Petition to stop Google from restricting sideloading and FOSS apps

Hi, developer of a top-rated app in the Play Store [AnkiDroid].

What do I need to do to make a difference, and how much time will this take?

[My elected officials listen, what's the path? Legislation?]

They are placebos to make people feel better. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slacktivism

Wasn't this fairly successful at rasing the profile of the issue? https://www.stopkillinggames.com/

Petitioning EU lawmakers would be better. American control of European data is already a bit issue at the moment in the face of US threats over Digital taxes and Microsoft being used to punish ICJ members.

They can still miscalculate the intensity of the backlash or the willingness of people to do something about it. Many such stories. "The enemy has a plan so let's do nothing" is a great way to get consistently rolled in the world. As the saying goes, everyone has a plan until they are punched in the face; dishing out the occasional (and in this case fully metaphorical) punch in the face is not a hopeless endeavor.

(I agree with some other threads that merely signing a random petition is not a punch to the face. That's just whining.)

Yep. In the announcement, they already got full green light approval from various governments basically saying this was a great idea and the clear path ahead.

> …with Indonesia’s Ministry of Communications and Digital Affairs praising it for providing a “balanced approach” that protects users while keeping Android open.

> …Thailand’s Ministry of Digital Economy and Society sees it as a “positive and proactive measure” that aligns with their national digital safety policies.

> In Brazil, the Brazilian Federation of Banks (FEBRABAN) sees it as a “significant advancement in protecting users and encouraging accountability.”

The nerds are the ones who pave the way for technology, enabling people around them to adapt more easily to it. They find new paths into the undiscovered land that then get either shut down or commercially exploited. Companies like Google have piggybacked on this volunteer work.

I have the feeling that these companies don't need nerds anymore. Who needs pioneers if everything is paved and regulated?

Do you have evidence that they have accurate estimates of the potential for backlash? It is not that uncommon that people in power take decisions without thinking them though properly

You might be right, but didn't same thing applied to Web Environment Integrity stuff, that they ended up stepping back on (for how short of a time stretch is another story)?

Yes. A decision like this creates the impetus to move to alternatives like Jolla OS that have an Android-compatible layer.

20 years in, the so-called "smartphone" duopoly have jointly converged towards a "dumb terminal" strategy, where almost nothing can be done without cloud-based authentication from a centralized third party. And this was the case prior to the AI horse manure they're baking into the OS.

I use the Fossify forks of Simple Mobile Tools apps (Gallery, File Manager, Calculator) because these can be installed via APK files and just be left alone. My Google Calculator app on the other hand seems to want to download new updates every single month.

That, and staying away from anything that funnels money to Google.

It is a social problem which is hard to reverse.

People use app stores because they are used for artificially worsened web pages. They are used to find apps with similar properties from app store.

And Google search is artificially so bad that they won’t even try it to find some apps. And most won’t use other search engines.

How would this work with say my syncthing fork or DJI fly? Web doesn't really work here.

Hardly anything left, Apple and Microsoft have their own issues, Web is basically ChromeOS aka Google, and I still cannot buy GNU/Linux or BSD laptops at the local computer store.

just making sure you understand the proposal correctly. you'd still be able to distribute the app through whatever means you want; the app just has to be signed with a key tied your identity that is verified by google, if trying to install on a "certified device" (which will be most devices).

i still disagree with the move. but it's not as bad as it could be. maybe there's a way to "unlock" a certified device (similar to unlocking the bootloader)?

Which platform though?

The EU has lots of laws, including some that were made after the DMA. One of them is the CRA, which says that by the end of 2027 all app marketplaces are required to provide developer contact info to people who download software. If the contact info is fake or wrong, the app marketplace can face fines.

So the app marketplace should probably verify the contact info, right? Would you take on that kind of risk to protect the anonymity of some rando you’ve never met and will never give you any money? I wouldn’t.

From what I’ve read Google’s new process sounds much like Apple’s app notarization process. Apple is still in complete control the user just isn’t required to go through the App Store.

are there enough devs to make "non-certified" phones? also i wonder if you'll be able to disable the verification check similar to bootloader unlocking.

Why wait? I’ve never installed many apps on my phone, but I don’t have any problems using graphene. My bank nor credit card apps have any problem.

Why would you kneecap yourself on hardware and get a Pixel over an iPhone if not to install Graphene as the very first action post-unboxing?

Graphene is the only reason I own any pixel devices.

Bombs, mostly. Also drugs, which are cash-adjacent.

What a great example of whataboutism. This has nothing to do with the subject.

> You can publish any android app you want, that doesn't give you the right to anonymously deploy those apps on everyone's personal tracking devices (phones).

This is about users freedom to install apps on the devices they own.

> non-google-certified android builds/installs

Those targets are rapidly disappearing. Alternative Android ROMs are dying one by one. Look at how few modern phones are officially supported by LineageOS. And many of those are Pixels which Google is no longer releasing binaries for (making ROM builders lives harder).

> Do you guys understand that people's lives are being ruined by malware?

Do you have figures to back that up? There are already multiple warnings when sideload apps.

> For about a decade now, on Windows, you are required to have an ID-verified code signing certificate so sign drivers for example.

Drivers and applications are not the same things.

It really, really sucks to be tricked into installing malware, and I have sympathy for the victims. But this measure will remove so much freedom from a much larger group of people, and therfore it isn't justified.

We just have to educate people better about how to protect themselves online, not resort to paternalistic control regimes which just happens to give one of the largest tech giants the power to also crush anything that it sees as a threat to their business model.

Company details, sure. But personal details?!