Come join us at /e/OS, we don’t have this https://e.foundation/
Motorola has Graphene OS soon.
Is no one realizing that apps still have to register and ID themselves? It says that apps limited to 20 people or less won’t need to. At least the phrasing lends itself to that suspicion.
How does this affect my Galaxy S10 from 2019 which hasn’t seen an update in years? I suspect it doesn’t. Not trying to be a smartass — I know I should change it out for something like an A25 that is still supported and probably a little faster, but I have this and it still works.
Well do you
Nothing wrong with sticking with something that works fine
Stop fucking calling it sideloading. It is called installing an app
So it’s on the same scale as buying a gun in the states.
I didn’t realise it was so dangerous.
Not quite. The majority of states have no waiting period to buy a gun and there’s no federal law, either.
Oh. It’s more dangerous than a gun then!
Political power grows from the barrel of f-droid
It’s so weird that they don’t take comments on the android developer blog post… Almost like they think it’ll be hugely unpopular.
Google is the epitome of living long enough to become the villain.
They changed their “don’t be evil” motto years ago. I guess they must have kept two thirds of it.
A motto was never going to stop them from going sour. Any corporation that gets large enough and is publicly traded is going to attract sociopaths, narcissists and other Patrick Bateman wannabes to the positions of leadership within the corp like sharks to chum. It is a matter of when that gradual shift from good people to bad people takes place, not if.
The problem is that our economy and corporate structures reward the scummiest people because they’re the best at making profits.
google doing their best to make me move to a different platform for my next phone.
anybody know of other options?
It feels that it is either Linux phones, or Fairphone, or GrapheneOS. We are somewhat fucked.
Linux phones are about to get interesting.
I’ve heard that 15 years ago
15 years ago the world wasn’t looking for a maliciously compliant escape route.
Unfortunately, I don’t think most people are too interested even now. The masses that buy phones and make it profitable aren’t aware of things like this or even give a shit. Any time I bring something up with friends and family it gets shrugged off. Realistically Linux phones are going to be fringe unless they can offer something up to the masses that is attractive to them.
Hope I’m wrong.
Same with what we were hearing about the Linux desktop!
…yet here we are in 2026 and literally all my desktops have since become Linux, lol.
They were interesting 15 years ago, too.
Still think the Nokia N900 was the best phone of all time.
I don’t think anything other than degoogled Android is mature enough to recommend. And it looks like degoogled androids might extinct soon.
What makes you say Degoogled Android might go extinct? Projects like LineageOS and GrapheneOS are still going strong. /e/OS, murenaOS, VollaOS and other similar phones have been coming out of the woodwork recently. I think DeGoogled Android is just getting started.
That is, unless, you mean Google is working hard to close down AOSP so the downstream DeGoogled projects don’t function anymore? Then yeah, I sadly have to agree.
Google seems to start cracking down on free android, I don’t really believe they want to just stop the ability to install apps on your regular android and be done with it. Once they get the taste for blood, they can’t stop
I’ve preordered my jolla phone a few weeks ago. It will arrive around september. Let’s hope it don’t suck 😉
To those who think it is a fair compromise: It is not.
Android already had one layer of this shit before. When installid freshly dowloaded apk, android would prompt you to confirm that the source of the apk is trusted. This was not like this before. Before you’d just install apk.
And I agree to a certain amount. But thing is, it was added for no specific reason. People who install apks form outside source, will keep doing it and they 99% of the time know what they are doing or being told to do so by someone who knows what they are doing.
Adding another layer to this wont solve the problem, except make users annoyed for 24h wait time. And this is only adding 1 layer now. Who the fuck knows what is going to be 1 year later. 5 years later?
No one thinks this is fair. Little old grannys don’t side load apps, so they don’t need protection.
While I understand that Google probably hasn’t provided the answers yet, I have two questions about this. First, will I need to setup a pin for my devices? I don’t normally use any form of a lock screen on my devices and I’d prefer to continue not having them but I know from personal experience that some android devices don’t allow you to remove the lock screens after you set them up.
Second, during the 24 hour waiting period, is the device still usable? I know this might sound like a stupid question but Google’s vague wording has me wondering.
How about a 24 hour waiting period for me to harden my OS before Google slurps up all my data.
In these scenarios, scammers exploit fear – using threats of financial ruin, legal trouble, or harm to a loved one – to create a sense of extreme urgency. They stay on the phone with victims, coaching them to bypass security warnings and disable security settings before the victim has a chance to think or seek help.
