I mean, getting verified as a developer is a similar pain in the ass in other ecosystems. I recently got an LG smart TV and the developer mode there automatically runs out and deletes all unofficial apps after 9999h if you don’t manually go into the developer app and extend the time.
My hot take is that you shouldn’t have to claim that you’re a developer to sideload content. It should be allowed for normal users 🤷
If some company did this with computers 20 years ago they would probably go bankrupt the next year. This is what happens when tech oligarchies are allowed.
Yeah, it’s pretty crazy comparing this to some of the stuff Microsoft got in trouble for with Internet Explorer back in the '90s.
This is almost what apples infrastructure is…
The main difference is they (Apple) have been clear with their design choice since the beginning and they had their own market. Google is imposing this change on many users who did not want such an ecosystem to start with. But I suppose the market share of people who won’t care about this will be large enough that they will survive, because they are a tech monopoly.
Okay so why not fork android and do everything foss?
Openness was the primary reason I always stuck with android. Without that, fuck them. If I have no options I’m just gonna use Huawei.
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And then after doing all that you still need to confirm a scary warning every single time you install an app. As if it wasn’t enough.
De-googled Android ROMs:
- GrapheneOS
- LineageOS
- /e/ OS
- Volla OS
Non-android, non-apple smartphones:
- Pinephone
- Pinephone pro
- Librem 5
- Volla Phone 22
- Jolla Phone
- FuriPhone FLX1s
And pretty much every feature phone out there (way too many to list)
De-googled Android ROMs:
Aren’t most of them de-googled? Usually you install gApps separately, unless that’s changed
Non-android, non-apple smartphones:
Not non-android out of the box, but just to add to your list: Ubuntu reports that nearly everything except VoLTE works on the Fairphone 4 and 5, but sadly they don’t support the 6 yet. PostMarketOS shows more issues
FuriLabs mentioned 😲🥹
I absolutely love my FLX1s
I love my Pinetime watch. Really rooting for that company.
Can anyone explain how this isn’t an illegal monopoly? I’m genuinely curious
Because there are more iPhones in America.
Ignore that Apple also makes it impossible to side load apps.
I’m not criticizing you because that’s the typical term, but we really need to stop calling it side loading. It’s just installing. Calling it that makes it sound like something special and different.
Aren’t there alternative stores for iPhones in the EU and Japan?
Apple was the canary in the coal mine for this behavior in the EU. Apple was forced to allow third party apps, so Apple mandated that everyone had to register with them, and pay them their yearly fee, and then developers had to pay Apple another fee (core technology fee, still double dipping), and governments were completely fine with that. (And developers will happily jump through more hoops to develop on iOS).
Google saw this and decided if they can, so can Google. And this technically is the easier of the two as at least this doesn’t require every developer to register with Google this way.
Really good point to illustrate how liberal reform efforts just redirect capitalist control into an increasingly contrived legal system.
The public institutions responsible for tearing apart monopolies would have a field day with google if they were even remotely as powerful and willing as they used to be.
Doesn’t matter when the CEO sits at the table with the US president. If it’s illegal it won’t be enforced. Or it’ll be made legal. Or it won’t be made illegal. And if you want to make it illegal in your country - there’s punitive tariffs coming your way from the US president.
Because there are alternatives. No one is forcing you to use Android.
good linux phones can’t come soon enough
For anyone reading this, donate to PostmarketOS if you can so we can escape google forever!
Unfortunately, Sailfish OS uses a proprietary (closed source) android compatibility layer, as well as a closed source UI.
For the parts they have open-sourced, they implementrd a CLA that contributers must sign. It’s the HA-CLA-I-ANY license, which specifically allows them a perpetual Copyright and Patent license, and permission to relicense your code contributions to a more restrictive license which enables them sell or package it into a closed-source proprietary app.
Personally I’d be more comfortable supporting the development of PostmarketOS instead, since it is completely open-source with no CLA, meaning no chance of any rug-pulling in the future.
Having a CLA like that just screams “Were going to monetize all of this one day” lol
Exactly, it’s like a corporate wolf in FLOSS clothing, and huge red flag.
They already do that.
Disclaimer: yes, SFOS is made by a (small) for-profit company. Always has been.
For the parts they have open-sourced, they implementrd a CLA that contributers must sign.
