108
Google's assault on F-Droid has begun (techhub.social)
submitted 1 day ago by RedWizard@hexbear.net to c/technology@hexbear.net
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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/45946938

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[-] Beaver@hexbear.net 6 points 4 hours ago

This will effectively kill android as a platform for general purpose computing. A lot of users are going to just... not install software if it's sufficiently annoying, and devs are going to gradually stop developing stuff if there just aren't a lot of users. The future of android is gambling skinner boxes. And you can be damned sure that they're going to stick that shit into dumbphones if enough people drop out of using smartphones.

[-] jackmaoist@hexbear.net 20 points 19 hours ago

Google is going to make this harder than Apple to sideload apps

[-] soyaEnjoyer@hexbear.net 21 points 18 hours ago

As I understand it, the options will be

  • Enable developer mode, wait 24 hours, enable installing unverified apps directly on the phone. My banking app refuses to launch in developer mode and I expect other banking apps to behave similarly
  • Sideload over usb. This seems like the lowest friction approach but it's quite inconvenient and unclear if app updates will also need to be installed over usb

So not as bad as apple, but still very bad imo

[-] JustSo@hexbear.net 71 points 1 day ago

https://keepandroidopen.org/

I'm really starting to feel like a cornered animal.

[-] peeonyou@hexbear.net 37 points 23 hours ago

no kidding.. the enshittification is only picking up steam now

[-] JustSo@hexbear.net 29 points 23 hours ago

we're gonna need a bigger more expensive word for enshittification of this sort.

[-] oliveoil@hexbear.net 14 points 22 hours ago

You could always buy a Chinese smartphone

[-] JustSo@hexbear.net 38 points 22 hours ago

It's really not about me being able to find an individual solution for myself. I do use imported chinese devices without play shit for my personal stuff and a still supported grapheneos device. By choice I route all my internet traffic through remote jump boxes and shit.

I do almost all of my internet on hard mode. But I cannot avoid the worst downstream impacts of these changes, and neither can you, because they are social in type and scale.

[-] hellinkilla@hexbear.net 3 points 2 hours ago

big problem with "privacy" concepts is the idea that the problem or any solutions are individual. it is not an issue that can be meaningfully addressed at the consumer.

[-] woodenghost@hexbear.net 7 points 17 hours ago

Will Xiaomi phones work with f-droid, if they still use (their version of) Android?

[-] invalidusernamelol@hexbear.net 7 points 14 hours ago

I've had an 11T for 5 years and just got a Redmi Note 15 and it works great.

The phones come with dev mode enabled, you can also just toggle the bootloader unlock from the dev settings (this may cause issues with like banking apps and such).

[-] JustSo@hexbear.net 6 points 13 hours ago

Do they come with play services / play protect / play store shit installed and enabled from the factory or do people enable that later?

[-] invalidusernamelol@hexbear.net 4 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago)

HyperOS is just a wrapper on stock Android from what I can tell. So you still have to deal with the Google stuff and disable whatever factory bloat they install. I can't remember if the Xiaomi name brand stuff comes with the boat or not because that was 5 years ago, but the Redmi one did (just like random apps you can uninstall and some additional Xiaomi system apps)

[-] spectre@hexbear.net 16 points 19 hours ago

This is pretty serious

[-] EdlritchEconomics@hexbear.net 37 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago)

Not sure I understand how this works. Dev signups are just "open"? So you can register any package name so long as you get to it first and lock out the actual dev? That's, um ... yeah. Nice "security" solution there.

At this point I'd import a Linux phone but I can't even guarantee it'd work in my country because of carriers doing IMEI black / whitelisting.

[-] tomenzgg@midwest.social 4 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 50 minutes ago)

At this point I'd import a Linux phone but I can't even guarantee it'd work in my country because of carriers doing IMEI black / whitelisting.

I dunno if it'd help but FuriLabs tries to list out which carriers they work with: https://furilabs.com/FAQ/#faq-189. Seems like a decent variety of countries.

[-] EdlritchEconomics@hexbear.net 4 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

URL as written is 404 for me, but this link works for anyone else who's interested.

