> Google will allow users to sideload Android apps without verification
Mercedes will allow drivers to carry passengers without verification.
Sounds silly, doesn't it?
Android developer verification: Early access starts
331–340 of 694 posts
Re: Android developer verification: Early access starts
#332Earlier quoted context omitted.
Google have their own reasons too. They would love to kill off YouTube ReVanced and other haxx0red clients that give features for free which Google would rather sell you on subscription. Just look at everything they've done to break yt-dlp over and over again. In fact their newest countermeasure is a frontpage story right beside this one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45898407
yt-dlp's days are fairly numbered as Google has a trump card they can eventually deploy: all content is gated behind DRM. IIRC the only reason YouTube content is not yet served exclusively through DRM is to maintain compatibility with older hardware like smart TVs.
Something I've never understood about DRM is, if the content is ultimately played on my device, what stops me from reverse engineering their code to make an alternative client or downloader? Is it just making it harder to do so? Or is there a theoretical limit to reverse engineering that I'm not getting? Do they have hardware decryption keys in every monitor, inside the LCD controller chip?
Re: Android developer verification: Early access starts
#333That blog post really downplays the issue that people have with the verification requirement and is tone-deaf. The resistance to get Google's blessing for app distribution is definitely not limited to students and hobbyists - and I don't think that's even the biggest affected group.
Re: Android developer verification: Early access starts
#334> Google will allow users to sideload Android apps without verification
Ford will allow drivers to carry passengers without verification.
Sounds silly, doesn't it?
Re: Android developer verification: Early access starts
#335Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is actually a good point, and something I've been wondering about too. What changed between the 90s and now, that Microsoft didn't get blamed for malware on Windows, but Google/Apple would be blamed now for malware on their devices? It seems that the environment today is different, in the sense that if (widespread) PCs only came into existence now, the PC makers would be considered responsible for harms therefro…
Windows 95 (and patronage) had become a shitshow. It’s easy to forget how much time us tech types were spending “fixing” uncle’s PC that somehow got malware on it. How we touted Linux as an escape from the hellscape of crapware. It was into this void that the “everything seems new” iPhone stepped and ventured out in a different course. I’m neither speaking for or against apples normalization of an App Store as a prim…
Windows 95 was fundamentally broken as if I recall correctly there was much less security features (accounts, file permissions, etc.). Nowadays there are less problems with it.
Re: Android developer verification: Early access starts
#336> Google will allow users to sideload Android apps without verification Ford will allow drivers to carry passengers without verification. Sounds silly, doesn't it?
If 90% of passengers were scamming the drivers or hijacking the car for some nefarious purpose that affects other cars, you definitely wouldn't find that silly.
Re: Android developer verification: Early access starts
#337Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's all indeed valid. > One of the best features of Android is that even built-in default applications like the keyboard, browser, launcher, etc can be replaced by alternative implementations. When sideloading is barred all that can easily change. If you are forced to install everything from the Google Play Store, Google can easily bar such things, again in the name of "security" - alternate keyboards can steal yo…
> Instead of that, why not make it so that an app can access SMS / RCS only when that option is allowed when you have a special Google Account? Because then you still need a special Google Account to install your app when it needs to access SMS / RCS. How about solving this problem in a way that doesn't involve Google rather than the owner of the device making decisions about what they can do with it? Like don't let…
>instead require the user to manually go into settings to turn them on, but if they do then it's still possible
They clearly addressed this option in the post, under sufficient social engineering pressure these settings will easily be circumvented. You'd need at least a 24h timeout or similar to mitigate the social pressure.
Re: Android developer verification: Early access starts
#338So there was the very concrete problem that F-Droid could not continue to function with the verification requirements, because they rebuild every app and so would have to know every key. Do the changes here do anything for F-Droid?
What this probably means: to use F-Droid on your phone, you will have to first go through the new unverified app flow
That would at least be an improvement to the current situation, were they wouldn't be able to operate at all.
If the flow is designed such the you only have to do it once for F-Droid and then the unsigned apps would be installable from there without friction, it wouldn't even be that bad.
Re: Android developer verification: Early access starts
#339Earlier quoted context omitted.
Too bad that I'm going iPhone if Google removes sideloading and now I know about revanced so they aren't getting any more than the zero dollars that youtube and youtube music are worth from me If I'm going to live in a walled garden it's going to the fanciest
I still don't get this mindset - all is lost, I am not going to do anything aboit that AND I will punish them by going with the even worse option!
If neither does what you want, you'll use other metrics, which often make ios a better choice. Simple as that
Re: Android developer verification: Early access starts
#340From the very first announcement of this, Google has hinted that they were doing this under pressure from the governments in a few countries. (I don't remember the URL of the first announcement, but https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2025/08/elevating-... is from 2025-August-25 and mentions “These requirements go into effect in Brazil, Indonesia, Singapore, and Thailand”.) The “Why verification is important” s…
> From the very first announcement of this, Google has hinted that they were doing this under pressure from the governments in a few countries. (I don't remember the URL of the first announcement, but https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2025/08/elevating-... is from 2025-August-25 and mentions “These requirements go into effect in Brazil, Indonesia, Singapore, and Thailand”.)
In ye goode olde times, the US would have threatened invasion and that would have been the end of it.
Half /s, because it actually used to be the case that the US government exercised its massive influence (and not just militarily) onto other countries for the benefit of its corporations and/or its citizens... these days, the geopolitical influence of the US has been reduced to shreds and the executive's priorities aren't set by doing what's (being perceived as being) right but by whomever pays the biggest bribes.