Do we understand e/OS will die!
This freak me out!
We all will die ;- ) eOS and F-Droid could still work AFAIK but with stock OEM Android that is another story.
I think this is a fundamental problem for F-Droid, Aurora, App Lounge etc. And it worries me there is no mentioning of this by Murena in the latest communication. Murena as a company and the users of Murena need to be vocal about this.
Things you can already do yourself are
- Contact the European Commission’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) team to express why preserving open distribution matters
Contact the DMA team - Digital Markets Act (DMA) - European Commission - Sign the online petition
Petition · Stop Google from limiting APK file usage - Vereinigte Staaten · Change.org - Express your opinion towards Google by sharing your feedback
Android developer verification requirements - React to the post on X of the Google representative which is bulshitting everyone and trying to give this a positive spin: https://xcancel.com/ssamat/status/1961089905842598190
Like, share and comment on the posts in the media:
1.Android: Google verbietet anonyme Apps | heise online
2. https://www.reddit.com/r/ApksApps/comments/1n1nn77/i_made_a_petition_to_stop_google_from_limiting/
3. Google's Android Lockdown: Are You Really In Control Of Your Phone? | ZeroHedge
Hi! The Android Developers blog states:
To be clear, developers will have the same freedom to distribute their apps directly to users through sideloading or to use any app store they prefer. We believe this is how an open system should work—by preserving choice while enhancing security for everyone. Android continues to show that with the right design and security principles, open and secure can go hand in hand. For more details on the specific requirements, visit our website. We’ll share more information in the coming months.
So I don’t understand why there’s an issue if this is an opt-in solution. (Although I hope it won’t deter the devs to sideload or use another app store.)
Read the statement from F-Droid again.
As as I understand it, Google will not impair AOSP but their overlay GMS. Which means the OSes based on sole AOSP will still be able to freely sideload (e.g. lineage, e/os and friends).
The real question is our dependency to this GMS overlay and why phone manufacturers still ship with this crapware.
I wonder how many banks will offer their apps for sideloading. A wild guess? Zero. Quite an important thing for me. I do not see this"development" as a positive thing. Even if sideloading would be still possible, you’ll probably have to ditch many “premium” apps. And by that, many users will drop it, because only very few people will keep a second phone to do all that.
I still don’t see it. Please quote the relevant part.
I did not realise this:
Starting next year, Android will require all apps to be registered by verified developers in order to be installed by users on certified Android devices.
[…]
To make this process as streamlined as possible, we are building a new Android Developer Console just for developers who only distribute outside of Google Play, so they can easily complete their verification; get an early look at how it works. A note for student and hobbyist developers: we know your needs are different from commercial developers, so we’re creating a separate type of Android Developer Console account for you.
(Source: Android Developers blog)
I wonder if this is a precursor to Google preventing, as another “security” measure, the downloading of apps from the Play Store to uncertified devices once those apps have been registered. This would effectively make the Aurora Store and App Lounge useless and allow Google to discredit custom ROMs by saying that apps are only installable on them from unverified sources, thereby driving more people to Google’s certified data harvesting devices. Anyone who has read The Age of Surveillance Capitalism will have seen how Google sometimes plays the long game when it comes to maximizing their access to personal data.
More reporting: Google confirms Android dev verification will have free and paid tiers, no public list of devs - Ars Technica
In EU I am not really worried because Apple was already forced to allow for third-party app stores. The same law will apply to google.
Apple said it will allow Epic Games to launch its own iOS app store in the European Union, but only because of the Digital Markets Act. Epic hasn’t won everything it sought from its initial lawsuit.
https://www.pcmag.com/news/doj-sues-apple-arguing-its-making-third-party-apps-worse
On the other hand, yes Google might cut the App Lounge / Aurora trick anyday but we would still be able to sideload apps from online app repositories as a contingency solution.
If we are lucky, it will still be possible to install bank apps from those sources because the safety checks will be the same as before, meaning that /e/ OS dot not pass them all but luckily most bank apps chose not to enforce them all (they do tolerate custom builds and it is their choice so far, not the one of Goggle).
Another solution is to use Amazon or Huawei AOSP app stores to circumvent Google play store. This is very positive to have competition regarding app stores, because unlike apple iOS, we already have alternative solutions.
It also seems that Amazon will stop their previous AOSP fork that used old android versions , only to make a new OS that will use more up-to-date Android versions, probably with a new stand-alone app-store (seems they are ditching the “Fire” name just because it is associated to low-end product, they will just redo the same thing with a new name and trying to compete more directly to google).
Competition is good and both EU and the US do have a role to play regarding monopoly regulation. Meaning that open-source custom ROMs can not survive without a commercial ecosystem that will pay for most of the OS development and more importantly bring a sufficient user-market-size to allow for all apps to be present in it.
The Apple support for third-party app stores in the EU is implemented in a way similar to what Google intends to do. You can’t just build an app and offer it for download on your website and expect it to work everywhere, like you could on Mac, Windows, Linux, Haiku etc.
To recap what is known from the sept 30th blogpost and podcast. A system facilty of Android (something hooked into packagemanager) will query the mothership:
- if (1. appid 2. signing-key 3. NEW: developer-id(email or government-id)) is blessed in its database
- NEW: checks if that tuple reached a threshold of number of machines it is installed on
- NEW: bookkeeping of generated device identifiers this limiting requires (stable ANDROID_ID revival?)
adb installseems to remain a loophole even on stockrom for developer workflows (I’m sceptical on this one to the degree it applies)
Customroms can patch their way out of any checks, but they’ll be affected by second order effects. The Android platform gets less attractive for foss developers and their investment of many years is devalued when the target audience is suddenly much smaller if they do not comply by registering.
I don’t really understand all of this but, the apps currently installed on my phone suddenly stop working, that will be a big problem for me. If it was just a case that Murena App Lounge stopped working in terms of it not being possible to install new apps or update installed ones, that would be less of an immediate problem as my phone would still function in the short term.
Can anyone explain what is likely to happen to our devices as a result of this?
as explained before, this isn’t an immediate “you on /e/OS” problem, your apps will continue to run.
It’s a developer problem not being able to reach the biggest possible Android audience unhindered and Google Android being no longer a friendly platform for that cohort.
The F-Droid top post says “it will end the project … as we know [it] today” - it can remain a source for customrom users with its full catalog - but it will shrink the available catalog for Google Android users, putting off developers, leading to less newly developed FOSS Apps on Android and some existing being possibly abandoned.
That is what you can consider a “you problem” longterm, the platform getting less developer friendly.
Thanks for explaining. I can see though, that this is potentially a bad thing in the longer term for everyone (and that includes me) who prefers to use open source apps, as there may be fewer new ones in the future.
This topic was automatically closed after 13 days. New replies are no longer allowed.