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Google's shocking developer decree struggles to justify the urgent threat to F-Droid
(www.neowin.net)
this post was submitted on 29 Sep 2025
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thank god for brazil
.. Brazil is one of the first countries this'll go into effect and I also remember something about how that first batch of countries was chosen because their governmemts support this change.
Best of luck to Brazil then. Hopefully you get them to change course.
Brazil has actually been really good about holding the mega corps to account recently. I'm very hopeful for them.
brazil and piracy are a match made in heaven, I remember when I was 8 and my mom went with me to a openstreet market to buy xbox360 games, all were pirate copies selling in open sky to anyone to buy, copyright be dammed, and of course can't forget the famous "gato" to watch all tv channels for free with a android box that definetly does not has a backdoor in it
The problem might be that Google will argue this isn't a downgrade at all, but an upgrade (for "security" reasons). I don't want to be a pessimist, but the tech illiterate judges could eat that up.
That's exactly what they're hoping for, and why we need to keep pouring out our outcry to reach them and hope they become more tech-literate.
Also, let's stop calling it "sideloading". Sideloading has a bad vibe. We just want to INSTALL software on our own devices.
technically you will still be able to install apps from outside the play store, but the developer will need to verify their identity with google.
Of course, most developers will refuse to do so (myself included), and so most apps will not be able to be installed. From a technical perspective, installing apps from other sources will still be allowed. So i can see judges ruling that this is not a feature removal.
You and I both know this is google killing non play store apps, but I don't think the tech illiterate judges will see it that way.
Technically you can still install apps unsigned through ADB.
Considering it's easier than ever to start up something like Shizuku, it could be used to grant f-droid access to install apps bypassing the requirement.
Obviously not a good solution by any means.
Are they actually proposing to make any previously sold devices “certified” through a software update, though? Your points are right on if this edict applied to all devices.
A "certified Android device" is a device running Google Play Services, Play Protect, Google's WideVine DRM scheme and a few other requirements. If you purchase a device from a known manufacturer, like Samsung, you're falling into this category.
They’re not removing a feature though, so that whole argument falls over instantly.
That’s not removing a feature though, it’s just changing it. Side loading is the feature.
I very much doubt that’s how the law works lol
Because you’re wrong.
It’s cute that you think that simply changing a feature is illegal lol