Google says it’s no different than checking IDs at the airport.
Fucker, if I own the airport, own the planes in the airport, am the only person using my own planes in my own airport, then nobody is asking for my ID.
Our phone, our software choice.
If you use the term “sideloading” you already lost the battle before you finished your sentence
Isn’t this like 90% of the reason people prefer android over apple?
Google getting rid of all the things that made people want an android phone over an iPhone.
Yep, if this happens there is no benefit to android.
I mean, there is still UI/UX, app store policies, and general cost/options.
This definitely makes Android a lot less appealing. But it is also questionable to act like the biggest reason to use android was sideloading apps since the vast majority of users don’t even know that is an option (and probably shouldn’t since they have no understanding of how to vet them). Especially since Apple isn’t any better (?).
Comrade, the ignorance of the masses should not dilute our anger
So… “the ignorance of the masses” should be combatted by willful ignorance and nonsense that falls apart the moment anyone looks at it?
Get angry. I sure am. Look for alternatives. Graphene sure ain’t it but I hope it will be in the next four or five years. But this is something google are willing to futz with for a reason: The vast majority of users don’t care about it and even with the changes it isn’t significantly worse than the competition.
Yet everywhere I see “Well, I guess I have to buy Apple now” which is just… buy it if you want to but don’t pretend this shit is why.
Ui/ux is honestly worse on android compared to something like ios. The playstore is honestly stuffed with ads and seems to be actively regressing in ux (the update apps menu is hidden behind like 3 layers of dialogues). Cost wise a used iPhone is probably a better deal than a cheap new android phone.
I used android primarily because I could install apps Apple basically doesn’t care about (and after the 5th time gba4ios broke).
Maybe it’s because I’m used to android, but iOS feels user hostile in ways that android never has been, especially when it comes to storage management and pushing iCloud subscriptions.
Well android phones dont have removable sd card slots anymore, the only way to transfer files is over the weird protocol that’s slower than directly writing to disk, if you use pixel or Samsung youre already inundated with annoying ads. The ecosystem is pretty awful now. Installing a custom rom is a good idea, but depending youre phone model it could be a step down and if your on any Samsung phone with knox it basically irreparably damages some attestation fuse. Apple ain’t much better. I might try a Linux phone next.
There is a lot wrong with android, but it’s super easy to transfer files over USB or just download them. I use Nextcloud personally. Then you can manipulate them with your choice of file manager.
I got a new phone recently, Samsung with Knox, the worst part about it so far compared to other Android has been how it is quick to kill background apps, and the UI is honestly disorienting compared to how I’m used to doing things. I haven’t been shown ads yet, but I did go ahead and disable all the Samsung apps I could find. This includes not being able to control how quickly it kills background apps, but it’s the lesser of two evils.
I’m not sure what Knox attestation is, but it sounds really unfortunate, and I want to search it now. I agree the phones of today are awful and the only reason I got this one was the price.
It’s still a step up from iOS, which has had similar restrictions since they started.
Apple allows sideloading (somewhat), this is would be demonstrably worse (if enacted)
somewhat
Yes. Only in the EU and only since 2024 when Apple was forced to do it by new laws. It’s reasonable to assume Google would be subject to the same laws.
If you live outside if the EU, it’s “no sideload for you!” There are computer programs that can do sideloading to iPhones, but they have limitations, like having to refresh the sideloaded apps every seven days.
Wholly incorrect. You’re allowed to sideload up to 3 apps (or 10 appIDs, whichever comes first) without being a developer, and that arbitrary restriction is removed if you pay for a dev license, regardless of which part of the world you’re in.
In the EU you’re allowed to install third party app stores (still have to be notarized by Apple) which isn’t sideloading
The limitations depend on which program you’re using - there’s more than one - which is why I only gave a simple example. And if you have to pay for a function that is otherwise free to many others, that’s a limitation.
Side loading is installing an app from anywhere but the official store. So by definition “third party” is side loading. Whether it’s another store or authorised is irrelevant.
The limitations depend on which program you’re using - there’s more than one - which is why I only gave a simple example.
