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Open Letter to Google on Mandatory Developer Registration for App Distribution

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Re: Open Letter to Google on Mandatory Developer Registration for App Distribution

#391
1) As I saw Rossman recommend the other day, once Android phones are locked down, just get an iPhone. I’ve had a Pixel 8 Pro and was considering the upcoming 11. If this lockdown goes through, I guess not.

2) I hope the lockdowns don’t strangle tethering. My other consideration is to use whatever phone for calls, texts, and “secure” apps. The rest I’ll do on an unrestricted device that just uses the phone as a data connection. More crap to carry, but crap that does what I want and need and not what “they” insist upon.

P.S. And that may mean spending less on future phones. Especially if I also switch my higher quality camera image needs to a real camera. Sigh, yet more physical crap, but I’m pissed enough to do it, and then each individual device would be less of a feature compromise than what a phone provides — other than size and portability, which are indeed quite significant.

Re: Open Letter to Google on Mandatory Developer Registration for App Distribution

#392
post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

F-Droid does not contain malware. There were cases of maintainers going rogue, such as Simple apps being bought by an adware firm, which resulted in a timely takedown, directing users to a maintained fork Fossify. Like a distro repository, the user safety comes not from reactive moderation but active curation. Meanwhile my parents are getting hammered by inescapable malvertisements from Google, a TTS voice ordering t…

It doesn't seem as clear as you portray https://privsec.dev/posts/android/f-droid-security-issues/

Yes, F-Droid has some security issues with PKI/outdated dependencies. But never malware. The first is a technical problem that can be fixed with one or two NL-Net projects, the second is a fundamental misalignment of incentives.
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