Does this actually happen? Or they just trying to manufacture consent to all this bullshit?
Do calls like that happen? Unfortunately, yes.
Is it a reason to lock down and enshittify every computing platform, every OS, every Internet-connected device until we own nothing, control nothing and can’t install what we please?
It’s an age old tactic of manipulation to start with something true, exaggerate the threat, and apply it everywhere possible.
age old
Yeah for sure. I have to deal with a lot of tech-support and similar scam victims, and I always wind up explaining that this con is as old as civilization at least, it’s just the location and props that are new.
Lure you in with a benefit or problem solved, ensure that you get lost or disoriented, manufacture fear/uncertainty/doubt, offer a way out, trap is set.
Once upon a time I had someone try to run this same scam on me in meatspace, a big ancient city. Offer a solution to a logistics problem, get me lost in the maze, create new problem of changed conditions, intimidate with new people arriving, and pressure with intense sales tactics on a bullshit product. I wasn’t actually lost so just walked away, curiosity satisfied, but some people would have lost a lot of money.
Never seen it and I’ve worked in banking which I would have thought it would be most prevalent. Seen lots of traditional scams, but never stuff that involves side loading apps. I think the attack surface is just not big enough to make it worthwhile.
That does happen. You can see stuff like that on scam baiting videos all the time.
they do happen yes
Well I’m sure we’ve all heard stories about it happening, and my FIL had someone walking him through a “Microsoft has detected a virus on your PC” scenario one time until he fucked up and lost the connection (fortunately)
This would make sense if google play store wasnt full of malware. Scammers dont need you to sideload malicious apps they just get you to download it from the play store.
Worked in a phone store for a bit. And absolutely this.
Googles half the malware themselves.
Cant install (random app name here, since we cant use X anymore as a generic thanks to musk and his 13 year old obsession with naming everything X) app, without having 1500 different google bullshit data trackers installed.
A one day wait period to install an app on your mobile pocket computer. Fucken bullshit.
Edit: to all the “its one time” defenders, its one time for now. Stop falling for it. It always starts with an inch.
It used to be no time at all. You could just do it. From that perspective they’ve already taken a mile.
From zero to any nonzero value is infinite miles
I mean, it always starts with an inch but what people dont get is that compared to the 2000’s we are a mile deep and compared to rhe 80’s we are already in a dystopia.
In the '80s we’d need a building to do a fraction what our phones do now. Even in the 2000s they would qualify as a supercomputer. I guarantee you wouldn’t be able to install whatever you wanted on any of those computers and even if you could, a days wait would be lightning fast in comparison.
Well if you’re in the US you can head down to your LGS, buy a Glock 19 and do some plinking while you wait for the software to install on your phone :/
sushhh… the shareholders’ imaginary line has to go up.
A one day wait period to install an app on your mobile pocket computer.
And that somehow supposed to stop users from inflicting their phones with virus software? Like, it does not make sense. Okay, force all devs to upload their IDs, no biggie (I guess). But do not lock users into the “tough luck, you cant sideload” system. 1 day wait will not prevent anything. They just added a mild annoyance for 24h, nothing more.
Forcing all devs to upload their IDs is not a no biggie
One day wait period to enable installing third party apps. Afterwards no extra wait time or verification.
For now. Don’t fight to give them an inch
There shouldnt be any wait. Its stupid and completely arbitrary
It appears that the “security wait” will be a one time thing when you first allow installing from unverified sources. After enabling it it will remain on indefiniately.
Not quite as bad as I was fearing, but will kinda annoying.
“Not quire as bad”? My dude, you have to ask for permission from a corporation to install an app on your phone that you supposedly own and paid for. On what planet is this not awful?
This is happening to PCs now too, eg. with the OS ‘age-gating’ laws that IMO only exist to quell competition for MS, Google, and Apple.
I have no doubt that they’re pushing this because it hands then market share stolen from superior devs who distribute via multiple channels and dont ascribe to their top-down philosophy.
I sincerely doubt that will actually come into fruition. There’s no way to force all linux distros to have that. At least I hope there isn’t.
Goodby Ubuntu (community), you are now Ukuhaha (greed), freeBSD is now non-free BSD, openSuse/closedSuse, Fedora becomes Baseball Cap, Enlightenment WM becomes Samsara WM, etc.
So its time to move to a distro without systemd?
That’s an option, and one I already took having recently moved to Artix.
