Edit: For what it’s worth, you can give Google feedback to stop this nonsense. Scroll down to Get Ready section and click on Share your feedback. You can use the following text as an example.
Android’s strength has always been in being both secure and open. Restricting sideloading goes against this principle and does little to protect users. The existing toggle and clear warnings are already enough to inform users of the risks.
Meanwhile, the Play Store itself continues to be the main source of Android malware. In 2023 alone, malicious apps on Google Play were downloaded over 600 million times. More recently, 77 infected apps with 19 million installs and 200+ other malicious apps with nearly 8 million installs slipped past Play Protect. These numbers make it clear where the real problem lies.
If Google truly wants to protect users, the focus should be on strengthening Play Store defenses. Android’s openness is not the threat; malware inside the official store is. Please prioritize fixing that instead of undermining one of Android’s core values.
I’m considering leaving Apple for Android for a very long time now. On my shortlist I have the Fairphone Gen 6 and the OnePlus 13. Other options are not possible. I don’t want Google or Samsung hardware, or any other manufacturers that make it difficult to unlock your bootloader.
One of the reasons is the freedom to install any app I want on my device, because it’s my device. But with the news about Google forcing developers to share their personal credentials it makes it difficult for me to go to Android. Basically Google is trying to kill sideloading. Should I even move to Android now or is Android with the limitation just like iOS?
They’re not tightening Android up to protect users, they’re doing it to abuse and exploit them and restrict their ability to circumvent the data mining they conduct. There’s only one way they’d theoretically stop this course of action, and that’s if sales PLUMMET. Which won’t happen because the portion of people willing to abstain from new phone purchases to fight this is minimal.
There are millions of terrible trends that the consumer market has allowed to happen simply because the vast majority of consumers will bend over, drop trow, lube themselves up and say “Go ahead, I’m ready!” If we united and made an example of one brand and got even a six-month period of a drop in sales by 50% or more, they would beg us to tell them what do we want in return for buying again. We could have all the control we want, but people just don’t have spines.