Thanks for the list, it's a useful resource. Unfortunately confirms that the phone won't work for me.

Prolly gonna dox myself a bit here but it's a peculiar quirk of my country's emergency call regulations. All phones are required to be able to make an emergency call on any carrier, via roaming if necessary. This is to avoid a situation where you -think- you can call, say, an ambulance, because you can when you're in your carrier's coverage. But one day you end up out in the boonies where your phone has to roam onto another carrier to do it. That carrier -doesn't- support your phone, so you're fucked. Seems like a good idea, but the implementation is absolutely jacked, as is most tech regulation here. Functionally, it means that if -one- carrier doesn't support a phone, -no- carrier can legally support it. This kind of creates a situation where any carrier can stop another carrier from selling a phone just by blacklisting it on their own network.

I'm sure this absolutely never gets abused /s.

[-] tomenzgg@midwest.social 2 points 51 minutes ago

Ahh, I think that might be my bad; the URL – as written – doesn't work for me, either. I must've somehow triggered autocorrect or something that capitalized that "FAQ" part.

Ah, that's a shame. Heh, maybe but a basic Google search out of curiosity ended up listing the three very countries first listed in the FuriLabs link so you might be safe (at least for the fairly lazy amongst us).

I’m sure this absolutely never gets abused /s.

Heh, I couldn't possibly ever see how…~

[-] ziggurter@hexbear.net 2 points 6 hours ago

Does Signal run on actual Linux phone distros? That's pretty much the only actual "app" I need....

[-] Imnecomrade@hexbear.net 3 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

The Signal Desktop app should be possible to run on arm/aarch64 devices: https://github.com/dennisameling/Signal-Desktop/issues/1

According to postmarketOS, it doesn't run well out of the box on mobile yet: https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Applications_by_category#Other_protocols

[-] asdasd201@lemmygrad.ml 3 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago)

Similar situation here, but importing a phone would skyrocket the prices that's already bloated by taxes. And the govt would require an extra ridiculously high IMEI registration payment for using the fucking phone. Fml

[-] SuperZutsuki@hexbear.net 28 points 22 hours ago

It's getting to the point where I'm going to turn off my phone and put it in a Faraday cage until I absolutely need it for something.

[-] Flyberius@hexbear.net 9 points 14 hours ago

I used to work with this scientist lady and she kept her phone in a Faraday cage she had made from a cereal box and foil. It was very sweet.

[-] doleo@lemmy.one 13 points 17 hours ago

No, sorry. All smartphones will have an anti cage lock, built in. This is to stop child slavery, you see? Incidentally, all vehicles will also count as cages unless you enroll yours in a 'verified safe-box' program. Only $20 per year and an ID scan.

[-] OrionsMask@hexbear.net 9 points 18 hours ago

Can anyone recommend phones you can get which Google don't have dominion over?

[-] Chana@hexbear.net 20 points 17 hours ago

GrapheneOS has announced they are directly working around this. It officially runs on pixels and unofficially on some other phones. They are also putting out their own phone in the next year or so.

[-] Diurnambu1e@hexbear.net 3 points 9 hours ago

Yeah Graphene is amazing.

[-] JustSo@hexbear.net 18 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago)

Ironically Google made the Pixel very easy to unlock and flash with other firmwares, so from a practical point of view, a refurbished pixel phone flashed with CalyxOS or GrapheneOS might be an accessible and not too expensive way to get out from under their thumb yourself.

I also have an android device intended for the Chinese domestic market and its Android firmware does not come with Google Play Services or Play Store installed and you don't need to use either to use the device just fine. I don't know but I assume this is common with other major manufacturers but mine is made by Lenovo.

The clock is still ticking because nothing gets security patches and support forever. I know there are people making alternative phones I just don't know if they're any good or how many made it to market etc. Hopefully Motorola and Graphene's partnership isn't just for big contract vendor stuff and that we'll see a retail market Graphene phone in the next year or two.

European governments are starting to realise The Problem with US tech, so hopefully it'll buy Graphene a bit more good will than its been getting in recent years and drive some of the demand for genuinely secure phones. Probably a pipe dream tho.

this post was submitted on 15 Apr 2026
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