The weirdest part to me: this comes after the EU determined that Apple’s locked store is too restrictive, and Apple agreed to allow 3rd party stores. Why the hell would Android go in the opposite direction? Will this put them in violation of the same EU regulation?
I really wish I wasn’t so dependent on certain financial apps. How much happier I would be to just give Google the finger and switch to Lineage, Graphene, or something like that. Unfortunately, a lot of must-have apps for me to even be able to live in my country, practically speaking, are incompatible with anything other than official iOS and Android.
Why not get a bank pass for this kind of stuff, and do banking on websites if you need to?
Unfortunately it doesn’t really work that way where I’m from.
Couldn’t you get like the cheapest android phone just for these apps specifically? Or do people need to do banking stuff on the go?
This is something I am considering. Could even put it in a Faraday bag when I’m not using it.
What if I disabled Play store and use Aurora and Fdroid for everything? Am I safe until I can afford to replace?
I think it’s on Google Play services so you need a rom with microG services.
I hate Google. They need to be broken down.
LineageOS supported models: https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/
How is it even legal for a company to decide what you can or can’t install in your own device?
For the same reason they can make you click agree to terms before you can do anything with the device.
I reckon that means it is not actually your own device.
Because anti-trust has not been enforced this century, with the exception of Lina-Khan’s work as the FCC director.
Companies have been pushing the boundaries further and further for decades, with almost no push back.
Legal is just whoever has the most resources.
The US supports monopolies as long as they have a backdoor. It was the same with Microsoft in the 90s.
Ugghhhh, its THEIR OS you’re using. Perfect example is Nintendo.
You mean the original NES which they tried in court to stop unlicensed carts and lost, right? Right?
“If you want to replace Internet Explorer with Netscape Navigator, why not just use Solaris or OS/2 or something? It’s THEIR OS you’re using” didn’t go over too well with the courts.
Reckon we are gonna need to see some how to guides for adb. I presume its like the linux terminal?
It’s pretty easy to use, you just need a USB cable. But it is a cli like terminal so you do want to search for how to use it and not just guess because you can delete files accidentally easier. But you always just start with ‘adb devices’ and that just lets you know if it’s working.
Alternatives
Fairphone https://shop.fairphone.com/the-fairphone-gen-6-e-operating-system
GrapheneOS https://grapheneos.org/
Sailfish OS https://sailfishos.org/
LibrePhone from GNU/Linux https://librephone.fsf.org/
To be fair, LibrePhone isn’t an alternative because its just an announcement of a project. There is nothing viable yet from them.
It also is not an actual OS but just reverse engineered blobs so someone else could make an OS, they might not even be able to port a mainline kernel to any devices
̶S̶̶i̶̶d̶̶e̶̶l̶̶o̶̶a̶̶d̶̶i̶̶n̶̶g̶ Installing
Yeah, but installing from the Play Store is also installing, and “sideloading” is shorter than “installing from outside the Play store”, so I’m not sure this is a winnable fight.
There’s a lot of other cool teens we could use. Indy apps, homebrews, anything that makes you think of a farmer’s market…
Also, we might just pish for the narrative that anthing not sideloaded is wrong… Why are people using spoonfed apps anyways? Aren’t we grownups?
It’s well worth the minimum amount of extra typing and reading to say “installing from outside the Play Store” to push back against the idea of the locked down CorpoPhone being the default… or the norm… or the legal requirement.
It’s a small push back commensurate with the small amount of effort, but it’s a subject worthy of the attention.
It is, but sadly I don’t think Android Authority and other publications will be convinced. We should still try though.
It’s installing regardless from where you get the app, by labeling it as sideloading these giant corpos want to label it as doing something outside the norm, something that is “unsafe” so they can have control over user behavior and market dominance
Yes that’s what I’m saying, it’s “installing” regardless of where you get the app, so if an article wants to talk about something concerning installing apps from outside the Play Store, they can’t just say “installing”. That would be incorrect if the things they talk about don’t concern installing from the Play Store.
So you need a different description than just “installing”.
E.g. in this example the article title couldn’t be “installing changes are next”, it would need to be something else.
“Installing” is not a drop-in replacement for “sideloading” without changing the meaning of what you say.
I’ve had the play store install, remove, and modify installed applications without so much as a hint they were doing it, the “Play Store” does what would be considered “sideloading” applications (i. e. a third party app managing your applications from a location other than the package manager), feeding an apk to a package manager would just be “installing” an application like it always has been.
