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Android Developer Verification: Threat masquerading as protection

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181–190 of 793 posts

Re: Android Developer Verification: Threat masquerading as protection

#181
post #19

Android users need to switch to Graphene. Someone needs to create a Linux based mobile OS foundation - Google's domination is contrary to many large companies interests, and if Meta and many other such companies were approached, they may well donate large sums of money in their own strategic interests.

> Android users need to switch to Graphene.

Which supports only Pixel devices.

Re: Android Developer Verification: Threat masquerading as protection

#182
post #39
post #19

Android users need to switch to Graphene. Someone needs to create a Linux based mobile OS foundation - Google's domination is contrary to many large companies interests, and if Meta and many other such companies were approached, they may well donate large sums of money in their own strategic interests.

The only reason I have not switched Graphene is because for reasons I do not understand, Graphene OS is very closely tied with Google hardware. I bought a /e/os Fairphone instead.

I bought a second hand pixel when I had to buy a new phone. Still better for the planet than buying a new fairphone anyway.

Re: Android Developer Verification: Threat masquerading as protection

#183

What Google is doing is shameful. One of the promises of Android was being more open than the restrictive Apple ecosystem. Now that they reached penetration they do the switch - under the guise of security. Just let me do with my hardware what I want to do it. Let it be my responsibility to install whatever I want (and stop calling it "side-loading", as if I am doing something shady from the "side"). We need to resis…

AFAIK you can still install any random APK but the process will require enabling developer mode and one time 24 hour wait period. But the problem is many stupid Apps check that developer mode is on and refuse to work.

How long before they take that option away?

Re: Android Developer Verification: Threat masquerading as protection

#184
post #111

What Google is doing is shameful. One of the promises of Android was being more open than the restrictive Apple ecosystem. Now that they reached penetration they do the switch - under the guise of security. Just let me do with my hardware what I want to do it. Let it be my responsibility to install whatever I want (and stop calling it "side-loading", as if I am doing something shady from the "side"). We need to resis…

> We need to resist this! I agree. What do you suggest? How can we contribute to the resistance?

Not much one can do I fear...

Install f-droid and all kinds of 3rd part apps now.

Install GrapheneOS. (I'm guilty of not having that done that,yet :( )

Sign the petition (https://keepandroidopen.org/).

Re: Android Developer Verification: Threat masquerading as protection

#185

I think the most fun part with Google is that if some wayward algorithm decides it doesn’t like you, along with nuking your app and developer account it will probably nuke your 20 year old gmail, your kids Google Drive accounts, your wife’s YouTube premium, the Adsense account of some company you worked for in 2008, and disable your Nest cameras. And you’ll never reach a human to sort it out.

What happens if you "accidentally" become persona non grata with both Google and Apple?

If you want to participate in the society, you will forever have to resort to shady tactics. Shady can be defined something as arbitrary as using GrapheneOS.

A temporary workaround like using alternatives like GrapheneOS for those affected will only delay the inevitable but it doesn't stop it at all.

Re: Android Developer Verification: Threat masquerading as protection

#186
post #39
post #19

Android users need to switch to Graphene. Someone needs to create a Linux based mobile OS foundation - Google's domination is contrary to many large companies interests, and if Meta and many other such companies were approached, they may well donate large sums of money in their own strategic interests.

The only reason I have not switched Graphene is because for reasons I do not understand, Graphene OS is very closely tied with Google hardware. I bought a /e/os Fairphone instead.

Pixels are consistently "third party Android builds friendly", plus GrapheneOS has a list of required security features (beyond their control): https://grapheneos.org/faq#future-devices

e.g. first one in the list:

> Support for using alternate operating systems including full hardware security functionality

GrapheneOS wants users to lock the bootloader (≈enable Secure Boot) after install by providing user signing keys (avb_custom_key) -- that already seems to leave only Pixel, Nothing and Fairphone.

https://github.com/chenxiaolong/avbroot/issues/299

Re: Android Developer Verification: Threat masquerading as protection

#187

It doesn't solve the current issue, but in case we don't manage to push back on this, some people might not know that there are various actual linux OSes for mobile: - SailfishOS: still linux based and seems fairly community inclusive, but the UI part of the stack is closed source. Is the only one officially allowed to run android apps, via emulation. Has existed for a very long time, it's lightweight and I think the…

There's also FuriOS with the FuriPhone.

That's debian based with gnome and seems to be built by capable people. Also, it can run android apps.

Re: Android Developer Verification: Threat masquerading as protection

#188

It doesn't solve the current issue, but in case we don't manage to push back on this, some people might not know that there are various actual linux OSes for mobile: - SailfishOS: still linux based and seems fairly community inclusive, but the UI part of the stack is closed source. Is the only one officially allowed to run android apps, via emulation. Has existed for a very long time, it's lightweight and I think the…

And all are useless because you can't use your mandatory bank or gov id app.

Re: Android Developer Verification: Threat masquerading as protection

#189

What Google is doing is shameful. One of the promises of Android was being more open than the restrictive Apple ecosystem. Now that they reached penetration they do the switch - under the guise of security. Just let me do with my hardware what I want to do it. Let it be my responsibility to install whatever I want (and stop calling it "side-loading", as if I am doing something shady from the "side"). We need to resis…

AFAIK you can still install any random APK but the process will require enabling developer mode and one time 24 hour wait period. But the problem is many stupid Apps check that developer mode is on and refuse to work.

An FDroid desktop client that adb installs APKs would actually be lovely. I pretty much exclusively use FDroid, but I gotta say I unfortunately find all their frontends to be rather buggy and with very little user feedback when things break (repo updates are hard to observe, downloads hang, updates mysteriously fail)

Re: Android Developer Verification: Threat masquerading as protection

#190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We experienced this with Anthropic, not the same blast radius obviously, but out of nowhere account was terminated. No support available. It was via someone’s 30+ year old classmate via LinkedIn the account got reinstated. As a counterpoint to the right to the repair there should be a right to recover.

There was a more direct case where someone’s child had been interacting with Gemini inappropriately resulting in Google nuking the entire families Google accounts.

It was a fake story on reddit.
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