For real! I used to redo my phone all the time, especially before big trips. I can imagine myself getting ready to go to (insert remote designation here) and I’m sitting in my home office the day before prepping my phone with a fresh slate of travel apps after clearing out all the stale user data. Now if I start too late, I would theoretically have to finish 24h later, perhaps when I’m in Nigeria (frequent power outages) or Germany (different play store rules and feature availability). Just leave me alone already. If someone is really very very scam-prone, you buy them one of those fisher price phones with big huge numbers and no screen, or you put parental controls on the phone.
to be fair, this is not “asking for permission”. that’s what xiaomi is doing, but not this. on xiaomi phones, to be able to unlock the bootloader or grant higher permissions to adb, you have to insert a live sim card, log in with an “mi account”, and have the server decide whether you are allowed doing that. for unlocking you additionally have to wait for several days, if you can get the approval process started that is, and hopefully you will be allowed.
unless it turns out this requires internet connection, a sim card, or a google account, this is just a safety procedure. and it’s hard to say but this world is so full of incredibly dumb people that all both need and want to use shiny smartphones for all that convenience and social media addiction, that a safeguard like this is needed.
to be fair, this is not “asking for permission”. that’s what xiaomi is doing, but not this. on xiaomi phones, to be able to unlock the bootloader or grant higher permissions to adb, you have to insert a live sim card, log in with an “mi account”, and have the server decide whether you are allowed doing that. for unlocking you additionally have to wait for several days, if you can get the approval process started that is, and hopefully you will be allowed.
unless it turns out this requires internet connection, a sim card, or a google account, this is just a safety procedure. and it’s hard to say but this world is so full of incredibly dumb people that all both need and want to use shiny smartphones for all that convenience and social media addiction, that a safeguard like this is needed.
Yep, it’s pretty bad, it sets a bad precedent, and has me looking for alternatives.
When it was originally announced I got the impression that Google would soon be removing the ability to sideload apps altogether and as I almost entirely use apps installed from “untrusted” sources this would have been a nightmare for me.
So while I think this whole situation is shit, and will almost certainly lead to Google removing the ability to sideload apps in the future, for me the immediate anxiety has been lifted.
You do realize that what you’re saying might’ve been the goal all along? It’s literally an “I’m altering the deal, pray I don’t alter it further” vader moment and you’re saying you’re relieved. Make no mistake, you, me and every single Android user was just fucked over and it’ll only get worse.
I don’t think I made myself clear; I am relievd because I thought I was going to lose access to my apps in the next update cycle. The thought of that filled me with anxiety, but now I have more time to prepare.
I’m hoping that something like lineageOS will be unaffected and will be available for my device before Google remove sideloading altogether
Custom ROMs are unaffected, for now, but Google’s gonna find other ways to kill those.
And that is the tactic commonly used to slowly boil the frog.
It looks like a glorified ‘developer mode’ switch that has the 1 day wait to prevent someone from grabbing your phone, turning on sideloading, installing some hazardous app, and then having their way with your info. This appears to be the best of both worlds.
Like when unlocking your bootloader wiped your info. Just do it first. not a year in to using your device, if thats your plan.
If they’re already into your phone there’s so many legitimate ways to extract your data. The ability to sideload an app won’t impact that.
Technically installing an app allows continuous spying instead of one-time offloading. It’s an actual consideration with spyware like Pegasus: it might’ve been used as a bug to listen to offline conversations.
The OS is the spyware, they’re ensuring you cannot remove it.
10 years ago I would have called that a stretch. After Windows 11, there is no doubt that Windows is spyware.
What % of users side load apps vs what % of users had someone else install a bug on their phone?
It’s a situation that statistically doesn’t happen, and now every legitimate user is being inconvenienced to stop it? This if like agree verification laws being sold as “protecting children” as an excuse to spy on and control people.
Oh really, so the Pegasus attacks on Galina Timchenko and dozens of other people, including Jamal Khashoggi, never happened? Or, do you seriously not understand that the impact on one journalist is greater than on thousands of nobodies like you?
Google could’ve implemented better measures to circumvent bugging, like iPhones’ ‘lockdown’ mode, but claiming that infecting with spyware never happens on Android is plain disingenuous and idiotic.
Sure. Because as we know people grabbing your unlocked phone to sideload apps onto it is an almost daily occurrence. Which of us hasn’t had a stranger install a cryto miner while we looked away for a second.