Just to clarify, this applies only to previously closed core components. Not app developers. But thanks for the info.
I love the constant comparison to PMOS, which has exactly 0 daily-driveable devices. SFOS has been usable since 2013, and honestly I don’t see a rug-pull coming up. Call me naive.
It’s a European company btw.If you’re comfortable with it being a private company that has proprietary software and utilizes a CLA for its own components, then by all means, use them.
Personally I’m at a point where I distrust any essential software that isn’t GPL licensed, as that’s the only way to ensure that it’ll always be in the community’s hands. Otherwise, we’re just hedging that Sailfish won’t someday be sold to a larger publicly traded company, who will then utilize the potential lock-in factor that the proprietary parts of Sailfish and the CLA’d components bring.
PMOS is certainly not in a usable state for the average person yet, which is why I suggest people donate to it so it can become more polished and support more phones.
they dont ship to the us. also the mobile-focused software is still early on linux, but as long as it is daily drivable I can handle that.
they dont ship to the us
You can get your own device and install it for free, globally.
Pre ordered my jolla a couple of days ago. So sick of tech monopolies
I’d be interested in seeing a statistic of how much this reduces the impact of intentionally malicious apps. I know it’s not the real motivation, but still.
Given that the official Google Play store has distributed intentionally malicious apps in the past, I’d say it reduces it by approximately none.
I’m sure it’s a non-zero effect.
It’ll also paint targets on the backs of people who are using newpipe, greyjay, and pipepipe. I’ll be interesting to see if they try to coorelate people running adblock as pirates and start dumping google accounts. You could run those apps logged out prior and remain anonymous. It’s very likely package installed will rat you out now.
It’s possible that part of why those attacks don’t really happen is precisely because it’s already so controlled. That said, I still think this is BS. Don’t mistake me as defending Google here.
Stolen from elsewhere:
You are not getting screwed on this. Google is just applying lube.
Totally degoogled graphene phones can’t come soon enough.
you can use a pin instead of biometrics by the way
Still a waiting period, as if half the play store isnt spyware.
Confirm with biometrics… WTF?!
People should have the universal right to live a cellphone-free life. In my country, it is assumed that everyone uses an iPhone or a Google Android phone as if it was part of your own self.
I’m confused by this comment. The outrage is that if you want to use your phone, in the modern smartphone sense of the word which uses apps, then you have to do so by Google’s rules which excludes a lot of apps you might want to run, or jump through ridiculous hoops apparently including biometrics to do so with your own device. That’s terrible, but, this particular outrage is quite separate to one’s ability to live a cellphone free life. I’m not going to pretend like that’s not increasingly unfeasible, but this issue with identified developers doesn’t have much to do with it since it’s only an issue for you if you’re even using a phone in the first place and then it just makes using it a much shittier time then it ought to be, it doesn’t lessen or increase the dependency upon phones in general.
It’s about control, in the end. Citizens are now linked by the governments to their phone numbers, as well as companies make it a priority to get your phone number and data.
Somewhere in the middle of not using a mobile at all and having a device that monitors everything you do, non stop, are owning a dumb phone and having some control on the apps you install in your smartphone.
They used to publish a whole book that had your name, and often address linked to your phone. B don’t perfect that this fake outrage by you is anything but disingenuous for what phones and any other hundred identifiers of you as a person to the government or anyone else. Your argument is infantile in it’s temper tantrum for it’s argument.
If you are fine with it, more power to you. You can call me whatever you want, I don’t know you and couldn’t care less. But when I see older people struggling with bank representatives demanding them to comply with ridiculous policies, well, I’ll keep myself damn angry as long as it takes.
Wouldn’t that just mean enter your lock code if you don’t have thumbprint lock enabled?
i have come to love just not owning a smartphone anymore.
World is way more of an adventure when you out and about without internet connection on you.
Wana know how to get somewhere? Find a map or ask someone.
Pay something? There is cash for that.
Wana take a picture? Just take a camera with you, because lets be real 99% of the pics in your smartphones camera roll wont get viewed ever again anyhow.
Wana meet with other people? Well make out a time and spot before u leave the house…
Wana be reachable to others while u out and about? Dont! Its a wonderfull feeling not to be.
Wana pass some time while waiting for someone/something? Bring a book.
Sure it may be inconvinient for others that you are not instantly reachable 24/7. But its a wonderfull feeling not to be. To comunicate on your own terms.
