Let's focus on making it possible to use really open Linux systems on smartphones.

> We appreciate the community's engagement and have heard the early feedback – specifically from students and hobbyists who need an accessible path to learn, and from power users who are more comfortable with security risks. We are making changes to address the needs of both groups.

> We heard from developers who were concerned about the barrier to entry when building apps intended only for a small group, like family or friends. We are using your input to shape a dedicated account type for students and hobbyists. This will allow you to distribute your creations to a limited number of devices without going through the full verification requirements.

> Based on this feedback and our ongoing conversations with the community, we are building a new advanced flow that allows experienced users to accept the risks of installing software that isn't verified. We are designing this flow specifically to resist coercion, ensuring that users aren't tricked into bypassing these safety checks while under pressure from a scammer. It will also include clear warnings to ensure users fully understand the risks involved, but ultimately, it puts the choice in their hands. We are gathering early feedback on the design of this feature now and will share more details in the coming months.

It is also true that they have not updated their developer documentation site and still assert that developer verification will be "required" in September 2026 [1]. Which might be true by some nonsensical definition of "required" if installing unverified apps requires an "advanced flow", but let's not give too much benefit of the doubt here.

0: https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2025/11/android-de...

1: https://developer.android.com/developer-verification

It's been our choice to drink this glass of wishful thinking while giving that company a solid dominant position in the market.

We ("you") can only make choices that will overturn that trend.

Fully opensource hardware with fully opensource software? Maybe, but also this is wishful thinking.

Edit: this will likely exist "uncensored" in other markets but conform to the PRCs standards and practices domestically, similarly to how tiktok operated prior to selling a version specifically taylored to US censorship and propaganda.

To recap the storyline, as far as I understand it: last August, Google announced plans to heavily restrict sideloading. Following community pushback, they promised an "advanced flow" for power users. The media widely reported this as a walk-back, leading users to assume the open ecosystem was safe.

But this promised feature hasn't appeared in any Android 16 or 17 betas. Google is quietly proceeding with the original lockdown.

The impact is a direct threat to independent AOSP distributions like Murena's e/OS/ (which I'm personally using). If installing a basic APK eventually requires a Google-verified developer ID, maintaining a truly de-Googled mobile OS becomes nearly impossible.

I don't see a real future for Andrioid as an open platform unless the community comes together and does a hard fork. Google can continue to develop their version and go the Apple way (which, funny enough, no one has a problem with). Development of AOSP can be controlled by a software foundation, like tons of other successful projects.

Google listened.

Blame the judge for one of the worst legal calls in recent history. Google is a monopoly and Apple is not. Simple fix for Google...

Remember how hard Amazon had it to attempt an Android fork?

I was due to OEM SOC access being locked out due to those contracts....

Any open source mobile OS attempting to complete with AOSP needs access to mobile OEM soc providers not touched by AOSP contracts and currently that is somewhat hard.

Do you ever feel like the same food item doesn't taste the same it did 10 years ago? Maybe it's your memory being faulty or maybe the company got new management which decided to cut costs while keeping prices, extract the differential value from customer inertia and move on when the product stops being profitable.

Android is the same. Certain freedoms were a part of the offering - a part of the brand name. They no longer are. Not only should lose their trademark[0], they should be legally forced to change the name.

[0]: The purpose of which is to identify genuine product from counterfeits - in this case, the counterfeit just happens to be by the same company which released the original product.

If I understood correctly, to "protect" users, Google wants to control what is installed on Android phones. I guess it means the Play store will be the only way to install an app, which in turn means: - That users won't be able to install what they want and that they would need a google account to install apps - That app developers have to go through google to distribute their apps, with identity verification etc. Obviously this is awful and would mean the end of F-droid and Aurora store etc. However, I'm also reading here and there that it is a threat to alternative ROMs. To me it sounds at the contrary as an amazing opportunity, as they can strip this verification and be the only truly open Android, or am I missing something? Why do people link this app verification thing with a possible closing of AOSP?

Also, Mozilla was already saying it 10years ago with Firefox OS but... The web is the platform. 90% of the apps out there could be websites. We have all technologies needed for this including offline with service workers. And it works on every damn platform, even the most obscure OS has a web browser. Don't want to be locked to an ecosystem? Just target the web!

Android has been a bloated walled garden for years. It should have been like a PC w/Windows or Linux: anyone should be able to make an app (any way they want), publish it, let anyone who wants to download it & run it. But that was never the plan. The plan was to provide a moat to allow mobile telephone operators (& Google) to dictate what users were allowed to do with their phones. Imagine your ISP having total control over your desktop computer. Or killing a website, or program, because the ISP doesn't like it.

It is insane that we, the people giving them the money and agency to do this, that we've allowed this to be the status quo. We need to do something about it. We need to kill Android. And from the ashes, make a new platform that works for us, and not for a corporation's profits and anti-competition.