Get real. This is an imaginary problem affecting the 0.01% they are using to tell you this action is justifiable. Getting more control is the aim of their game
Lmfao. I’ll invent a better way and it will only take me negative 50 years to do it.
Passcode.
There is absolutely nothing positive about this. It is only nefarious, full stop. I could open a million dollar restaurant that served microwaved cat shit, but on the menu it’s called “Tbone Steak” and with your logic, people wouldn’t notice the difference.
Okay, pump the breaks a second.
I agree a day wait is bullshit, but you think a passcode is enough to keep someone from… anything? You can shoulder surf a passcode in no time at all. Hell, it’s not even difficult. Go to a bar, talk someone up, give a legit reason to use someone’s phone, intentionally lock and force a passcode and 99% of people at bars will put their pin in within eyesight, or tell you the code.
A passcode isn’t as big a deterrent as most people seem to think it is. It’ll keep you out of an unattended phone you found, but there are plenty of ways to socially engineer your way into having it for the vast majority of targets.
And yes, you likely wouldn’t give your passcode out. But this is how a number of ne’er-do-wells got unfettered access to hundreds of iPhones, and prompted Apple to put a semi similar 24 hour lock on certain security actions if you aren’t in a “known to the phone” location (somewhere you frequent like home or work).
Edit to note: passwords aren’t much better. One of my hobbies in college was shoulder surfing classmates passwords just to repeat it back to them later in the day. Though on a phone you have far fewer reasons to type in an associated accounts password.
Other people not knowing how to secure their devices is not an excuse for my device that I own to block me from using it the way I want to.
That isn’t at all what I said.
I’m explicitly arguing that a passcode is useless for this kind of situation.
When you couple what you just said with what they’re trying to do, your own argument can be made in my favor.
One of my hobbies in college was shoulder surfing classmates passwords just to repeat it back to them later in the day. Though on a phone you have far fewer reasons to type in an associated accounts password.
Never tell anyone else this again, and stop doing it. What an insane invasion of privacy.
My security should be my choice on my device end of story. My password/passcode plus encryption with easily accessible ways to put it into lockdown mode and have lockdown mode on a continuous timer is absolutely enough for my threat model.
I don’t need any else making any addition call on it, and I definitely don’t need someone that is willingly bragging about invading others privacy coaching me on what these companies are intending while actively trying to take my right to privacy away.
An option for full password on every cold boot with pin for subsequent unlocks would strengthen security without removing user freedom.
You call it an invasion of privacy, I call it fucking with friends while teaching them to be cognizant of who is watching what they do. You realize they can (and did) just immediately change their password right?
I’m also not sure how “the average person treats their passcodes and passwords like everyone is intentionally looking away” somehow strengthens “lock making the phone less secure behind a passcode” as an argument.
And yes, it 100% lowers the security of the phone. Which absolutely is your choice. Which I also do, and have done with my wife and kids phones. But the idea that a passcode is somehow a solution is just silly.
Not as silly as a 24 hour wait controlled by google, but still silly.
When has your imaginary scenario ever been a problem? Can you name a single example where that has happenned? Stop making excuses for corporations fucking over their users.
Oh yeah, because those guys seriously can’t wait a day
This has nothing to do with security
So this feature is disabled if you have a pin?
Until you have to help someone install an app not available to them.
Xfinity stream for example is not on the Chromecast play store, even though an Android build exists on the Fire TV store. I had to guide my dad through this. In this case it wouldn’t be possible for 24 hours.
Had a similar issue with an app not available in a friend’s region.
I could live with the whole flow minus the delay. This is shit, just pure shit.
I think it is a reasonable compromise. They could have made it a day wait for any and every time you wanted to side load like this. It prevents accidental or malicious activation, while also giving you the feature you want with the smallest of roadblocks as confirmation you want it. And you only have to do it one time. I don’t think it’s the burden you do.
People this willing to let a self-enriching corporate nanny state erode their ability to use the products they paid for terrify me.
People this willing to fall for the blatant corporate strategy of “We’ll announce something unthinkable but then backpedal to something “only” terrible (and then probably do the unthinkable thing later now that we’ve encroached further and softened the blow)” for the millionth time confound me.
Show some dignity; jesus christ. This isn’t a “compromise”. Me breaking into your house, threatening to kill you, but then “only” hitting you with a bat and leaving isn’t a “compromise”.
