Google sideloading and F-droid prospects
What is the future of F-Droid and apps it distributes now that Google is hell bent on stopping sideloading and forcing developers to register at google? A large portion of what F-droid distributes are apps that are not at Google's good graces.
hackaday.com/2025/08/26/google…
Google Will Require Developer Verification Even For Sideloading
Do you like writing software for Android, perhaps even sideload the occasional APK onto your Android device? In that case some big changes are heading your way, with Google announcing that they wil…Hackaday
like this
Auster
in reply to Korkki • • •More immediately, push as hard as possible against it. No mountain is too big that it can't be moved with the right strategy.
On the longer term, forking AOSP would be a good bet, I think, but do note it requires a continuous effort/investment. In the same vein, pushing for Linux and non-Apple-developed BSD systems for mobile (the latter dunno if exists, but if Apple did it, others could also).
Another thing, but for much longer down the line, to change culture. For example, to stop using, as the saying goes, "the language of the enemy", like instead of "sideloading", which implies avoiding the main/correct way, say "installing", and "program" instead of "app"/"application", same as more standard computers. Also if the situation allows, whenever possible, to point the problem Google is, and to not cause apathy, to include solutions in the argument.
like this
Endymion_Mallorn likes this.
FailBetter
in reply to Auster • • •like this
Endymion_Mallorn likes this.
Auster
in reply to FailBetter • • •I try to think what could the meaning behind a message be, even if as an unintended consequence. For example, referring to the Windows release of a program as the "PC release" while referring to other releases by their systems' names, e.g. "Linux release", "iOS release", etc., could disassociate the notion of "PC" with the other systems, so in this example, when someone wants to get a new PC, if he/she only finds computers with Windows, he/she wouldn't find weird the lack of other options.
Manipulating the language is a way to manipulate the people. And if you'd be interested to check regarding pointing out this in the technology niches, Louis Rossmann is tackling it way harder for some months now.
like this
Endymion_Mallorn likes this.
Auster
in reply to Auster • • •TheLeadenSea
in reply to Auster • • •Default Username
in reply to Auster • • •Cethin
in reply to Default Username • • •sabreW4K3
in reply to Korkki • • •like this
Endymion_Mallorn likes this.
cardfire
in reply to sabreW4K3 • • •This is true today, but when the new iron curtain goes up and all of our devices are goog-lag'd next year, it won't be possible, especially with all of the handsome makers the distribute in the US being complicit.
Samsung just removed my ability to unlock the bootloader or load any alternate oses for my handset devices this summer.
Soon my only options will be to import phones that are only partially compatible with the networks here in the US and that come with their own security and privacy concerns.
government agency in charge of the Soviet forced labor camp system
Contributors to Wikimedia projects (Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.)like this
Endymion_Mallorn likes this.
Korkki
in reply to sabreW4K3 • • •like this
Endymion_Mallorn likes this.
sabreW4K3
in reply to Korkki • • •Nope, it's just an option in the main settings.
Settings -> Security & Privacy -> Advanced Protection