This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
The weirdest part to me: this comes after the EU determined that Apple's locked store is too restrictive, and Apple agreed to allow 3rd party stores. Why the hell would Android go in the opposite direction? Will this put them in violation of the same EU regulation?
Presumably, they'll get a 100 000 dollar fine, and that'll be it.
For those who haven’t seen this excellent video:
It's not that "excellent." It's just 'for the evulz' mustache-twirling comical villainy, which ends up downplaying what's actually important to know about enshittification, which is how self-serving and abusive it is. When companies enshittify products and services, they're not just making them worse; they're specifically making them more exploitative.
A lot of the examples shown in the video -- cutting holes in socks, sawing off a chair leg so it wobbles, drying out a marker, etc. -- are not enshittification. Enshittification is stuff like putting spyware in devices so that you double-dip on the purchase price and the value of the data, or turning products (as opposed to services) into a subscription. Stuff that extracts unearned value from the customer.
It touches on it in the latter part of the video, but for the most part misses the mark.
You know, it was funny. Bit long in the tooth. The best thing about the video, it was actually produced by Norway. The government produced the video. That's pretty freaking cool.
Yeah it was a short PSA for average people, not power users. If it wasn’t funny a lot of people lose interest. It only spends the first 25% on the unrelated comedy bit. And the real point is to get people to the site at the end to learn more.
Alternatives
Fairphone https://shop.fairphone.com/the-fairphone-gen-6-e-operating-system
GrapheneOS https://grapheneos.org/
Sailfish OS https://sailfishos.org/
LibrePhone from GNU/Linux https://librephone.fsf.org/
Great. So half my software won't work.
Google, just call it what it is. Ad blocking prevention.
This is in no way a justification for what Google is doing, but they came to a "compromise" where you can still opt-in to being allowed to "sideload unverified apps" (read: install apps that didn't have to get approval from Google).
You have to enable it in the settings, and then you need to wait 24 hours before the setting is enabled. After that you can continue to run "unverified" apps
The "advanced flow" with a one-day wait is just Google realizing they need to boil this frog a little more slowly to prevent a backlash. They still want a fully boiled frog in the end.
What I haven't seen is what happens to all of the apps I currently have installed when this hits.
Am I going to have to wait 24 hours to open apps I already have installed?
Will they all get auto-removed and need reinstalling?
Everything is written as if you're starting from new not an existing state.
What happens if I just stop updating android for as long as I can? Quite a few apps on my phone have retained functionality past when their developers attempted to brick them because I froze updates
Xiaomi bootloaders used to work like that. You'd have to jump through some bullshit hoops to register your phone for bootloader unlocking, and then wait a few days to finally be able to unlock it. Then they made that worse and worse, and afaik it's so insanely difficult and inconvenient right now that it's practically impossible to unlock your Xiaomi phone's bootloader. This applies to all the brands under that umbrella.
I am about 97.37% sure Google will do the same over time and at some point you just won't be able to install any APKs.
Even google's "verified apps" are full of spyware, backdoors, and telemetry. They're so fucking hypocritical. Like an abuser who says "You can't make it in this world without me!"
Also, is this going to effect third-party ROMs like Lineage and its offshoots?
it wont remain at that. i bet they will disable that setting occasionally and make you wait that 24h again and again.
How is it even legal for a company to decide what you can or can't install in your own device?
The US supports monopolies as long as they have a backdoor. It was the same with Microsoft in the 90s.
For the same reason they can make you click agree to terms before you can do anything with the device.
Terms of service are unenforceable as nobody reads them.
A contract cannot be valid if one side has not read it. If one side cannot guarantee the other side has read it, it's their onus.
Also, clicking a button that says "I accept" isn't signing a contract. If it doesn't have your signature or a certified digital signature, it isn't a contract.
It's just an "I told you so" that allows them to kick you out, like the rules at the entrance of a restaurant. It doesn't give them the power to sue you or anything like that. It's just covering their asses with legalese excuses.
Any legal practice that claims otherwise are just legal mercenaries for the wealthy.
Because anti-trust has not been enforced this century, with the exception of Lina-Khan's work as the FCC director.
Companies have been pushing the boundaries further and further for decades, with almost no push back.
Ugghhhh, its THEIR OS you're using. Perfect example is Nintendo.
You mean the original NES which they tried in court to stop unlicensed carts and lost, right? Right?
I reckon that means it is not actually your own device.
There's no such thing as "side loading", they literally made up that term some years back in a release of android tools (adb).
It's just installing software.
And that's why I'm installing /e/OS in my Fairphone 6, and shifting to Linux based phones.
Even now Google is removing everything that is a choice to avoid their massive surveillance machine, apps started complaining about removal of UnifiedPush:
Fuck Google.
That's actually a known bug in Fennec, nothing to do with Google
FF6 with eOS is awesome! For the first time in a very long time, I feel like I actually own the device! Very liberating.
Don't forget their ongoing war on ad blocking. I'll miss NewPipe so much.
Ummm... Isn't this precisely against the whole EU's make sideloading (ie. installing) as easy as main app store installing thing?
Taking steps backwards...
Apple shat all over those regulations with their implementation and got away with it so now Google are doing the same
Yeah, my thoughts exactly.
Accountability is key in regulations. Without it, why should anyone follow them?
I also blame the Epic lawsuits. How the fuck did they lose to Apple but win against Google, the platform where Fortnite was still fully playable and monetised?
I really wish I wasn't so dependent on certain financial apps. How much happier I would be to just give Google the finger and switch to Lineage, Graphene, or something like that. Unfortunately, a lot of must-have apps for me to even be able to live in my country, practically speaking, are incompatible with anything other than official iOS and Android.
Do we stand any chance? And how fucking dare these fucking outlets continue to normalize this shit.
We need development of Linux OSs for phones to ramp up. And we need Linux distributors and backers to fight back against "age verification" laws that are actually ID verification laws. There's a global attack underway on multiple fronts against free software, private computing, and user ownership and control of devices.
In the meantime, for a stopgap, there's GrapheneOS, but that doesn't fix the problem of developers having to choose between Google's way or unpaid obscurity.
I have the new Jolla Phone preordered and I'm excited to see how it plays out. Maybe 2026 is the year of the Linux Phone
I've been saving all the .apk files for apps I find valuable, just in case this ends up impacting future GrapheneOS builds.
Worst case scenario, at least I'd be able to use a saved Pixel for the apps I want, without needing a Google account.