Spoken like someone who isn’t responsible for others. My kid is ADHD and autistic. She’s high functioning, but that doesn’t mean I get to just be unreachable. I’m several people’s emergency contacts. I have to travel unknown places all the time and be there exactly to get the help my kid needs.
I’m a single mother. I trade off whatever they are stealing from me for the ability to get cheaper versions of what my kid needs. My job is flexible, so it allows me to take my kid to what she needs with the understanding that I can answer questions when I’m away.
Oh, I also have a deadly neurodegenerate disease that is only kept in check by this specific medication that I need to be places for a while to get. I like my phone reminding me to go get that and also being able to fill out the paperwork on my phone because of my shitty hands.
A lot of people I see who are like, “Just live without a phone!” Are not the people who are actually responsible for people and/or things. I was like that when I was young, but then you know, I became a pillar of my family and friend network. People who are unreachable when needed are dropped from my network. I know several people who when I actually needed them and it was very dire, were unreachable. I left them messages and everything. Nope. Don’t think they ever knew the issue. Dropped. Sorry even in the 90s and 00s, you were expected to listen to your voice mails promptly. I shouldn’t have to mount a search party to find you, which is actually necessary for some people I know.
you were expected to listen to your voice mails promptly.
i do, when i am back home.
Tell me how many people rely on you? Because being unavailable for hours can actually be deadly to a child you are responsible for.
I have 3 examples I have experienced, one with my own child where if I or the other person was just unavailable while they were outside of the house, irreparable damage would have happened to the child. Or in my in kid’s case, she would have just died.
Sorry that you’re dealing with a rough situation. But you don’t need to get mad and make assumptions just because someone lives differently from you.
Sorry but making kids was your life style choice, and i wont feel sorry for not making any.
Damn, it must be nice not to have any responsibilities or people that count on you for things.
Incredible, huh, that nobody in the pre smartphone era had any responsibilities for the whole of human history…and now with em we all suddenly do.
Its your choice to be reachable on your terms. Everything else is u caving in to peer pressure of a over communicative society.
Oh my, I hadn’t accounted for the fact that things hadn’t changed at all in the past 40 years, you’re absolutely right. Nothing is different, no one has any needs or expectations outside of what happened back then.
It’s your choice to live in the 80’s. don’t let anyone pressure you to become a useful part of society!
that but unironic, have fun tho conforming
That’s life before 2000, or even up to 2005 or like. Was not bad, really. Internet was slow and stuck in computers, astalavista, radium, emule and burning dvds The evolution of cellphones into smartphones was somehow a bad move for humanity
Don’t worry bro we got AI now bro that’s all that was holding us back
Sounds wondeful, though it’s not possible in some parts of the world. Here in Sweden you need a phone to use a lot of services, and very few places still accept cash as payment.
I did float to myself the idea of essentially stripping a phone bare of everything except necessary apps though, would get 80% of the way there
At that point would not stripping a smartwatch be better? No need to carry around a phone.
I already have a phone I can strip. I do not own a smartwatch.
Fair enough.
Luckily I’m still at the point where nothing I need to do absolutely requires a smartphone with either iOS or Google Android but it sure feels like that day is coming.
I have requirements for one too, I think a good middle ground is turning it off for a few hours a couple times a week or a day a week or take a walk/hike away from cell reception when I’m not oncall for work.
I am lucky to life in a place where its my constitutional right to be able to pay with cash everywhere and they have to accept it
A lot of those things are possible, if a bit inconvenient. BUT I am old enough to have lived through the time before GPS and smartphones and navigating without it - especially in an unknown city - is simply terrible.
If you have never experienced having to park your car and walk around, looking for a street name, just to find out where the hell you are… Count yourself lucky.
Listen to an old timer: I never want to go back to that.
Anyone who says otherwise simply doesn’t drive around a lot or only in well known areas.
There is offline GPS tho.
I’m sorry no one ever calls you or cares about you. It probably doesn’t have anything to do with you being an insufferable bloviator.
Are you speaking from personal experience there?
lmao project harder troll
Linux or Graphene?
I say Linux.
I read Linux phobe first and got so confused.
Both actually
Graphene if you give a damn about security and privacy.
All for a scam, that rarely happens…
and worse, scams that are ALL over the play store