No it doesn’t. It’s in all the documentation, official and otherwise
Side loading is installing an app from anywhere but the official store. So by definition “third party” is side loading. Whether it’s another store or authorised is irrelevant.
You can’t just make up a definition, believe it, and then share it like it’s true. We’re going by the legal definition as that’s the only one that matters.
Apple only allows up to 3 apps or 10 appIDs to be sideloaded, wherever you are in the world. Period.
“This ad company restricting anything you can load is better than iOS” is decently a thing you can say hahahaha
Linux phones are moving fast but it feels like Android is moving faster on the other direction 😥
(Yes I know Android is built over Linux, I mean more traditional and open distros like postmarketos)
Are they moving fast? It’s been like 18 years since the iPhone came out and there really isn’t a viable Linux phone.
There was a viable Linux phone 15 years ago: Nokia N900. Microsoft took care of that when they bought Nokia. At least Windows phone was a resounding success…
Wasn’t the viable Linux phone Android at first? (I am younger than the iPhone so maybe I don’t really know how it was)
By Linux I mean “FOSS” phone. Android is based on Linux, but it is also loaded with spyware out of the box. If you’d asked me 18 years ago whether there would be a viable FOSS phone by now, I would’ve thought yes. But, postmarketOS still advertises itself as “not ready yet” and Ubuntu Touch is still pretty niche.
Whatever things made people get into Android some 20 years ago are no longer relevant to the majority of people.
The biggest benefit will remain the apps. People love apps. In that regard, their only competition is Apple. It’s why no one can make a new phone OS.
The other reason is cost. If you want a cheap device, Apple has no such thing. There are hundreds of Android devices you can buy for a couple hundred dollars.
For those who buy Samsung flagships for more than an iPhone, well those people I can’t explain.
For those who buy Samsung flagships for more than an iPhone, well those people I can’t explain.
Well, it could be explained before: Flagship hardware without the restrictions of iOS.
Now… After this bullshit… yeah…I can see apps becoming less important over time. PWAs were basically what Apple originally planed for the smartphone anyway and now they are capable of damn near anything you would want an app to do. No store to rely on. No updates to install. No storage space being eaten into. The browser engine functions as a layer of abstraction between the scary untrusted app and your own OS. It’s kinda perfect.
You might think so but PWAs have been around for a long time and seen very little adoption.
They haven’t been promoted or supported well until fairly recently. Also, Firefox is not compatible with PWAs but chrome, edge, and safari are.
They’ve been well-supported for many years.
Open Firefox and pin a PWA. I’ll wait.
Do you mean pin as in creating a shortcut to the webapp on the homescreen/launcher?
Wait for what? I’ve done this many times.
Yup my first thought was “Where is your God now?”
Google ditched “Don’t be evil” a long time ago.
Unfortunately, that is 0.1% of their global market that is affected. So, they don’t really have much to lose.
I honestly wish for the responsible people to die. A natural, painless death, but let it be quick. All of silicon valley is so evil it would be deemed unrealistic for a movie villain. They are selling out our freedoms and planet for what? They are already stinking rich.
The Android ecosystem has been feeling more like an invasive chaotic advertisement machine the past few years. The play store is a cesspool, the weather app switch was poorly executed, Google Podcasts went to the graveyard, and Google pay getting shut down meant I had to switch back to vomits Venmo.
I still have Android gaming handhelds, but why wouldn’t I just get an iPhone the next time I go to replace my phone? I can’t believe I’m even saying that after being so die hard Android so for years.
2026 - year of the Linux Phone :D
Remember that brief period in the US where, for a fleeting moment, Lina Khan went after a few companies for monopolistic practices?
Yeah man, those were the days.
Brother let me tell you about my friend Janet Reno, who fucked with Microsoft in 2001…
Last I checked, unverified software didn’t run the risk of making my phone fly itself into, and bring down, a skyscraper.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch
Malware-ridden apps made it into Google’s Play Store, scored 19 million downloads
https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/26/apps_android_malware/
Right, only install “verified” from Google Play, but that is where malware is, other 3rd party app stores like F-Droid, that really verify apps are at risk of getting killed by Google
This is very obviously step one in a plan to kill apps like alternative YouTube clients that block ads, just like the Manifest V3 rollout was intended to kill ad blockers in Chrome. Once they have everyone using this verification system, then they can just arbitrarily deverify anything that contravenes whatever new acceptable usage policy they just made up.