By co-opting the term to be something bad, they are trying to make it seem like they are the only safe source for applications (even though the Google-managed stores have just as much malware as WinMX did 20+ years ago).
Correct, but what do you propose? In your terminology installing from the Play Store is “sideloading” and installing directly is “installing”. But surely you agree that if an article was titled “Google makes installing apps on Android harder, but sideloading will be as smooth as before”, everyone would understand the opposite of that.
I would personally like to just go back to calling it installing, but I doubt that is even less likely than getting back “-lications” to my programs (just a dumb joke about how applications slowly became apps).
Its all good though, I’m just an old man bitching on the internet.
Installing from other app stores. Installing, but not from the Play Store. Installing from not-Google-controlled stores.
It’s installing. Context can be given using this wonderful semantic device called “subordinate clauses”.
Yeah exactly, and we reached all the way back to my original comment: you can’t just replace “sideloading” with “installing”, without adding additional clarification.
“I installed from apt get, and then I sideloaded from flatpak, and sideloaded from a .deb file”? Or “installed from the windows store but sideloaded from an .exe file” (literally everything I ever installed was through .exe/.msi on windows)
?!?!?
all of which is entirely possible on a phone (Linux containers and WINE), which makes the term “sideloading” even dumber
I’d just call all of that “installing”, “sideloading” doesn’t really make sense here. Importantly you already specified how you installed in each case, so it’s perfectly understandable whatever verb you use.
I have the new Jolla Phone preordered and I’m excited to see how it plays out. Maybe 2026 is the year of the Linux Phone
We will get that reality with SteamOS supporting mobile devices whether gov likes it or not. These laws are SO god damn stupid.
They’ve been saying “maybe it’s the year of the Linux desktop” for years, mobile Linux only reliably works on a handful of specific modern devices and some fairly old ones
I wouldn’t hold my breath for it
Desktop Linux may not be mainstream, but it’s solid. Mobile Linux not so much. I bought the pinephone hoping it would be a first class citizen, but it’s fairly underwhelming, even after all this time. UBPorts has it listed as 68% supported, it and other OSes lack useful app ecosystems.
I know that the year of the Linux desktop is a bit of a meme but that’s why I was referencing it. That said, the year of the Linux desktop has long come for me personally and only my desktop PC still has a Windows partition but I don’t know when I last booted into it. I won’t immediately ditch my Android phone, but I’m excited to test the viability of a Linux phone for me personally
As much as I love Linux I’ll be the first to admit that it probably won’t catch on with average users for a long time. Most people really don’t want to have to troubleshoot anything and just want something that works out of the box, and Linux isn’t really able to deliver that consistently.
I’m curious to try a Linux phone myself, but being in Canada importing new hardware is expensive and the other phone models that are compatible are ancient, and often without VoLTE support which is gonna be mandatory pretty soon here
Motorola is making a graphene OS phone soon.
If they don’t cancel the partnership over
age verificationdigital IDs
For those who haven’t seen this excellent video:
It’s not that “excellent.” It’s just ‘for the evulz’ mustache-twirling comical villainy, which ends up downplaying what’s actually important to know about enshittification, which is how self-serving and abusive it is. When companies enshittify products and services, they’re not just making them worse; they’re specifically making them more exploitative.
A lot of the examples shown in the video – cutting holes in socks, sawing off a chair leg so it wobbles, drying out a marker, etc. – are not enshittification. Enshittification is stuff like putting spyware in devices so that you double-dip on the purchase price and the value of the data, or turning products (as opposed to services) into a subscription. Stuff that extracts unearned value from the customer.
It touches on it in the latter part of the video, but for the most part misses the mark.
You know, it was funny. Bit long in the tooth. The best thing about the video, it was actually produced by Norway. The government produced the video. That’s pretty freaking cool.
Yeah it was a short PSA for average people, not power users. If it wasn’t funny a lot of people lose interest. It only spends the first 25% on the unrelated comedy bit. And the real point is to get people to the site at the end to learn more.
Upon further reflection, I think my previous comment may have been a little too harsh on it.
But I still think that, to be truly “excellent,” it could’ve made its point without muddying/confusing the definition of enshittification.
