Let Google know what you think about their proposed restrictions on sideloading Android apps. - Android developer verification requirements [Feedback Form]
(docs.google.com)
from Alphane_Moon@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world on 26 Aug 18:32
https://lemmy.world/post/35048782
from Alphane_Moon@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world on 26 Aug 18:32
https://lemmy.world/post/35048782
Source of feedback form:
developer.android.com/developer-verification (bottom of page)
threaded - newest
Is that an official Google form and/or who am I providing my (required) email address to?
Is there an official Google page that links to this? Sorry but anyone can share a Google form.
Yes, there is.
Here's the official Android Developer page on the developer verification program. Bottom of the page, green square on the right labeled "Do you have any additional questions or feedback?"
Link is the same as in the post.
Very good. I’ve seen too many random Google Forms going around just harvesting emails / info to plug my details into any that I don’t click into from a legit/verified site. Not that I’m accusing OP of that, just that I don’t know where they got that form link.
Good point, I actually got it from another Lemmy user on the relevant thread from !android@lemdro.id.
Didn’t even think that there could be a potential risk with email harvesting.
You need to verify yourself before you submit. They testing.
Na. Used throwaway email tied to nothing. Selected the options that applied to me. Left them a cordial “fuck you and the horse you rode in on” feedback letter in the message box and submitted. No verification needed. The only chance for defense is giving them a number they can measure of people who will switch devices if they continue to pursue dev verification.
<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/68070f26-e1ff-4779-ad7c-813d7ceb0e56.jpeg">
It doesn’t matter. I made up the Emil address and it went through
Sounds like the thing that will finally get me onto another platform. Sideloading is the only way around most of these companys’ draconian restrictions.
There aren’t really many choices when it comes to mobile OS.
Not a lot currently, but what’s needed is for the snowball to start rolling. This means the early adopters will have to make the more difficult decision of choosing “lesser” options wrt. comfort and convenience, compatibility, and bang for your buck. All decisions matter, and it will have long-term effects en masse.
At this point I’m ready to be an early adopter. I’m so tired that Im willing to do that.
If Windows phone didn’t take off, nothing will. It was so far ahead of its time, and a legit alternative, but developers didn’t want to support a new platform and neither did users.
The Windows phone entered the market while the market was stable, and users had little reason to move away from what they were used to and comfortable with. These days users are getting more uncomfortable, hence why Linux is on the rise. Same with the push for more liberal software (FOSS). I believe if a company can do it right, and offer a stable and comfortable alternative, they can manage to be much more successful than the Windows phone was 10 - 15 years ago.
Disclaimer: I haven’t checked the statistics, but I remain optimistic, and continue making choices that align with my principles.
Linux is not on the rise lol.
People are locked in to iOS and Android. There is no appreciable number of people who would switch to another ecosystem and lose all their apps, purchases, etc.
More importantly, just like what killed Windows phone, developers won’t support a third platform, nor will customers move to a platform that doesn’t have the big apps that they need - many, if not most, of which are from Google themselves.
Linux has doubled its market share in the last couple years and is on an exponential growth curve right now. Valve’s push for Proton and Steam Deck has changed a lot.
Also, if Linux-based, non-Android phones or tablets became fully functional and feature complete, there would absolutely be a good number of people who would switch. I’d be one of them.
Doubling your market share is easy when your market share is so low. It’s not on an “exponential growth curve” lol. The steam deck changes nothing for Linux as most people playing them don’t give a shit about Linux.
Linux gaming users are in the tens of millions of people. It’s not like this is some super tiny community. There are more Linux gamers than macOS gamers by around double.
About two years ago Linux gaming market share was hovering below 2%. Now it’s over 4%.
Yeah…it’s smaller than Windows by A LOT, but it’s continuing to grow every single month on the Steam Hardware Survey. With Proton, SteamOS/Bazzite, and the Deck Verified program, Linux gaming has gone from “this sucks” to “this works unless there is kernel anti-cheat”.
Nope, not in the tens of millions:
<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.net.au/pictrs/image/e4b411ca-9a29-45b5-9ed5-8cb254c3e1ac.png">
People using Linux computers at home, including for gaming, is a super tiny “community”. Also not close to double Mac, and even if it was - Mac isn’t a real gaming platform, so the fact that it’s not even double Mac is evidence of how little people care about linux for gaming.
