Your phone is about to stop being yours • Hacker News Board

Re: Your phone is about to stop being yours

#161

Post by kube-system » Tue, Apr 28, 2026, 5:26 PM UTC

kodablah wrote: post #65

TGower wrote: post #52

This is a wild misrepresentation of the situation. Saying there is no opt-out is just false, they even provide the information on how users can opt-out. The "mandatory 24 hour cooling-off period" is also misleading, it's easy to bypass the cooling-off period with ADB.

> Saying there is no opt-out is just false I can't see where one can opt-out of this new behavior and into the existing behavior, only a description of the new behavior's bypass (which is not the same thing at all) > easy to bypass the cooling-off period with ADB I don't think this is a reasonable use of the term "easy". I should be able to give my non-technical friend an apk and they can use it right then, with the…

> . I should be able to give my non-technical friend an apk and they can use it right then

Unfortunately that is the same vector that scammers use to drain people's bank accounts

Re: Your phone is about to stop being yours

#162

Post by akramachamarei » Tue, Apr 28, 2026, 5:27 PM UTC

bakugo wrote: post #81

gruez wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You can’t use stuff like banking apps on a modified device IME such apps are few and far between. The most trouble I ran into is play store refusing to show apps because they claim the app isn't compatible with the device, but that can be worked around with aurora store.

They really aren't. The number of apps requiring Play Integrity grows every day, my own bank's app hasn't worked in years and I've long given up on it, I just use it on a second stock device now. And Google has an answer to the "just install the APK from somewhere else" workaround, too. Many apps now integrate a check that prevents them from running if they're not properly linked to the Play Store.

Are banking apps much more useful than banking websites, anyway?

Re: Your phone is about to stop being yours

#163

Post by morserer » Tue, Apr 28, 2026, 5:28 PM UTC

smalltorch wrote: post #2

The opt out is graphene os yeah?

Ideally yes, otherwise any other AOSP-based ROM. There are many, and they support far more devices than Graphene, though implementations of e.g. Google Play services is more hacky.

The most well-known: https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/

Re: Your phone is about to stop being yours

#164

Post by ck2 » Tue, Apr 28, 2026, 5:29 PM UTC

vaguely curious how this is going to affect Amazon's FireOS

which is basically android with their own app store layer

FireToolBox has gotten really powerful with workarounds

especially with the new Shizuku pseudo-root via adb

Re: Your phone is about to stop being yours

#165

Post by Klonoar » Tue, Apr 28, 2026, 5:30 PM UTC

empyrrhicist wrote: post #141

pngwen wrote: post #68

This change has served me well! I have been a Mac OS X users for years who used an android phone. As soon as google announced their impending walled garden status, I went out and bought into the ios eco system. I have really been enjoying my iphone, ipad, and apple watch. You see, the only value that Android really offered me was the ability to run my own code on my own device. Since they are taking that away that ju…

> the vastly superior apple experience After switching away from GrapheneOS to iOS after RCS stopped working for me, I can safely say my experience has been the opposite. The camera is the only thing better for me on iOS - everything else is buggier and worse. A few of my favorites: 1. Safari is buggy as hell, and requires installing apps to run things like ad blockers. 2. The settings are ALL over the place and very…

(4) is 100% you having a particular user preference and not a real bug with the system.

Re: Your phone is about to stop being yours

#166

Post by ykonstant » Tue, Apr 28, 2026, 5:30 PM UTC

criddell wrote: post #139

rcxdude wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The openness of Android also acts as a check of sorts on how restrictive the walled garden can get. If google were to clamp down on useful functionality in the play store, then you could always install apks yourself. But if the latter is no longer an option, then there's much more temptation to google for the former.

I get the feeling that clamping down on useful functionality is often an unfortunate side-effect of closing down paths that are being exploited by criminals to harm users. What should Google do when a change they are making to protect regular less-technical users breaks functionality needed by more advanced users?