Yeah excellent might have been a little too much praise, but I haven’t seen any other public PSAs trying to point out to people what’s happening to online services and doing a decent job of it
To me, this picture is still a meme in the making. Reminds me of Heartbreaking guy
And that’s why I’m installing /e/OS in my Fairphone 6, and shifting to Linux based phones.
Even now Google is removing everything that is a choice to avoid their massive surveillance machine, apps started complaining about removal of UnifiedPush:
Fuck Google.
That’s actually a known bug in Fennec, nothing to do with Google
Don’t forget their ongoing war on ad blocking. I’ll miss NewPipe so much.
NewPipe, PipePipe, Grayjay, brave mobile
One of them generally works.
The latest NewPipe is working for me right now. It only ever dies for a few days.
It’s working, yeah, but it’s
sideloadedinstalled outside of a washed garden, so it’ll soon be uninstallable.
Pipepipe works fine
I’ve been using NewPipe without problems. Is it supposed to have gone away?
future tense, they even posted about it, jfc
Mine insists I’m a bot and requests I sign in.
Other times it works occasionally.
Like rolling dice.
Try some methods to change your IP.
You can try Futo’s Grayjay. Always updating its YT plugin when Google breaks it.
FF6 with eOS is awesome! For the first time in a very long time, I feel like I actually own the device! Very liberating.
Do you use any banking apps?
Yeah, I was very happy that my banks app worked. Also, I found if I keep microg connected to the app lounge, then my bank app would not work. So I keep it set to anonymous connection.
All mine work, so far, in Graphene, except Google wallet and i don’t need Google to see what I purchase anyway.
Mine refuse to run in GrapheneOS. Everything runs except my banks’ apps and eBay. It’s a slight inconvenience but the tradeoff has been worth it.
Edit: Thanks to NewOldGuard@lemmy.ml I got my bank’s app working under GrapheneOS.
Have you tried the workarounds like disabling some exploit protections for the app? It can be finicky but sometimes it’ll make it usable
No, thanks for the tip. I’ll try that.
Edit: It worked! Disabling exploit protections got my bank’s app working. Thanks again.
Sweeet I’m glad it helped!
Do
noevil.Welcome friend! I’ve been having a great time with e/os on my FP6.
I recommend the lawnchair launcher if you don’t like the stock one.
Yes lawnchair is a must have with e/os. I like what /e/os is pushing for but im puzzled on why they did this horrendous launcher and the way they change stock android look.
I’m on an FP6 with iodéOS, very smooth so far, and apparently security is better than with /e/OS.
I had to manually flash it though.
shifting to Linux based phones
lol good luck with that LOL
Some people value freedom more than convenience
It sadly doesn’t change the fact that those phones barely exists and the few that does are either incredibly old or only very partially supported.
And we may be fine with that
I have a Jolla C2 with SailfishOS, it has Android app support based on AlienDalvik, and my banking app runs just fine there. I can use Nextcloud, etc. For my needs it runs great.
Been using them for a hot minute, been rocking one flavor of the Linux kernel on my phone since the release of the Motorola Droid back in like 2009-2010.
Great. So half my software won’t work.
Google, just call it what it is. Ad blocking prevention.
This is in no way a justification for what Google is doing, but they came to a “compromise” where you can still opt-in to being allowed to “sideload unverified apps” (read: install apps that didn’t have to get approval from Google).
You have to enable it in the settings, and then you need to wait 24 hours before the setting is enabled. After that you can continue to run “unverified” apps
The “advanced flow” with a one-day wait is just Google realizing they need to boil this frog a little more slowly to prevent a backlash. They still want a fully boiled frog in the end.
Xiaomi bootloaders used to work like that. You’d have to jump through some bullshit hoops to register your phone for bootloader unlocking, and then wait a few days to finally be able to unlock it. Then they made that worse and worse, and afaik it’s so insanely difficult and inconvenient right now that it’s practically impossible to unlock your Xiaomi phone’s bootloader. This applies to all the brands under that umbrella.
I am about 97.37% sure Google will do the same over time and at some point you just won’t be able to install any APKs.
Even google’s “verified apps” are full of spyware, backdoors, and telemetry. They’re so fucking hypocritical. Like an abuser who says “You can’t make it in this world without me!”
Also, is this going to effect third-party ROMs like Lineage and its offshoots?
AFAIK, this is only Android, not AOSP that third-party devs would be using for their ROMs - and AOSP can be forked as well, so there’s no reason that Lineage can’t cut that part out if it did make it into AOSP.