Not on steam it’s not.
Purely because of the steam deck, and windows is growing too - not everyone uses steam on windows, whereas it’s really the only option for Linux.
And unfortunately for Linux, without this it will never take off because the overwhelmingly most played games all have kernel level anti-cheat.
You seem to look at it quite pessimistically imho, but I’ll try and counter ;-)
We’re not talking about a vastly different ecosystem. Probably Android-derived (which is open-source), very likely Linux derived. So compatibility is not going to be a huge issue, hence developing not hard. Developers will usually follow where user demand goes, not the other way around.
Most of the big apps today have a smaller equivalent, check AlternativeTo.net.
Generally true, but we’re talking a growth of millions of users a year. Millions of people is no small number. 5% of the US’ traffic are from Linux desktops, according to StatCounter (here’s an article with many links).
You’re correct wrt. gaming, as 2.89% of 157 million active monthly users is about 4.55 million, which is not a small number either. If you look at Linux desktop users in the US however, we’re talking over 5% of 347 million, which is 17.35 million users in the US alone, which is also not a small number. It’s more than the population of Greece and Bulgaria combined.
Do you have numbers? I can’t find any official numbers of active users on the Steam Deck, but there are estimations of 3+ million devices sold. I feel like I keep seeing posts of people who move over to Bazzite and similar distros these days for the sake of playing games, but nevertheless, both of these factors weigh in, and are steadily increasing the adaptation of Linux systems.
This is denying the antecedent. The amount of games, and money in games, without KLAC is plenty substantial to make a difference in the approach of both developers and DRMs, further increasing ease of adaptation by users. Do not undermine nor underestimate the potential of marginalities.
True.
Linux on Mobile has a poor ecosystem and only works on older phones (older then most Android roms)
Have you see FLX1 phone? Based on Debian.
Just looked it up, ane it seems to be $550 with worse specs than ny current phone I paid $130 for
No
Back to a Java flip phone then. Or just off portable radio based computing as a whole. We don't need portable telephony, and we certainly don't need to carry portable supercomputers.
I will transition off Android if this gets deployed, this is unacceptable.
To what exactly?
I am hoping PostmarketOS or perhaps SailfishOS get some much needed momentum both from Google’s actions and the fact that a lot of people (on a relative basis) are realising that many large American companies profoundly corrupt and cannot be trusted.
What will you switch to?
Some android fork
For the next phone I get it’ll be one with good custom ROM support and sticking with a degoogled device. But, if that too stops being an option because custom ROMs stall then hoping there will be a Linux Phone by then.
What platform you going to go to? iPhones?
Public pushback on stuff like this does work on occasion. It even worked on Apple when they proposed upload filters for CSAM.
Google’s intent in the short term probably is just about malware, but in the long term it gives them, and governments which can pressure them the ability to ban any app from nearly all Android devices. Once deployed, there’s a near 100% chance of such a mechanism being used for evil.
I thought their intent was to (attempt to) reduce piracy
Their intent is to reduce people running software they didn’t purchase through their commissioned store.
Google aren’t opposed to evil any more though, they removed their motto of “Don’t Be Evil”.
Alphabet Agency company was never opposed to evil. They're like the "nice” drug dealer giving you what you like until you keep coming back. Or the guy in the van giving out free candy.
I don’t buy the malware arguement. Most major social apps function like malware (tracking location and anything they can). In the 90s, any app that did that (say to your laptop) would be treated as spyware.
No doubt many “legitimate” apps, including some of Google’s own are spyware. This claims to be about the sort of malware that steals your bank account login.
I’d even speculate that most of the people involved are working in good faith; they think they’re the good guys and they can be trusted with that kind of power. Nobody should have that kind of power though because it always leads to corruption.
I would love to see an interview with the team. Because you’re probally right.
I would argue that was the definition even in the early 2000s. then it became a business model for famous companies.
True, even in the early 2000s, an application tracking your laptop locations would be treated as extremely dangerous spyware and the relevant could would be treated as a borderline criminal actor.
It’s only spyware if Google can’t monetize it. Which is ironic if you think about it.
Also the true malware is currently signed and it still reaches millions of people, most of the time downloaded straight from store.
Apple is a bit more receptive to bad PR, but Google has a history of kinda ignoring developer feedback, like with the JPEG XL thing as a narrow example.
