If you haven’t seen this yet, Google is planning to require mandatory developer identity verification for all Android apps, including apps distributed outside the Play Store, taking effect September 2026. This affects every independent and open source Android developer directly.
This is not just about the Play Store. After September 2026, on any certified Android device, applications from unverified developers will be blocked by default. The only proposed bypass, the “advanced flow”, exists only as a blog post and has not appeared in any beta, dev preview, or canary release. No one outside Google has seen it.
The community has been fighting back at keepandroidopen.org:
- Read the full breakdown of what this means
- Sign the open letter (organisations only)
- Contact your national regulators — contacts listed by country on the site
- Add the countdown banner to your project
September 2026 is closer than it looks. The time to push back is now.
It just occured to me what this is all about: shutting down the ICE tracking app. They won’t carry it on the play store, but its still being shared.
With this, you can’t get it on your phone. And, given how much Google is sucking up to tRump, they want to help him shut this down along with all the other evil.
You can still get it, you just need to wait 24h before you can install the first app the first time, and there will be some big scary warnings.
Right, but after this change over?
Ya, this is their new workflow for people who dont authentic themselves.
Turn on developer mode and choose the right setting, reboot phone, wait 24h, then you can install anything. You have the option to stay like this, or revert to 24h wait after 7 days.
Edit: they just announced it in the past few days.
I thought they just rolled this back?
Once per device you will need to wait 24 hours before installing unauthorized apps. That’s all the new restrictions do. It will basically not affect power users at all.
For scammers, the 24 hour waiting period completely breaks their scams. They won’t be able to trick people into installing malware if they have to call back to resume the scam the next day. Google said that was their goal and their new solution actually does this without impeding power users.
Google found the balance that we were asking them for, yet people won’t stop complaining and even lying about it in posts like this. Maybe that energy is why the users won this time, but either way, take that energy and fight any of the thousands of real fights.
Sideloading APKs is an easy vector but so is the Google Play Store. It’ll take scammers like 5 minutes to just perma move to GPlay shenanigans, and its already well known to have poor quality control and tons of malware available to download with the useless play protect logo.
This is just Google’s public justification for creating their walled garden. They already pulled this exact scam with Chinese OEMs which is how Huawei got banned, and others stopped selling in the US. They huffed up some story about CCP spyware and then mandated that GPlay be installed in full, otherwise face consequences from congress.
Even Samsung got pulled in and they essentially agreed to use GApps as the de facto communication suite for their phones in exchange for allowing Samsung to continue to use their Galaxy store.
They see stuff like AOSP as a threat because anyone can just fork the OS and make their own non google Android, and they don’t want any OEM to replace GPlay like what Motorola is attempting right now (hence the increased urgency to lock down Android).
Google’s monopoly in the mobile space revolves around every phone using GPlay, so they’ll do anything to maintain their control.
Got a link boss? You’ll excuse me if I don’t take your word for it and all that
The website linked above lays out the change https://keepandroidopen.org/
That is all true, however it seems like a slippery slope to me.
To stop scams, it would instead be a good idea to block app installation (of ANY apps including in the Play Store) when the screen is being monitored or a call is active.
Then when sideloading apps, grey out the install button for 3 seconds to hopefully pull the user out of any mindless flow state a scammer has put them in.
As far as I’m aware, there’s only the advanced flow thing that is mentioned in this post?
If that’s the only solution, I wouldn’t call that “rolling back.”
Google made some noises in a blog post, but beyond that there is no evidence that they have changed direction. I guess you can take them at their word if you want, but that seems rather naive given the context.
They came out with more information on what their walk back looks like. More information is on the website https://keepandroidopen.org/
This entire flow is delivered through Google Play Services, not the Android OS, meaning Google can modify, restrict, or remove it at any time without an OS update and without any user consent. The advanced flow has still not appeared in any Android beta, dev preview, or canary release. As of the date of this update, it exists only as a blog post and UI mockups. The community is being asked to accept a product announcement as a functional safeguard five months before the mandate takes effect.
