normal people.
I just don’t see what there is to be gained (for end users) from creating another Linux mobile OS instead of just building on top of AOSP. In theory, having a community-driven OS is a great idea because even a GPL fork of Android wouldn’t survive long due to divergence/fragmentation. If a truly community-driven OS can achieve a sustainable development process, that’d be nice. However, in practice the evil stuff Google does is on the business side, not the code side. For example, if you port Phosh to Android as a custom launcher, you’d end up with a similar user experience, except with the added benefit of a phone that actually works and a massive ecosystem of working apps. Sure, you can’t
apt install blender, but nobody actually wants to run desktop apps on a smartphone.And another thing is that a lot of the freedom-restricting bullshit on Android today is the fault of device manufacturers who lock the bootloader and make it difficult/impossible to run custom operating systems. Even if you build a feature-complete alternative to Android, you’re still going to be struggling hard to get it running on real devices without buy-in from OEMs. How will you convince OEMs to ship your OS over Android? Answer: you won’t.
So IMO, Postmarket OS and similar projects will only ever be toys for nerds like us who want to play with e-waste devices abandoned by the manufacturer.
Want to break Google’s stranglehold on Android? Write to your representatives and start voting in more than just the presidential election (If you’re American). We live in a democracy, and Google is obviously breaking antitrust laws. It’s just that current politicians are corrupt and incompetent boomers who don’t understand tech, and are more likely to listen to the billionaire’s lobbyists than us internet nerds.
I think AOSP is barely usable because basically nobody does use it unmodified, and the best Linux mobile distro is the way it is because it’s a niche of a niche. Given a real community I think that could actually change faster than you expect.
LMAO I have more confidence in the possibility of a Linux OS becoming the third major mobile OS than this happening at this point. US democracy broke.
Support linux mobile devs more people.
Specifically, consider donating to PostmarketOS, which is the most promising project!
postmarketos.org to save you a search
Too expensive, unfortunately.
I don’t think that’s the right answer. Android isn’t a good operating system, it’s a great operating system for mobile. All these mobile Linux distro projects face a monumental challenge to reach parity with Android on almost any metric. Even if any one of them was backed by major investment, I don’t think they’ll ever succeed…and if they do, we’d just end up with multiple competing open source operating systems which just creates pointless fragmentation.
Android is open source, but it’s held by an evil monopolist. The most effective path to freedom on mobile is legal/regulatory, and supporting efforts to break Google up. They’ve already been declared an illegal monopoly twice in two separate cases. The first one ended with a slap on the wrist, because the judge was a spineless coward. The second one is currently in the remedy phase, and hopefully will have a real impact.
Nothing is built overnight. Your claim that it “will never happen” is going to be so wrong.
I really hope so
This is really naive. Mobile Linux is never going to happen for many reasons.
It would be better to spend effort on lobbying regulators to prevent this move.
Naysayer whose about to be proven wrong. They said desktop Linux was never going to happen or that putting a man on the moon is impossible…
Desktop Linux is still an extremely niche userbase, even with SteamOS and Microsoft doing its absolute best to aggravate users.
Desktop Linux still hasn’t happened…
Almost everything works on desktop linux, there’s lots of written guides for it and 6% marketshare is pretty impressive.
Not reliably though. I installed Kubuntu on a recent desktop just last week and had to revert it from Wayland back to X11 because every time it woke from sleep Plasmashell would crash and VSCode windows would be blank.
Also it’s 4% (of desktop, 1.5% overall) according to statcounter. Which is admittedly not bad, but I wouldn’t say it’s enough to say it has “happened”.
I mean every distro has a different experience.
There are sources that show it’s higher than Statcounter’s estimate and many in the community consider that website to be inaccurate as there’s a lot of pcs under the unknown category since Linux folks tend to be more privacy focused. It’s big enough that developers are now factoring Linux support for projects.
This is uncannily like spe* API move.
As an iPhone guy who doesn’t mind the limitations, it’s really sad to see Android losing everything that made it different from Apple. Headphone jacks, memory card slots, and now sideloading, with an honourable mention to Nova Launcher.
If Android is going to be just like iOS, you better not still be paying iPhone prices for Android phones, being that the original intent of Android (as when Google bought it) was to harvest more user data (than Gmail could) to be sold. You’re getting a weaker phone that collects your data and sells it to the highest bidder AND you’re paying iPhone prices AND you can’t sideload anymore (or, after such date in the future)? Nah, fuck that. At that point you should just get an iPhone, right? Seriously, take a good hard look at the iPhone 17 (the base model, not the Air or the Pro). $800 gets you privacy first, 256GB of storage, it’s the second most powerful phone out there (the Air and Pro have more cores), two cameras (so not as good as Pixel 10 at the same price in that regard but better video recording). Samsung has some advantages but they sell your health data. Apple Health being private is now a feature that the others do not have.
Obviously we need a third option because if Google/Android won’t compete with Apple, who will? And if nobody’s competing with Apple, why should Apple improve? Hell, the 17 series is a joke… not that the 16 series was a huge improvement over the 15 series. I feel like my 16 Pro Max will go ten years, won’t need to be replaced unless it gets physically broken.
Thanks, Tim.
“privacy first” - yeah right. it’s commonly known that Apple harvests a shitton of data on both iOS and macOS, not much different from Google or Microsoft. If you want a modicum of privacy, GrapheneOS on Pixel phones is an option. you can get last year’s model for below €500 (new and unused)
They do collect data, but they aren’t data brokers, they aren’t selling it to the highest bidder, like Google does.
I think the scary thing about Apple is, we don’t know where they’re gonna go. Right now the assumption is (from our side) that they are still a computer company first and they want to keep the data to make their products better, but that might be naive and overly optimistic. With Google, we know where they stand. So they’re less scary maybe? To some? I dunno. Call me what you will, but I still think of Apple as that old school computer company, just with some services now (e.g. Apple Music, TV+, etc.).
Google’s new rules could keep me on my Motorola G84 until 5G is obsolete.
This is why tech giants like Apple and Google supported Trump. They are monopolies and have an axe to grind against the Democrats who went aggressive with investigating breach of antitrusts by tech under Biden.
Edit: wording
I’m highly concerned about this, not only due to lack of control of software I can choose to install, but also what happens once a developer is blacklisted? I haven’t seen anyone really address this.
What guidelines will Google use to determine that an app is “safe”? Will Google begin blacklisting developers who modify apps? What about developers who make apps that aren’t controversial themselves, but linked to controversial technologies or can be used for controversial means? (Torrent clients, etc.) Google to my knowledge has not provided a list of criteria they will use.
Even if Google claims pure motivations now, I think the amount of control this policy carries will be far too tempting for Google to refuse to utilize in full for any cause.
the guidlines? as long as you pay goolag for your developer ID