This is an especially technical matter to; it’s no threat to them.
The malware argument falls like a house of cards when you just dig a bit nd see that Play Store is full of indiscutible malware like flashlight “apps”.
Its our chance to over turn this.
Let’s hope this won’t happen.
Here is the direct link to the form
docs.google.com/forms/d/e/…/viewform?usp=dialog
Closing the side loading option is a path to antitrust suits, a slap in the face to privacy, a kick in the teeth to independent devs and personal use.
There is zero reason for this other than wanting full control of how I use my own phone and how much money/data google can squeeze out of everyone.
I did not purchase a phone to have it later be functionally broken as features it had have been stripped in the name of ‘security’.
A warning message is all that is needed. The current toggle is enough.
We are not toddlers.
There are not possibly enough cases that it warrants such a restrictive policy aside from the stated reasons above.
Give me liberty or give me symbian.
How’s that?
FTFY
Symbian had package signature fuckery :/
Another reason why it worka in place of the word death in that phrase.
My only real experience with symbian was waaaaay back when I did tech support for l Sony Ericsson, and while I was more into modding the phones (remember those days?) and playing worms on a 1.5" screen on the walkman line of phones, I did have the p900 and the p1i.
And let me tell you, OS aside, the P1i was indestructible.
<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.ca/pictrs/image/bdd78f16-e72c-48d3-a82c-38495ec6ff90.jpeg">
One exceptionally intoxicated weekend, the gf and I got into a bit of a tiff.
She grabbed the phone and threw it out the door or the apartment, onto that polished rock type floor.
It impacted as one would expect.
Shattered into a hundred pieces.
But… The screen was the old capacitive touch type, so it was a layer of plastic with a layer of plastic with a layer of plastic with ultra thin wires with a layer of plastic with a layer of glass with a layer of plastic with a layer of metal backing, and the rest of the internals were modular with push in/flip down cable clips that easily separated. The entire body was plastic.
I laughed.
(I’d taken it apart before because mods)
I picked up the parts, put them together as I walked out and turned it back on.
Anyway, symbian.
Oh, the memories.
@Alphane_Moon@lemmy.world
It's so lovely and cute to think that feedback will result in something, it definitely does, just look around us nowadays and we can see the brave Unicode characters hanging around as things have been improving on a daily basis! 🥰
Surely all feedback will be read by lovely humans, not by their clanker, because we all know how we always talk with flesh-and-bone humans, not clankers, whenever we reach some kind of "Help center" or "Contact us".
With enough Unicode characters, the increasingly-dystopian tech world will definitely stop being dystopian! Onward, QWERTY keyboards!
/s
Clanker: “Sentiment Analysis Complete: they don’t like it. They think it’s a scheme to consolidate power and market control. Beep boop.”
It really short circuits the power of mass feedback when it gets summarized by a bot. No nuance, no ingenious argumentation, nothing. None of that gets in front of the eyes of those managing the feedback.
And that’s because it’s inefficient to read everything.
If they get one angry message they’ll ignore it. If they get 10,000 angry messages they might start worrying about what the people who haven’t sent messages will do if they proceed.
Public outcry doesn’t always work, but it has worked enough times to try again. It takes minimal effort for a significant potential gain.
It’s Google and Android, the biggest OS on the planet - they would need tens of millions of unique people with actual well written concerns before they even considered reconsidering.
This is silly. Google doesn’t give a single fuck. This decision will make money for key players and that’s the end of the conversation.
I dunno, I’m sure there’s a part of them that doesn’t want to scare off all the free labor they get from the community developers. They are probably legitimately trying to gauge how much of an impact on that this will have. That doesn’t mean they are going to stop or change anything, but they probably genuinely care enough to know.
This is the exact same argument the Hackintosh community had. “Apple will never put a stop to us, we’re the hardcore tinkerers who find bugs in their software before any normal user!”
Google doesn’t care. The hardcore users on the bleeding edge make up 0.001% of people with an Android phone. Pissing them off will not affect the shareholders.
Google’s thinking has gone short term “next quarter must go up.” They would absolutely trash their Android dev community for a quick buck, 100%.
Doesnt matter.
Give feedback and pray it somehow does something!
You do it for posterity reasons
It’s very likely that no amount of negative feedback will change anything. Why not waste some of their time anyway? Write to them, call them, spread the word. This is the only thing we can do. Even if it goes through regardless - at the very least we can make it as unpleasant as possible.