Good to know!
What I haven’t seen is what happens to all of the apps I currently have installed when this hits.
Am I going to have to wait 24 hours to open apps I already have installed?
Will they all get auto-removed and need reinstalling?
Everything is written as if you’re starting from new not an existing state.
24hrs is a one time system flag for can install unverified apps or not, so it shouldn’t affect existing stuff.
Am I going to have to wait 24 hours to open apps I already have installed? Will they all get auto-removed and need reinstalling?
At the start I would have thought this was possible but pretty ridiculous. Why would Google do any of that?
But it turns out this was not ridiculous, as Play Protect literally just removed Ankiconnect, an app I already had installed for months, without giving me the choice to keep it or axe it. They certainly could force us to go with their “Uncle Google can I have permission to use my phone?” flow for apps we already use.
WE MUST CONTINUE TO OPPOSE THESE CHANGES, THESE ATTACKS ON OUR ABILITY TO INSTALL APPS AS WE WISH.
What happens if I just stop updating android for as long as I can? Quite a few apps on my phone have retained functionality past when their developers attempted to brick them because I froze updates
google services update themselves separately
google services update themselves separately
My Samsung S22 let me pause updates anymore. And it nags me to death.
My workaround is to start downloading the update and then pausing it.
RIP, that’s cancer. Yeah samsung has lost its fucking mind. I wish I had been considering the availability of 3rd party roms when I chose my model
you can probably disable the updater through adb.
I’m still sitting on Android 9 on a seven year old phone. They can take my Note 8 from my dead body. Its battery life is still fine and it’s still snappy and fast.
My banking app stopped working so I just use the browser page. A few smart device apps won’t work either, but I have a tablet I keep at home to use for my home control.
Discord still works fine. I have Reddit side loaded, still using RiF after the API fiasco. Those are really the only two things I need an actual app for an even then I’d probably just use the browser if they failed. Most apps still work as of now. Amazon won’t let kindle work on it anymore but fuck Amazon, I just get non-drm stuff on a different reader now.
Most phone companies refused to enable voice over broadband option after the 3g network went down in 2022 but I stayed stubborn and kept calling until finding T-mobile would do it.
I guess I’ll find out what happens when this update is pushed through? It shouldn’t hit me I’d hope.
I just upgraded to a fairphone 6 with e/os preinstalled after holding on to my LG G6 for at least 7 years. The thing that finally pushed me to upgrade was the camera, which was fine in 2019 but now is such a potato. Also the battery life was ass, the usbc port was super loose, and the micro sd card slot was broken so I was perpetually almost out of storage.
Hello from Android 12 lol. My 4yo phone runs just fine!
Sick. Any security scares or compatibility problems?
None I’m aware of. I’ve uninstalled pretty much every Google app, signed out of gmail acct and am mostly using F-Droid apps since I don’t need any “app store” apps. I kept my banking app, but apparently so far doesn’t need Google’s services bc it still works just fine. My battery, since making that switch, lasts a bit longer without all that stuff running.
But FYI, I don’t have any social media, and I only use WiFi unless I’m on the road. I don’t BT to my car but rarely, and I don’t need location services. So 1 day+life is easily achievable!
This is all managed via Play services not the android OS so you’d need to not update the core services.
Got that one froze too 🤞 pray for me holding out in the woods on this shit like the unabomber
There is a way to not update play services? They do their shit in automatic on my phone
It’s under settings > Security Privacy. You might need dev mode turned on
Haven’t seen anything official but I’d assume they will behave as normal and you may not be able to update them without going through the advanced flow. Since ADB installs aren’t restricted I don’t think there will be any changes to existing installs. Just my thoughts based on what they have confirmed so far. I am just waiting for GOS to support the Pixel 10a so I can get further away from Google and their BS in general.
FYI, there’s an experimental build available, if you can’t wait.
Thanks, I’m aware but this is already my daily driver because my old phone was dying so I can’t make the jump until it is stable.
That’s my hope, would be nice of they actually confirmed it.
With their story being “for security” I could see them trying to do a purge.
It won’t do anything to apps already installed. Future apps can be installed either by going through the dev mode unlock process or connecting to a computer and using ADB which doesn’t require a wait period.
it wont remain at that. i bet they will disable that setting occasionally and make you wait that 24h again and again.
