Okay, but Google literally wants “more security” when it plays Store in the meantime has a lot of virus in its store.
The mere phasing of it as them “letting” users do it shows that they fundamentally Do Not Get It and are still failing to respect device owners’ property rights.
Google says verification forces bad actors to use “real identity to distribute malware, making attacks significantly harder and more costly to scale.”
You are already doing that and somehow there is still malware in YOUR APP STORE
Kindly fuck right off a cliff into a mountain of cati Google
Meanwhile, work on a “dedicated account type for students and hobbyists” continues. This will allow for app distribution to a “limited number of devices without going through the full verification requirements.”
Well, that doesn’t sound promising
It sounds like the Apple restriction. Apple lets you “side load” your own program without going through the Apple store but only for your own iphone.
Dear GrapheneOS or Linux, please create a usable phone ASAP. They are all crazy. Sincerely.
Also the Phone must be at or under 200$ no matter the build quality. I get it, linux users are likely to be cushy financially well off opsec nerds will pay out the wazoo for hardkill switches which I guess is your bread and butter whales to target in this market. Please release something economical for us plebs it can be like a walmart tracphone for all I care.
PinePhone is $200. But the manufacturer offloaded all development onto the community.
Librem actually pays some developers, but their phones are $700+. And you will find many complaints about refunds.
Cheap prices are possible by economies of scale by manufacturers, but same manufacturers guard their proprietary hardware.
Also, how “pleb” are we talking about? Many people DGAF and just want their calls/text/apps to work.
Pinephone and Librem 5 are fringe devices, some carriers don’t even allow them.
Fuck Google
I’ve already switched my pc to Linux. I’m willing to switch my phone to Linux too. My only problem with current alternatives is that none of them feel like a finished product Software-wise. And hardware-wise I have a galaxy ultra so the downgrade would be a lot especially in the performance and cameras.
We need a Linux based/Open-source alternative that could compete with the likes of Apple, Google, and Samsung. It’s not impossible especially with current available technology, but I can see why the market incentives are very low.
I was hoping new laws could at least keep the status quo for a bit longer but it turns out as always relying on politicians is a bad idea.
There’s a thread about this on HN that I’m having trouble finding now, but I looked at it a couple days ago. It said you’ll be able to install unverified programs, but other programs will be able to tell that you have done so. E.g. your banking app could consider your phone “contaminated” and refuse to run, if it knows you’re running something unverified, that’s presumptively intercepting your typing or whatever.
They already do this.
My banking app won’t let me use it if I have bitwarden from f-droid active. Play store is fine.
So are they requiring ADB installations or what?