Their AI will be looking over all of the responses, not people. No important person at Google’s time will be wasted on this.
That’s why keywords are important. For instance I added the fact that if they continue in this course I will seek to de-Google my phones.
Like I said in another comment, unless they get tens of millions of actual unique-not-spam responses they will not even consider reconsidering. People aren’t going to de-google in any great numbers from this, because most of the people this will affect are already de-googled.
Rather than degoogling telling them you will go to Apple and opt for apple services is likely the more powerful response, since that is what the regular person is more likely to do. If degoogled is used they’ll likely dismiss it assuming it is just one of those niche nerds. But an exodus to Apple is a threat that is more realistic.
But that makes no sense - they’ll go to someone who is even more restrictive in side loading?
Google won’t reverse this because there’s no alternative for the relatively few people this will affect. They already don’t use Google things, and Apple don’t accomodate them. They’ve got them by the balls and they know it, which is why it’s all just empty threats even from people in here.
The ones that don’t sideload obviously won’t care. But the ones that do are going to have little incentive to stick around if that was the main selling point for them, and the devs for non Google play apps leave because they don’t want to hand over info to Google.
At that point why not go to Apple if Android no longer delivers the type of sideloading experience they desire? Apple is more polished, has longer support, battery life, and better peripherals.
And those types likely will push family to move to Apple too if they are jumping ship, since they might be the ones overseeing tech support for the family anyways.
The type of people crying over this are not moving to iPhones lol. You know it, I know it, everyone knows it. Google know it, which is why they know they can do this with no issue.
The people crying over this are the ones who care about sideloading. So if that aspect is gone then why stick with Android? It’s definitely not for Google play apps for me.
If you want to defend how Google is bigger and won’t be affected you are better off pointing out that sideloading population isn’t that big, and that most users don’t use it so would be fine with iPhone or Android.
Side loading isn’t going away, just “anonymous” side loading. I suspect it will end up being a non-issue anyway, as simply registering as a developer through their portal so you can have your app be side loaded isn’t a big deal unless your app is doing something nefarious.
I’m not “defending” anything, let alone Google. All I’m doing is being realistic. The tiny minority of people this will affect have no alternative, and this change is likely to make very little actual change to those people anyway.
Small minority of people who care about this and end up affected will just leave for something else if custom ROMs stops being an option and dev scene dies out.
Not every Dev on F-Droid wants to hand over their info to Google.
You can argue that Google doesn’t care because they are a minority and custom ROM users provide no benefit to them, which is true. But to act like people are stuck with Google if the feature they care about affects apps that interest them are stuck with Google isn’t true either. They are already doing stuff that is unusual from regular users.
Don’t worry mainstream won’t be affected. I’m talking about the weird people sideloading, degoogling, and more likely to be running custom ROMs.
No humans are involved in reviewing these. They go into the memory hole and that’s that.
Assigned to: Some Indiandude (xWF)
Apple requires some developer credentials and notarization for sideloading apps, to prevent known malware. What is the problem with this?
Edit: everyone this is an honest question.
People use Android to not have such restrictions.
Something like F-Droid (which published its own builds from source) would likely not be possible with such a model.
It’s certainly one of the main reasons I moved.
First, we don’t have this in Android and we’re better off.
It’s another flavour of gatekeeping.
Second, why do we want to copy apple?
Nope
Do you think Google won’t revoke the signature for apps like revanced or newpipe or send a c&d to the now doxxed devs?
Main reason apple did that is to limit piracy, nsfw apps and track how many installs so they can still bill the developer for that
Apple method is terrible too and had to be forced by the EU to allow sideloading so tried to make it as restrictive as possible within the rules. And don’t think they bothered to support it outside the EU. So Apple is not the one to use as a defense of restrictions to installation of software om Android.
And I fear malware more from Google Play than F-droid with how they just allow anything and millions of installs give people a false sense of security until it’s later revealed it was a malware app. So no I don’t buy this security bullshit.
It’s about control and data harvesting.
Another honest question:
Why wouldn’t the EU force Android to allow sideloading apps just as they’ve done with apple?
We just hope they do force Android to allow sideloading. However, I wouldn’t expect them to do so, given their latest decisions…
Issue is that I believe even in the EU Apple is in a position where devs have to be verified by Apple to be allowed to sideload.