Oh yes, a very unfortunate side-effect that companies are implementing with tears in their eyes, tearing their clothes apart.

Re: Your phone is about to stop being yours

#167

Post by Brian_K_White » Tue, Apr 28, 2026, 5:31 PM UTC

estebank wrote: post #23

drnick1 wrote: post #8

I don't care, I run Graphene, and my phone is definitely mine. Most Android apps just work, and the ones that don't are the kind of malware I am happy to do without.

I use GrapheneOS too. Most of the time it works great, with some weird bugs around group messages and needing to restart every now and then to get to a fully functional state between the browser and keyboard properly working with each other and the network connectivity going away. I do enjoy full control on network connectivity and notifications. But beyond whether the OS is good or not, "fuck you, I've got mine" is…

I agree about "I got around the system so I don't care how bad it is.", but it is at least still a form of saying "an alternative to this problem is Graphene", and that can't be repeated enough until a whole lot more people are using it, or anything else like Lineage.

Graphene (or anything else) will only stay a useful option if a whole lot more people use it so that government agencies and banks can't ignore that many people. A whole lot more people need to feel they aren't completely alone if they thought about using it, that it's actually a real option and not a kooky crap option.

Right now agencies & companies can totally ignore them all, and everything that still works today is just luck.

I haven't used Graphene myself. At the moment I have a stock rom that's merely rooted using the official manufacturer supplied bootloader unlock, and my small local credit union bank apps work, and the LG app that controls my air conditioners and microwave does not. Even if the bank apps didn't work it wouldn't matter because they have working web sites, and I never wanted an an app for my appliances in the first place.

But any day that could change.

It's just luck the banks have web sites that work in firefox on linux, and just luck there are no functions I need on those appliances that require the app.

Re: Your phone is about to stop being yours

#168

Post by jauntywundrkind » Tue, Apr 28, 2026, 5:33 PM UTC

anoncow wrote: post #155

Our phones stopped being ours ever since we accepted phones with locked bootloaders. I hope Android and iOS both disappear. Trading freedom for security has resulted in what we knew would happen.

It is absolutely maddening that I cannot see files on my own phone.

And very very very few devices still allow getting around this. Often at a cost of significantly degraded experience, as Magisk plays the cat and mouse game of trying to hide your illegal access privileges to your own devices from your bank or some random app that decide to throw a Play Integrity check in.

Tip of the anti-personal computing spear, a complete denial of the user agency. Absolutely wretchedly forsaken.

Re: Your phone is about to stop being yours

#169

Post by kube-system » Tue, Apr 28, 2026, 5:33 PM UTC

mulmen wrote: post #111

hungryhobbit wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's exactly what this is: Google is trying to prevent tech illiterate users from installing malware. (Or at least, that's their take on this. You can choose to read between the lines, or not, as to whether they have other motivations also.)

Define malware.

The scams this directly targets are well known and common. Someone gets a phishing message, they have someone install some sort of malware on the device, then their bank accounts are drained into some offshore account never to be seen again.

That's why there's a requirement for restarting the phone and waiting 24 hours.

The restart ends the connection for any remote-access software or phone call that might be driving the operation -- and the 24 hour wait period breaks the "urgency" part of the scam that prevents other people who know better from stopping the vicim from continuing.

Re: Your phone is about to stop being yours

#170

Post by orthecreedence » Tue, Apr 28, 2026, 5:34 PM UTC

rootusrootus wrote: post #115

randyrand wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you cant beat them join them

If you are stuck in a walled garden either way, might at least try to get the benefits of it.

The iOS app store is like the craigslist personals of online markets. I feel incredibly dirty just going on there. I have to scroll down 3-5 options just to find the exact match for what I searched for, many of the prioritized options being look-alikes that could easily fool people into installing some malware-esque garbage.

I love my 13 mini as a phone, but I don't understand how anyone could compare the two app stores and think iOS comes out on top. At least android has f-droid.