For now at least, google will likely remove that option in the future.
Ummm… Isn’t this precisely against the whole EU’s make sideloading (ie. installing) as easy as main app store installing thing?
Taking steps backwards…Apple shat all over those regulations with their implementation and got away with it so now Google are doing the same
Yeah, my thoughts exactly.
Accountability is key in regulations. Without it, why should anyone follow them?
I also blame the Epic lawsuits. How the fuck did they lose to Apple but win against Google, the platform where Fortnite was still fully playable and monetised?
I don’t know anything about those. What’s the story?
Basically Epic weren’t happy with the 30% cut that Apple and Google take from app sales and in-app purchases so they introduced a direct payment method which bypassed Apple and Google’s payment methods, but was in violation of their app store rules. In response both Apple and Google removed Fortnite from the app store. Fortnite remained playable on Android because of sideloading but was unplayable on iOS (I’m not even sure if it’s back yet)
In response Epic sued both companies claiming they held an illegal monopoly. Somehow Apple won and Google lost
Oh I do recall that now that you mention it. But I wasn’t aware that they lost to Apple. That sounds ridiculous, isn’t it the same thing?!
I looked further into it and it seems to be because on iPhone the restrictions were purely technical, it just wasn’t possible to publish anywhere other than the app store which apparently isn’t monopolistic.
However Google were apparently making deals to make the play store the more attractive choice despite the alternatives existing, which did count as monopolistic behavior.
Now in isolation I can sort of understand both of those decisions, and I don’t really care either way because fuck Google Apple and Epic, I want them all to lose. But in the context of both lawsuits happening pretty much at the same time this was literally the one result that made no sense. I could understand Epic winning or losing both cases, or even beating Apple and losing to Google, but this way round was just stupid and I think Googles recent behaviour is partially because of it.
It took years and legal pressure and fines to have othet app stores decently recognized and allowed. I don’t understand how wr are goinf so back. I mean I understand. Capitalism + monopoly + orange guy.
I doubt it. EU regulations demand all manner of documentation, including who supplied software. Tech companies should also protect users and enforce “our” laws, which means a lot of surveillance.
App stores already have to do developer verification, under the celebrated DMA.
There’s a pro-business loophole meant to keep bureaucracy low. Very small companies are exempted. It’s kind of ironic, because Lemmy usually hates this kind of pro-business anti-regulation thing. To be fair, using this loophole to shield devs, as F-Droid wants, is an abuse. It’s only meant to allow small companies to grow until they have the resources to handle the verification.
It’s only meant to allow small companies to grow until they have the resources to handle the verification.
Most projects served by F-Droid are not backed by companies. Then they are righfully exempted from the DMA, it’s not a “loophole”.
You misunderstand. They are not exempt at all. F-Droid is exempt from collecting their identities.
Do we stand any chance? And how fucking dare these fucking outlets continue to normalize this shit.
We need development of Linux OSs for phones to ramp up. And we need Linux distributors and backers to fight back against “age verification” laws that are actually ID verification laws. There’s a global attack underway on multiple fronts against free software, private computing, and user ownership and control of devices.
In the meantime, for a stopgap, there’s GrapheneOS, but that doesn’t fix the problem of developers having to choose between Google’s way or unpaid obscurity.
PostmarketOS was already mentioned.
There’s another Linux OS for phones I’m aware of: https://sailfishos.org/- Android is a Linux distro
- Most people, me included, don’t want to run normal Linux on their phone. I use Linux on the desktop. I don’t hate Linux or anything of the sorts. But for phone use, normal Linux sucks major ass. What we need is GrapheneOS to be normalized and independent app stores for GrapheneOS.
- The above is not to say Linux phones are bad for everyone. I am sure there are few people who would enjoy it, but they are the minority.
PostmarketOS is a thing. A lot of the software is already available for Linux. People just keep pretending it doesn’t exist and keep spouting the same tired anti-Linux rhetoric ad nauseum.
Heck, I bet you could make a phone call from a bloody Pi Zero with a 4g & UPS HAT.
That’s a bit unfair. Postmarket is super cool and I can’t wait to get a Linux phone. But let’s not pretend it’s ready to be daily driven. Even on the best supported phones there are still hardware driver compatibility issues. And that’s not even speaking about the software catalog. Even in the privacy community, a lot of people regard banking apps as mandatory. Good luck ever getting those to run there.