The opensource apps like Newpipe, SmartTube, termux and many others are the “malware”, not the ones with binary blobs on PlayStore that fork VLC, Newpipe and many opensource apps illegally, supposedly “verified” but don’t follow opensource license like GPL, creating fake clones with ads and (real) malware.
Google can’t keep malware off the platform now, but sure, make it mandatory you can’t go anywhere else unless they say so first.
Two things especially worth noting from the article.
If you have a non-Google build of Android on your phone, none of this applies.
This means that at least GrapheneOS will be unaffected for now. Other ROMs without gapps will be unaffected only as long as you don’t install gapps. Since Graphene has a sandbox for them, I’m assuming it’ll be fine. That is, unless Google decides to lock the bootloader entirely.
In September 2026, Google plans to launch this feature in Brazil, Indonesia, Singapore, and Thailand. The next step is still hazy, but Google is targeting 2027 to expand the verification requirements globally.
So most users worldwide still have at least 1.5 years until it’s implemented. Plenty of time to get a Pixel and install Graphene on it. Or to figure out some other plan.
Don’t get me wrong - this is insane, unreasonable and horrible news for everyone. We should push back as hard as physically possible against it. However, at the very least we still have some time to figure things out before the policy rolls out.
Great i guess it is time to root my phone, and run a custom rom. I haven’t had to do that in years because android finally got good.
How about letting the users decide what to sideload? What the hell?
I hope the EU is ready to also sue Google.
The EU already forced sideloading to be officially supported on iPhones thanks to the Digital Markets Act, and that law applies to Google as well.
The US will likely apply pressure, just like they are trying to force their death machines to be legalized on European roads. Apple already tried to pressure the union and failed, but the political climate has changed a bit since then, and while EU bureaucrats can be fierce, European leadership tends to be weak as fuck.
But yeah, chances are that this change won’t apply to the EU. :)
European leadership tends to be weak as fuck.
which is utterly disheartening.
Does the law demand unsigned software?
Google is clearly trying to find a loophole here. Their loophole clearly sucks.
In all likelihood it’ll end up in front of the Court of Justice of the European Union. And in all likelihood Google will lose again.
The Court of Justice generally seems unimpressed by American lobbyists, so the strategy of finding a dumb loophole is probably doomed to fail.
That didn’t answer my question. M
Does the law demand unsigned software?
The answer is no. It’s not phrased like that. But it’s all about ensuring free competition in digital markets. The sole purpose of Google’s move here is to hinder competition in their own digital market, and to keep control over it.
So the law does not have a paragraph stating that “unsigned software must be allowed”, but it has a bunch of other paragraphs that can be used to strike down on monopolistic behaviour.
Google are aware of the law, and will try to find a loophole by designing a system that they believe technically complies with it. Then someone will sue them, it will end up in the European court, and the European court will in all likelyhood tell Google to get fucked.
It seems american tech companies think they can get away with anything because that’s how it works in the US. We are repeatedly seeing that this is not how it works in Europe: the Court of Justice tends to care deeply about the intention of the law, as well as the perceived consequences of their rulings. And they don’t seem to care all that much about American capitalists.
But to answer your question very simply: No, it doesn’t. But thankfully that doesn’t matter at all.
I feel like there should independent signing authorities that the major platforms honor. But that’s its own can of worms. Who runs them, is it the government? A non-profit? How do we prevent corruption of that entity, etc.
And yeah, the tech companies have raced ahead of comprehension. At least the comprehension that reasonable and good lawmakers have. At the same time, it’s increasingly looking like the terrible people in power know just how far ahead tech is. (Thiel)
Why exactly do we need signing authorities? Software isn’t zero trust like websites. You do need to trust the developer - even a legitimate one. Signing apps with verified developer keys will only hurt small independent developers, open source projects and freedom enabling stuff like user patching.
It only works to solidify monopolies and doesn’t protect you against shit.