Until Google provides a shipping implementation that can be independently verified, our position remains unchanged: all apps from non-registered developers will be blocked once their lockdown goes into effect in September 2026.
They did, but why talk about that when we can just fearmonger about things that aren’t happening?
There is more information on the website. This was Google’s “solution”:
Update: Google has revealed the “advanced flow” — it is not a solution
On March 19, 2026, Google published details ↗ of the “advanced flow” mechanism intended for “power users” to allow installation of applications from unverified developers after the lockdown takes effect. It goes like this:
- Enable Developer Mode ↗ by tapping the software build number in About Phone seven times
- In Settings > System, open Developer Options and scroll down to “Allow Unverified Packages.”
- Flip the toggle and answer a scare screen confirming that you are not being coerced
- Enter your device unlock pin/password
- Restart your device
- Wait 24 hours
- Return to the unverified packages menu at the end of the security delay
- Scroll past additional scare screen warnings and select either “Allow temporarily” (seven days) or “Allow indefinitely.”
- On the next scare screen, confirm that you understand the risks.
- You can now install unverified packages on the device by tapping the “Install anyway” option in the package manager.
This entire flow is delivered through Google Play Services, not the Android OS, meaning Google can modify, restrict, or remove it at any time without an OS update and without any user consent. The advanced flow has still not appeared in any Android beta, dev preview, or canary release. As of the date of this update, it exists only as a blog post and UI mockups. The community is being asked to accept a product announcement as a functional safeguard five months before the mandate takes effect.
Until Google provides a shipping implementation that can be independently verified, our position remains unchanged: all apps from non-registered developers will be blocked once their lockdown goes into effect in September 2026.
I’m gonna stick to pre-owned devices with alternate ROMs like Lineage, Cyanogen, RR, Havoc, Bliss, cr, Viper, AOSP, KP, ISP, etc. or any of the other hundred brews. I don’t anticipate getting a phone that runs android and is not able to be modified EVER. Eventually if the time comes that the tech changed so vastly that they’re not usable anymore (like 3G now) by then hopefully there will be full Linux phones or some other varieties. Maybe many.
But the thing is the mainstream masses just don’t give a shit. Their rights and liberties have been getting chewed away at for decades and they just can’t seem to care. As long as they are entertained enough and the culture like ours - ie geek subculture / hacking community continues to be mocked and vilified, they’re certainly not gonna listen to us.
But what’s new about that? Nada.
We are forever going to remain a fringe community and I just accept that. When a family member has Alexa devices and I show them all the analytics and tests and records from all the various sources that provide empirical evidence of constant surveillance and spying and uploading of eavesdropped audio and the folks just go eh oh well eh yeah but ah useful eh I have nothing to hide ehhh urrrgh … I start to see them with sunken eye sockets and protruding brow ridges. They are the fools and the suckers and the sheep. They’re the ones who will line up to be implanted with a chip, they’re the ones who will pay to have their brains mapped and catalogued. You can’t cure fucking stupid. Meanwhile people like us will remain the fringe “undesirables” as long as our hearts beat.
The solution is GrapheneOS. You can install it on Google Pixels today, and Motorola is going to release some devices with official support for it in 2027.
We need a platform like Framework in mobile sector.
There was almost one, many years ago, but Google bought and killed it
They’re really working hard at distancing themselves from that “Don’t be evil” motto.
they stopped as soon as they stopped blocking eleciton denial content YT. they were preparing to support trump with propaganda 1-2 years before his election.
How will this affect MDM-solutions that installs apps from outside the GMS world
IIRC, Google stated that it won’t affect MDM.
Is there some sort of in between of GMS and Non-GMS that this could possibly apply to?
It would really be about MDM.
With most MDM solutions there’s an owner app that actually owns the device and can install apps directly.
How familiar with this are you? I’m pretty sure most MDMs have to play nice with the rules set by GMS. There are MDMs made by the OEMs of some HW brands, and they have the system signature in their MDM agent for sideloading, but even then if they’re GMS compatible and not AOSP there are limitations to what they can control from GMS’s influence.
