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Google is requiring mandatory developer verification for all Android apps in 2026 (thelemmy.club)

submitted 6 months ago by TheTearMiser@lemmy.world to c/android@lemmy.world

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If you haven't seen this yet, Google is planning to require mandatory developer identity verification for all Android apps, including apps distributed outside the Play Store, taking effect September 2026. This affects every independent and open source Android developer directly.

This is not just about the Play Store. After September 2026, on any certified Android device, applications from unverified developers will be blocked by default. The only proposed bypass, the "advanced flow", exists only as a blog post and has not appeared in any beta, dev preview, or canary release. No one outside Google has seen it.

The community has been fighting back at keepandroidopen.org:

Read the full breakdown of what this means
Sign the open letter (organisations only)
Contact your national regulators — contacts listed by country on the site
Add the countdown banner to your project

September 2026 is closer than it looks. The time to push back is now.

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[–] pinball_wizard@lemmy.zip 7 points 5 months ago*

Android is just plain more customizable and if you need a quality of life feature, you're probably going to find some way to have it.

Yes.

I used to feel that way about stock Android, but the really useful apps dried up on Google Play a few years back.

Discovering F-Droid brought back the joy of customizing Android, for me.

My conclusions:

Much of the charm of Android is already gone for the average user, but many haven't noticed.
Making F-Droid harder to install isn't going to help.

I'm not sure what Google has done to alienate the folks writing quality free apps, but whatever it is, most of them are only on F-Droid, already.

This feels like Google is just shutting the door on the walled garden they've been building for awhile.

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