You can’t make laws for every single possible future reality. We need courts that uphold laws even when billionaires try to dodge them using shady techniques. The problem is that big tech often gets away with murder because they can afford expensive lawyers. Especially in the US laws are essentially meaningless for the rich. This is not so much the case in Europe.
I have heard some positive signals from the European Court of Justice that they are taking the challenge from big tech seriously and that they are going the extra miles to understand these issues. If you’re particularly interested, many judges talk about this in the Borderlines podcast series by Berkley law. But it gets really dry really fast haha.
I don’t believe in signing authorities. It’s not effective - Google can’t even keep malware off the play store - and it’s an authoritarian move. Hell, most apps in the play store spy on their users, profiling usage to sell to advertisers along with ID codes that makes it possible to combine data between apps and build detailed profiles of individuals. The problem is not apps that are not signed - the problem is the whole economy of apps that work as Google intend them to.
Also, it’s a basic question of rights. It’s my phone, I bought the hardware, I own it, I install whatever the fuck I want on it.
It’s too bad they were too terrible at writing legislation to be successful.
What exactly do you mean?
Sure, nothing is perfect, but EU legislation has generally been quite good, from the GDPR to the DMA.
The challenges are more related to enforcement - rules on the book are worth nothing if we don’t force companies to live by them. In this respect we’ve seen some pretty sloppy behaviour, but also some victories. It’s not a one-sided story.
Another challenge is of course to keep passing good laws, and to avoid terrible ones. Chat control needs to be stopped. Stopping it is a matter of convincing national governments it’s a bad idea, as well as members of the European Parliament - everyone should be writing their representatives NOW. But that’s another issue entirely. :)
don’t iphones delete your sideloaded apps against your will and along with your data, if you don’t use the ibstaller tool at once every week?
if so that’s useless for anybody other than developers themselves who otherwise don’t even want to use their own app.
don’t iphones delete your sideloaded apps against your will and along with your data, if you don’t use the ibstaller tool at once every week?
No? I have an iPhone in the EU and have several sideloaded apps. All still work and have all the data even after not using them for a while.
I have no idea as I don’t follow apple much, but I am aware that they are constantly trying to find ways to avoid complying with EU law, and that it is often rapidly struck down.
What you’re describing here is not a failure of the law, but Apple trying real hard to find creative ways not to comply with it. To me it only shows that they are desperate, and that EU law is in fact getting to them.
If they keep at it it’ll eventually end up in court, the case will take a couple of years, and they’ll be slammed with a fine and asked to get their shit together.
I mean Apple has continued their shitfuckery unabated.
Not unabated. They are stuck trying to find new loopholes to not comply, which are then struck down. It’s a cat and mouse game, and they think they can get away with it because they have the most expensive lawyers.
Again, enforcement is the challenge, not the laws themselves.
I’ve seen no such thing but maybe I’m just not paying close enough attention. They still have the same bullshit where third party stores still need to pay them 27%, and they still require Apple’s approval, which is almost nothing gained.
Everything takes a long time, but things are happening. If you search for the terms “fine apple EU” or “fine apple EU” in your search engine of choice you’ll see there’s quite a lot going on.
I have some personal friends who are working with this stuff for the European Commission. It basically takes a long time to build a case against tech giants, and then once the Commission fines them these fines will be appealed in the EU court system, which will take even more years to process.
It’s annoying that there’s not a magic switch to flick to make Google and Apple comply with EU law, but that’s the world we live in. If the EU just banned Google and/or Apple it would probably backlash tremendously (never mind that I doubt they have the authority to do so even if they wanted), so they have to move a bit slowly. :)
The EU is currently deepthroating Trump so hard that it’s completely out of breath and all our clothes are ruined.
With how volatile Trump is this could change literally anyday, but with the current political equilibrium all google would have to do is gift trump a shiny golden thing so he makes a threatening remark about gas exports and the EU would go “uwu yes master right away master, do you want to fuck my gaping asshole while you’re at it?”.
It will probably be for the rest of the world.
EU devices not effected.
I guess it’s time to buy a linux phone
I need an OS for phone which is completely controlled by community.
