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You can install from other stores (AnkiDroid is on F-Droid, for example), or from direct file download on Android already. The problem is rather thay most users

You can install from other stores (AnkiDroid is on F-Droid, for example), or from direct file download on Android already. The problem is rather thay most users just use the store preinstalled on their phone as part of Google's deal with OEMs to bundle Google Play Services. So either you follow Google's rules, or you lose all the users who don't want to leave the walled garden, even though they can.

amiga386 1mo ago
Yeah, not for much longer though: https://keepandroidopen.org/ https://keepandroidopen.org/
- 999900000999 1mo ago
  Thanks for sharing. Everyone is speed running towards a future where you need a permit to write software. Try to run a binary that doesn’t have the right cert( or whatever it’s called on Windows) and you get a bunch of warnings. Even if Android is open , normal people will only use the App Store. I can imagine China forcing Apple to allow 3rd party installations of software one day . The EU did something where to my knowledge Apple still gets a cut of each sale.
  - Create 1mo ago
    https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.en.html This article appeared in the February 1997 issue of Communications of the ACM (Volume 40, Number 2).
  - Shorel 1mo ago
    Not just warnings. I literally can't run non signed software in the job-provided computer even if I compile it myself.
  - 0xbadcafebee 1mo ago
    I am really hoping Google forces everyone to use signed apps Play Store. That is the only thing that will make people stop using Google/Android, to develop a real, actual, not-just-a-bad-fork-of-Android alternative mobile platform. Otherwise everyone will keep putting up with the bullshit because it's not painful enough yet. The OS will keep getting more bloated and slow. We'll all be forced by the constant churn of breaking changes to keep buying new phones when the old ones work fine. And the surveillance state of an authoritarian country has instant root access on half the devices on the planet.
- emursebrian 1mo ago
  Wow. The click the build number a bunch of times is already onerous enough. Now we're going to have to wait 24 hours to spin up a new development device?
Flimm 1mo ago
Google is making it increasingly difficult to freely install software from app stores that they don't control and tax. Quoting https://keepandroidopen.org https://keepandroidopen.org : > Starting in 2027*, a silent update, nonconsensually pushed by Google, will block every Android app whose developer hasn't registered with Google, signed their contract, paid up, and handed over government ID. > Every app and every device, worldwide, with no opt-out.
- dataflow 1mo ago
  > Google's "escape hatch" is a trap door >> Wait 24 hours >> Pick "allow temporarily" (7 days) or "allow indefinitely Geez. I don't like what they're doing either but this fear-mongering is not helping your cause. So the "trap door" here is just that you can't buy a phone and immediately start loading apps from unverified developers onto it until 24h have passed? Of all the hills we could be dying on, that's the one we're picking?
  - amiga386 1mo ago
    - the "24 hours" is Google's first formulation of plausible deniability. They've likely done testing to hone that number to find a sweet spot. - the "24 hours" is enforced by remotely-run code, meaning Google remains in control of it and can unilaterally alter how this works, any time they feel like. Imagine you went to the shops, and found that one shop, while it had the goods on display, and could totally just let you pick them up and buy them, was required by the shop next door to make you go away and come back no sooner than 24 hours later. Meanwhile, the shop next door is right there, and it's open, and it has no such restriction. On what planet do you think anyone other than the most dedicated of dedicated people would choose the shop that requires waiting a whole day to use it when the alternative has no such restriction? > unverified developers The developers in F-Droid are verified, just not by Google. That's the whole fucking point. Google is not the be-all and end-all, but with this power-play, they are making themselves that.
    - dataflow 1mo ago
      > On what planet do you think anyone other than the most dedicated of dedicated people would choose the shop that requires waiting a whole day to use it when the alternative has no such restriction? I have no clue what you're referring to or worried about here, could you clarify? Are you worried Android is going to lose power users to iPhone? What are the alternative shops you're referring to here? We're not buying pastries. > The developers in F-Droid are verified, just not by Google. "Unverified" in my comment was a shorthand for "unverified by Google", not an insult. > Google is not the be-all and end-all, but with this power-play, they are making themselves that. The complain about that? Rather than wasting time complaining about the 24h wait? I don't know if people's imaginations are lacking here, but there could easily be a world in which your 'alternative' verifier would still make you wait 24h (or longer). The wait is clearly a security mechanism, regardless of who makes you do it. (And yes, it could have been chosen for plausible deniability.) Is your actual problem the wait itself, or is your actual problem the identity of the entity making you do it, or is your actual problem that the power is too concentrated in one entity, regardless of the entity? These are very different issues with very different solutions.
devsda 1mo ago
When do we stop this instinctive response of "well you can still do it in an only slightly convoluted way" everytime a corporate does something bad. Windows added ads - well you can disable them, if you don't like it. Chrome brought up mv3 - well you can still use mv2, it is only optional. Reddit locking subreddits behind login wall - well there's always old.reddit Android moving everything to playstore - there's always FDroid. How many of these are still true and for how long? If someone's country is a dictatorship, it doesn't help to tell them that there are 100 other democratic countries, just move. Not everyone can emigrate or want to emigrate for any number of reasons.
- cnowacek 1mo ago
  While I agree with your point, conflating the effort to install apps outside of the Google Play Store with the effort to immigrate to a different country is wildly incomparable.
- Forgeties79 1mo ago
  Actually old reddit doesn’t work that way anymore lol you must login or use crappy reddit, which is exactly to your point though! They will just keep making it harder and harder until you simply can’t, but by then so a few people will be “opting in/out” that they’ll argue nobody wants the ability to toggle that anyway.
  - qbit42 1mo ago
    I think the old reddit redirect extension gets around this somehow, that has worked for me lately (occasionally with some toggling of the extension). Although maybe it's best to just use less reddit tbh
    - Forgeties79 1mo ago
      I resigned as a mod after the API shitshow and am so glad I did. It’s a terrible site. I wind up there every month or two from friends or looking something up, it’s hard to see how much of a cesspool it is when you’re so invested in it and up close.
maybewhenthesun 1mo ago
But not for long. Sideloading is being frowned upon by the mighty G
- fc417fc802 1mo ago
  s/sideloading/not using the play store/ It's not "sideloading" it's just "installing software" don't help legitimize this stance that google is meant to be the official arbiter of what I do on a device I own.
  - maybewhenthesun 1mo ago
    You're not wrong. I'm not hung up on the terminology, but it is better to not use their language.
Ajedi32 1mo ago
It's honestly not that big of a problem. Probably some anti-trust legislation can/should be passed to make installing F-Droid and the like easier, but it's already pretty easy. If enough popular apps start requiring you to install them through F-Droid then that'll become normalized and Google will lose its soft monopoly in this space, which is an outcome I'm all for.
- schubidubiduba 1mo ago
  Google is making it much more difficult and annoying to install F-Droid and any apps from there RIGHT NOW. To the point where it will cease to be a viable way of distribution for any app that wants to attract an audience larger than the handful of power users. There is no reason at all to defend them.
rangerelf 1mo ago
No, you can't; not without jumping through hoops, not without clicking on fake warnings, not without a song and a dance about fake "saving you from scammers" scare tactics. Please stop covering for Google. They're behaving badly, people are reacting, stop with the "Achucally..." which is pretty grating and cringe worthy.
jacquesm 1mo ago
99.99% of the typical mobile phone users will not be able to implement your advice and the 0.01% that can already knows.
michaelmior 1mo ago
> you lose all the users who don't want to leave the walled garden, even though they can. I think it's moreso you lose all the users who don't realize anything outside the walled garden even exists.
Grimblewald 1mo ago
if no one used alternative stores, there'd be no reason to ban them, and yet google is banning them.

