It's weird that Google is having all these idiotic ideas while we have Zapstore running with pure web of trust dev keys.
Discussion
Is Google even relevant these days?
In my opinion they have been a zombie company with zero innovation for well over a decade now...
Yep. Without them Android wouldn't even be a thing.
The open source community would have carried Android just fine, and we don't even need it, there are already decent Linux phones.
I agree that they did not really come up with anything new. They too mostly jumped on the LLM bandwagon. Every big software company is doing it as if it's a winner-takes-all competition.
Also google already seem to have found their sweet spot selling you ads. Worked great 15 years ago, still works great today. It feels like they are mostly focused on vendor lock-in and probably try to automate away as much of their workforce as possible to squeeze out higher profits.
That is exactly what they are doing.
And bankrolling and enabling socialist regimes... 🤷♂️
My question is, will un-googled phones still work?
Same! I think this means you won't be able to install apk files that google plus hasn't blessed. This will make it even harder to get your normie friends to use such apps.
It's not weird at all.
This means that now, there are enough people sideloading that it's affecting Google's bottom line or pissing off their advertising partners.
It always unfolds this way. Corporation: all they care about is $$$.
It'll be interesting to see if Graphene can do anything to stop it from their end.
Is a device loaded with GraphineOS still a Certified Android device? Will this effect normies only?
Trust this app because 10 other guys do. Reads privacy policy of that app.
Zapstore is missing fair warning of anti-features & privacy alerts.
Apple has done that since 2 years ago in disguised by Apple developer program , man pay yearly then man can put an app .
Apple verified developer
Google verified developer
From point of view as end user which is me , I always feel more secure to download app from verified developer .
Is like more secure that there is no malware or spyware in the apps .
From developer point of view , which is me : it’s a hassle !
This is an attack on privacy of developers and normies who don't know any better and shouldn't have to know how to put a custom OS on their phone or look for a phone with an unlocked bootloader. But they need this for digital ID and SCCBDCs.
Time for me to ask a dumb question, 25 years after studying cryptography in university:
When I try to verify signatures using gpg it's not fully successful, and therefore I'm just accustomed to ignoring it
I guess it's because I haven't told gpg that there is any public key that I can mark as being genuine
How do I fix that? For example, if I met you at a conference and you gave me your public key, how could I tell my gpg that I trust that key?
Nah, they already have great security in that you need to manually enable sideloading and manually click trough play protect notifications. Their move is about control, not security. And if you see it as a weapon against device ownership it suddenly makes perfect sense.
The thing is...developers who are rooting for freedom should take this as a warning sign coz shits are gonna get even worse and ought to ditch android all together and abandon apk and concentrating more on deb,flatpack,snap,rpm,tar etc.Even better if it's NOSTR-based app.Keychat.io is the only NOSTR-based app that's doing it right now. I got my Keychat app on my linux laptop and linux phone right now. AWESOMEEEEEEE!!!!
Why? Android doesn't have any of that. What has is the Google version of it. Graphene is still better than ditching Android. In the end, everyone still need a phone.
Let me rephrased that in another way. Don't get me wrong. Graphene os is awesome. And even though it's built using Linux kernell focusing more on security and privacy...it was still designed to be more towards android app compatibility.Meaning it was more focusing for users to download android apps. And true. Everyone still needs a phone. For people who doesn't really care about privacy and freedom...they just perfectly fine with following orders and instructions since birth till the day they die in the name of so called ' safety ' and ' convenience ' without realizing the fact that the same entity that's so called protecting them is actually screwing them up...left and right..up and down. I'm just only suggesting that they'll be options so that app dev.team members who created apps can give people choices who wish to have apps on their phone or pcs either a ' true freedom tech tool app ' or a ' compliant and surveill tech tool app '. That's all.