In the sales world, this effect is called “price anchoring” and is used by tons of companies. All those sales you see where something is “marked down 50%!” are using a manufacturers price that does exist in real life to get that 50% markdown. In reality, the sale price is just the actual price of the item but people see the “huge discount” and think they’re getting a deal.
Long live lineagos
Things like LineageOS are a workaround, not a solution.
The solution has to be legal, not technical. Companies have to be stopped from trying to fuck with users’ property rights in the first place!
Yup. I’ve heard this first about Home Assistant, but software like this often inadvertently acts like a pacifier for tech enthusiasts. We may have our neat solution for the moment and be content with that, but that doesn’t help anyone else, or us in the long term. Things will get worse with no push-back.
Disclaimer: That’s not to say that we shouldn’t advocate for those tools in the meantime as well. We just shouldn’t lose track of the actual problem.
The US constitution basically guarantees us root access to our own lives (life, liberty, and the pursuit of property/happiness). I’d like the same or better for my devices.
People get what they pay for.
Hyperbole much?
This is a basic balance between the needs of the few, and the security of the many. The benefits of a one day speed bump are far more beneficial for the billions of Android users in the world, and offer no meaningful negatives to those that wish to enable this feature beyond that delay.
I realize that many people here are in or adjacent to IT work, and so are more passionate about these sorts of topics and are well versed in the risks, but in my opinion, allowing a simple, immediate way to bypass all security checks and install whatever you want immediately is a pretty big security hole, even if it is self-created. It makes sense to put those roadblocks up to protect the 99.9% that will never use this feature, as well as those that may activate it not understanding the risk. You may be comfortable with it, and that’s great, but that doesn’t mean every Android should. This is why prompts asking about coercion and not your IT prowess.
Finally. your example is poor. Google is not breaking into your phone and hurting you in way. If anything, it’s like a real estate agent that’s not giving you the keys until the bank opens so your check can clear. It’s a process issue, nothing more.
Your ability to use your device, as you see fit, installing anything you want, is entirely possible with a single one-day delay. As I said, I don’t think it is an unreasonable ask, nor the enormous inconvenience you make it out to be.
It’s my device. If I want to brick it I should be able to.
I don’t need google telling me what I can put on this fucking phone I bought and paid for.
And they’re not. Load all the unsigned stuff you want after you wait one day. Again, I don’t see how this is a huge burden to ask.
It sure is a completely unnecessary burden designed as a deterrant.
It will likely have that effect on some, yes. It will also prevent it from being enabled without knowing the full scope of your ask. But that’s kind of the point— it’s a big deal, and the user should be informed. Not everyone is capable of understanding these decisions immediately and accurately assessing risk.
At some point, there is always, always a compromise between user experience and security, and not everyone is going to like it. But in this instance, I think the benefits of having this process and cool-down period to make the risks known far outweigh the need for immediate gratification by the minority of users that will enable and use this feature.
I don’t believe that this is for the better, nor that this is done in good faith to protect users. They already tried to make it mandatory to go through Google, which is a pretty clear hint of their actual goal.
Google pushes the safety narrative, but this also conveniently entrenches Google as the authority over alternatives and hurts not only FOSS, but also competing app stores from other companies like Amazon, Samsung, or whatever Chinese manufacturers.
What is it a compromise between? People who think they own the thing they paid for and people who don’t?
Obviously we need to find a middle ground between owning the things we purchase, and not owning them. Having access, but making it annoying is a very reasonable option.
Why? We are paying full price for these devices and nothing in any agreement made at the time of purchase suggests that you don’t own them. Why is it necessary to meet a middle ground between “you got what you paid for” and “you didn’t”?
that was a very obvious joke
After reading through the rest of this comment section, I’m not so sure about that
Poe’s law. You should have used tone indicators…
Because everything must get worse.
I realize you are making a joke, and I agree that purchase is always better than subscription. Everyone in this situation owns their device.
But that doesn’t mean an easy to activate security bypass should be made available to everyone with no guardrails, either, should it?
A reasonable compromise would be not telling people what they can and can’t do on devices they paid for. If Google wants that level of control, they can buy my phone for me.
While I understand your sentiment, with all due respect, they are giving you the control with this process. You’re only mad you have to wait one day one time before you can do it.
I don’t have to do shit, because I Graphene for the same reason I use Linux. I’m not interested in asking a corporation for permission to do what I want.
No. Fuck all of that. I will not have some fucking Corp tell me what I can install and when on my own goddamn hardware.
If they want to implement something like this, make it an opt-in toggle during device setup to put the phone into nanny mode