amiga386 1mo ago

Yeah, not for much longer though: https://keepandroidopen.org/ https://keepandroidopen.org/

999900000999 1mo ago
Thanks for sharing. Everyone is speed running towards a future where you need a permit to write software. Try to run a binary that doesn’t have the right cert( or whatever it’s called on Windows) and you get a bunch of warnings. Even if Android is open , normal people will only use the App Store. I can imagine China forcing Apple to allow 3rd party installations of software one day . The EU did something where to my knowledge Apple still gets a cut of each sale.
- Create 1mo ago
  https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.en.html This article appeared in the February 1997 issue of Communications of the ACM (Volume 40, Number 2).
- Shorel 1mo ago
  Not just warnings. I literally can't run non signed software in the job-provided computer even if I compile it myself.
- 0xbadcafebee 1mo ago
  I am really hoping Google forces everyone to use signed apps Play Store. That is the only thing that will make people stop using Google/Android, to develop a real, actual, not-just-a-bad-fork-of-Android alternative mobile platform. Otherwise everyone will keep putting up with the bullshit because it's not painful enough yet. The OS will keep getting more bloated and slow. We'll all be forced by the constant churn of breaking changes to keep buying new phones when the old ones work fine. And the surveillance state of an authoritarian country has instant root access on half the devices on the planet.
emursebrian 1mo ago
Wow. The click the build number a bunch of times is already onerous enough. Now we're going to have to wait 24 hours to spin up a new development device?

Flimm 1mo ago

Google is making it increasingly difficult to freely install software from app stores that they don't control and tax. Quoting https://keepandroidopen.org https://keepandroidopen.org : > Starting in 2027*, a silent update, nonconsensually pushed by Google, will block every Android app whose developer hasn't registered with Google, signed their contract, paid up, and handed over government ID. > Every app and every device, worldwide, with no opt-out.