So it’s not a problem of if sideloading is possible, but that devs need to hand over sensitive personal information to Google to be verified to be able to offer side-loaded apps on Android. So Google is positioning themselves to fully control app installs even for non Google play apps by holding the ability to deny.
So Google is now looking to emulate the terrible sideloading state of Apple by regressing to more control by them.
“North Korea does [X], what’s the problem with [USA/UK/EU] doing [X]?”
if this policy is implemented. the easiest thing for noobs will be get a Chinese phone without certification from Google storage.googleapis.com/…/supported_devices.html like huawei (you can get a GMS support with emulator like Gbox)
The problem I see is that the independent app market will not survive this if the audience of “normal” Android devices is gone. Most devs won’t bother developing apps that are not available on the play store, so alternative roms are not a solution in most markets.
They will for the Chinese market, whatever that’s worth.
I did it and I told them exactly why and what I use and why and hopefully they will take heed. It’s not even some freakishly avoid-y reason or anything. I’m not extremist because I know that if I’m going to use a lot of this stuff I have to make compromises because it’s not magically going to get better overnight, but also we have to stand up for user freedom so we have some degree of ability to actually use our devices as we wish and install software that we want on our own computer.
Were you able to sign up and give feedback without verifying your identity first?
Come on, they don’t care. I will use a custom mod for as long as possible and when this stops working I will switch to two phones setup: de-googled daily driver and second phone for work/car apps. And if I will have to choose between stock Android and iPhone for the second phone I will go with an iPhone.
I couldn’t tell from the article, but does this impact ALL apps that do NOT go through the Google Play Store?
What about 3rd party App Stores? Amazon has one, there is also the FOSS app stores like F-Droid. Are those in or out?
F-Droid would likely be out because they rebuild many apps from source.
I have a feeling that this is a retaliation for those as Epic is leading a charge against Google Play, and rightly so, not that they are an ally. I just like watching pigs fight.
techbriefly.com/…/epic-games-store-coming-to-goog…
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_Games_v._Google
as long as your phone have GMS preinstalled and listed under Google certification. this will affect you. So, Chinese phone without GMS is fine.
Straight into the garbage.
This is just a way to capture negative feedback in a way that leaves you feeling like you did something while impacting none of their business which they can then ignore and throw away with no issues. Make noise on social media, not feedback forms. Make them hurt.
Just today apple showed how stupid is this policy as they revoked the publisher certificate for a torrent app, proving that the end goal is not locking malware but stuff that they don’t like
What a disappointing week. I was looking to replace my five year old iPhone with an android phone and now I’m just stumped. Pixel 10 looked pretty good but then this sudden verification requirement news hit. Both platform are now equally crap. The hell with both of these shitty companies. Maybe I’ll go full retro and get a dumb phone instead.
Get a pixel secondhand and put an android fork on it. Its what I will likely do because I am sick of Google in my life and dont want to pay through the nose for a glossy shit that doesnt even have a file manager from apple.
iOS/iPad OS has had a file manager for years? It’s not great, and heavily restricted, but it for sure exists.
In what way is it restricted? I dont do much but being able to explore to find my files is necessary.
That’s kind of the point though. Apple’s file manager portrays a “flat” filesystem, where all of your data is laid out neatly on the table - so to speak - and the actual locations of those directories within the system are buried inside vague and protected locations “for security”. Android file managers embrace a more traditional Unix-like filesystem hierarchy.
I am really hoping that PostmarketOS will become more viable.
I’ve been trying to get rid of all American service provider (dropped netflix, duolingo); smartphones are more difficult though because they need to work.
You will own nothing, and be angry. But you can’t do diddly squat about it. Now open wide and BOHICA.
Some poignant questions for these new platform requirements:
What has happened with mobile platforms has proven that the fact that we ended up with PC platforms that allow us the freedom to largely do whatever we want with them was more an outlier than the norm.
Apple and Google have gone out of their way at every step with their new platforms over the last 20 years to make sure that process does not repeat itself. Even the stuff that seems more open like Android technically supporting arbitrary app installs from anywhere and the Linux container in ChromeOS still allows the platform holder to step in and stop you from doing something with those tools should they desire using mechanisms that the OS depends on to be useful.
I did my part!