I get that you can get around this but there are 2 major problems I see.
-
Google now has a flag on my phone they can control remotely to keep me from accessing the apps I want to use.
-
Alternative app stores like F-Droid will never be any more popular than they are today. This raises the barrier to entry so much that we can effectively consider the open source phone app movement to be dead in the water.
-
Ah, how I love my Jolla C2 with SailfishOS ❤️, and how exited I am to get the new Jolla Phone I pre ordered. ✌️🙏❤️
Is Jolla any good now? I was using the Jolla C about ten years ago and it showed some promise but it was very clunky to use.
Also the Android runtime was based on 4.4 which was very outdated even at the time so loads of apps didn’t work even with the Android support layer due to outdated SDK.
I really want Linux phones to do well but that’s been my only experience so far
Never owned an iPhone
Currently on android purely for alternative os’s
Next phones for my family will either be Linux, if they hold the line, or iPhone if no one does
Why would anyone pick a garbage Android device if they’re as locked down as iOS and costs as much?
Make it shitty, Google. I hope companies that behave as yours are get the same enshitification ending
in Argentina Androids are made locally and cost 10 times less than an iphone, 130 vs 1300 usd
This somehow is gonna push me to buy an used iPhone. The only reason I don’t own an iPhone is because I enjoy the android’s freedom. If you take that away an android phone just becomes an IPhone but without the quality
And it can’t be disabled in forks? Or will the google sdk require that from the OS (for apps that use it)?
Forks can disable whatever they want.
But the play integrity API, or safetynet or whatever, can fail you in its security checks, and apps that require them may refuse to run on those devices.
Start moving to LineageOS or GrapheneOS now. Plan your next phone purchase on a model supporting one of these. eBay a used phone if you have to. Get out.
Do they have their own app stores? How does that work? Already switched my PC to Linux. Maybe I’ll look into that.
It’s a weird Frankenstein mix with GrapheneOS. They have a Google compatibility layer, which allows some Google Store apps to run, but at the cost of providing tracking and telemetry to Google. There are other FOSS app stores as well.
You’re advised to use containers and containerize Google, Meta, and other privacy violating social media apps, which will feed data back but limit what data the apps can send. Also, you can shut down the containers when not in use, which ends all telemetry from those apps.
But you do have to manage this. Privacy comes at the cost of complexity and effort. Is that worth it to you? It is for me.
You can use the Google Play app store if you want; or you can use alternate app stores like F-Droid, Aptiode, Accressent, or probably some other thing I’ve never heard of.
GrapheneOS has basic apps, but you can get lot of alternative apps to Google on F-Droid
LineageOS doesn’t have any store preinstalled, but you can install them yourself from the internet. F-Droid offers only open source apps, and Aurora Store is alternative front end to Google Play, which can download any app from GP.
The whole tech world is just so frustrating. (in before reply pointing out that it’s capitalism causing the frustration - yup)
Some of these “features” and “safeguards” might make sense coming from a trusted entity. Even in the real world with evil Google the changes might help some users who use Google everything and might benefit from being blocked from doing stupid things.
But it’s not even close to worth it. They cannot be trusted on their own, and now the influence and access of the US government seems 10x worse than it already was.
How advanced are we on the linux phone front?
Not very. They exist, but they’re not mature. Pretty sure the number that actually support calling and texting (you know, the things you have a cell phone to do) are in the single digits.
Tip: Calls and SMSs can be done by feature-phone. Advanced texting can be done through Matrix or XMPP which I believe works on Linux.
And wearing a feature phone (if it’s small) and another phone isn’t a million miles away.
Lol imagine if Microsoft had succeeded in controlling the development and distribution of all software used on Windows. We’d all lose something.
They are kind of trying to do that with S Mode
The installation of software (both Universal Windows Platform (UWP) and Windows API apps) is only possible through the Microsoft Store, and built-in and Microsoft Store-obtained command line programs or shells cannot be run in S mode
Google: “Only I can make malware apps!”