dataflow 1mo ago
> Google's "escape hatch" is a trap door >> Wait 24 hours >> Pick "allow temporarily" (7 days) or "allow indefinitely Geez. I don't like what they're doing either but this fear-mongering is not helping your cause. So the "trap door" here is just that you can't buy a phone and immediately start loading apps from unverified developers onto it until 24h have passed? Of all the hills we could be dying on, that's the one we're picking?
- amiga386 1mo ago
  - the "24 hours" is Google's first formulation of plausible deniability. They've likely done testing to hone that number to find a sweet spot. - the "24 hours" is enforced by remotely-run code, meaning Google remains in control of it and can unilaterally alter how this works, any time they feel like. Imagine you went to the shops, and found that one shop, while it had the goods on display, and could totally just let you pick them up and buy them, was required by the shop next door to make you go away and come back no sooner than 24 hours later. Meanwhile, the shop next door is right there, and it's open, and it has no such restriction. On what planet do you think anyone other than the most dedicated of dedicated people would choose the shop that requires waiting a whole day to use it when the alternative has no such restriction? > unverified developers The developers in F-Droid are verified, just not by Google. That's the whole fucking point. Google is not the be-all and end-all, but with this power-play, they are making themselves that.
  - dataflow 1mo ago
    > On what planet do you think anyone other than the most dedicated of dedicated people would choose the shop that requires waiting a whole day to use it when the alternative has no such restriction? I have no clue what you're referring to or worried about here, could you clarify? Are you worried Android is going to lose power users to iPhone? What are the alternative shops you're referring to here? We're not buying pastries. > The developers in F-Droid are verified, just not by Google. "Unverified" in my comment was a shorthand for "unverified by Google", not an insult. > Google is not the be-all and end-all, but with this power-play, they are making themselves that. The complain about that? Rather than wasting time complaining about the 24h wait? I don't know if people's imaginations are lacking here, but there could easily be a world in which your 'alternative' verifier would still make you wait 24h (or longer). The wait is clearly a security mechanism, regardless of who makes you do it. (And yes, it could have been chosen for plausible deniability.) Is your actual problem the wait itself, or is your actual problem the identity of the entity making you do it, or is your actual problem that the power is too concentrated in one entity, regardless of the entity? These are very different issues with very different solutions.

devsda 1mo ago

When do we stop this instinctive response of "well you can still do it in an only slightly convoluted way" everytime a corporate does something bad. Windows added ads - well you can disable them, if you don't like it. Chrome brought up mv3 - well you can still use mv2, it is only optional. Reddit locking subreddits behind login wall - well there's always old.reddit Android moving everything to playstore - there's always FDroid. How many of these are still true and for how long? If someone's country is a dictatorship, it doesn't help to tell them that there are 100 other democratic countries, just move. Not everyone can emigrate or want to emigrate for any number of reasons.

cnowacek 1mo ago
While I agree with your point, conflating the effort to install apps outside of the Google Play Store with the effort to immigrate to a different country is wildly incomparable.
Forgeties79 1mo ago
Actually old reddit doesn’t work that way anymore lol you must login or use crappy reddit, which is exactly to your point though! They will just keep making it harder and harder until you simply can’t, but by then so a few people will be “opting in/out” that they’ll argue nobody wants the ability to toggle that anyway.
- qbit42 1mo ago
  I think the old reddit redirect extension gets around this somehow, that has worked for me lately (occasionally with some toggling of the extension). Although maybe it's best to just use less reddit tbh
  - Forgeties79 1mo ago
    I resigned as a mod after the API shitshow and am so glad I did. It’s a terrible site. I wind up there every month or two from friends or looking something up, it’s hard to see how much of a cesspool it is when you’re so invested in it and up close.

maybewhenthesun 1mo ago

But not for long. Sideloading is being frowned upon by the mighty G

fc417fc802 1mo ago
s/sideloading/not using the play store/ It's not "sideloading" it's just "installing software" don't help legitimize this stance that google is meant to be the official arbiter of what I do on a device I own.
- maybewhenthesun 1mo ago
  You're not wrong. I'm not hung up on the terminology, but it is better to not use their language.

Ajedi32 1mo ago

It's honestly not that big of a problem. Probably some anti-trust legislation can/should be passed to make installing F-Droid and the like easier, but it's already pretty easy. If enough popular apps start requiring you to install them through F-Droid then that'll become normalized and Google will lose its soft monopoly in this space, which is an outcome I'm all for.

schubidubiduba 1mo ago
Google is making it much more difficult and annoying to install F-Droid and any apps from there RIGHT NOW. To the point where it will cease to be a viable way of distribution for any app that wants to attract an audience larger than the handful of power users. There is no reason at all to defend them.

rangerelf 1mo ago

No, you can't; not without jumping through hoops, not without clicking on fake warnings, not without a song and a dance about fake "saving you from scammers" scare tactics. Please stop covering for Google. They're behaving badly, people are reacting, stop with the "Achucally..." which is pretty grating and cringe worthy.

jacquesm 1mo ago

99.99% of the typical mobile phone users will not be able to implement your advice and the 0.01% that can already knows.

michaelmior 1mo ago

> you lose all the users who don't want to leave the walled garden, even though they can. I think it's moreso you lose all the users who don't realize anything outside the walled garden even exists.

Grimblewald 1mo ago

if no one used alternative stores, there'd be no reason to ban them, and yet google is banning them.