At the risk of posting memes to HN: https://imgflip.com/i/akp488

People mentioning forking Android is hard, how easy do LLMs make this?

[1] https://grapheneos.org/donate

[2] https://grapheneos.org/

Then, at least I control my hardware and my OS.

It's just nasty to have your device and OS controlled by an antagonistic entity.

I see this in people why have used antagonistic software for decades and have become zombified and shellshocked; the idea that software could be on your side is to alien to them. They hate software and technology and just want to get some work done. They tolerate the abuse because they can't fight Google alone; it's pointless to resist.

I donated a few $100's to the petition.

With 23,623 (as of today) signatures I doubt anybody really cares, and we'd all rather be cheeple doing the tech companies' bidding as long as we can flop on our couches and consume.

Clearly Google wants to make money off their monopoly (created in part from initial openness) and they are disguising it as some security/safety enhancement bullsh*t. Shameful!

My main question: I chose Android over Apple because of the extra freedoms it affords me. When that goes away, what reason do I have continuing with Android?

Unfortunately, this mostly means using the closed android ecosystem.

In classic Google fashion, they hear the complaint, pretend that it's about something else, and give a half baked solution to that different problem that was not the actual issue. Any solution that disadvantages F-Droid compared to the less trustworthy Google Play is a problem.

Even that is a step too far in the wrong direction. Doesn't matter if it's free, or whatever, simply requiring an account at all to create and run software on your own device (or make it available to others) is wrong.

There exists no freedom when you are required to verify your identity, or even just provide any personal information whatsoever, to a company to run software on your device that you own.

You may theoretically find it advantageous to use such a system anyhow. To a first-order approximation, the danger a government poses to you is proportional to its proximity to you. (In the interests of fairness, I will point out, so are the benefits a government may offer to you. In this case it just happens to be the dangers we are discussing.) Using the stack of a government based many thousands of miles/kilometers away from you may solve a problem for you, if you judge they are much less likely to use it against you than your local government.

But China certainly won't put out an "open" anything.

(And install GrapheneOS, the more successful open Android becomes, the better.)

Maybe it's just my experience.

I don't think this is true, right? An AOSP build can just decide to still allow installing arbitrary APKs. Also see this post from the GrapheneOS team:

https://mastodon.social/@[email protected]/116103...

As far as HarmonyOS i dont see many uptakes outside strict US free requirements as the other OEMs are lazy and also dont want to be locked into a competitor.

SailfishOS looks like its your time to faceplant once more , by not having a proper stratergy on monetizing on the many missteps from the current monopoly.I thonk at this point they need a leadership/biz stratergy overhaul - the tech is nice and polished, user demand is off the charts for an alternative . And they are just .. missing. Not even in th e conversation.

Where you been? They already had Huawei get kickbanned by Google and made their own OS (it's not more open): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HarmonyOS

Tragically, Linux phones have languished and are in an absolute state these days, but a lot of the building blocks are in place if user adoption occurs en masse. (Shout out to the lunatics who have kept this dream alive during these dark years.)

It's really a shame that you always wait until you really get forced. Particularly in situations when every individual's inability has consequences for the others as well. I really gave up all ideas of a better world. With this community, the best you can hope is that the decay will be slow.

So everyone who would describe himself/herself as a FOSS enthusiast, or at least a friend of a somewhat open system where the user has some actual rights beyond sole consumption, put some pressure towards having actually de-Googled systems. A system that mostly comes from Google, would not fit my definition of that term at all! Even if they removed some parts of it. It's an euphemism. And it's dangerous because you constantly get trapped by these euphemisms. Ever. Single. F'ing. Time.

> I guess it means the Play store will be the only way to install an app

No, non-Play stores will still work, but developers will need to register a developer account with Google that is tied to some real identity. They already need to do this to distribute through the Play store, but now it'll apply regardless.

This is to make it harder for scam apps to churn app signatures. Kind of like requiring code-signing, but with only one CA.

> That users won't be able to install what they want

No, sideloading will still work, but it won't work if the APK isn't signed by someone in the Google developer registry.

> and that they would need a google account to install apps

Nope.

> That app developers have to go through google to distribute their apps, with identity verification etc.

They don't need to distribute through Google, but they will need to be involved with Google and do identity verification.

> However, I'm also reading here and there that it is a threat to alternative ROMs. To me it sounds at the contrary as an amazing opportunity, as they can strip this verification and be the only truly open Android, or am I missing something?

You're being misinformed. They won't even need to strip the verification. The verification is only for certified Android -- OEMs that partner with Google. Custom ROMs and the OEMs that aren't certified (Amazon, some Chinese manufacturers) won't have verification.

The target audience for verification and who would ever use a custom ROM has basically zero overlap.

Nothing about Android is open except the absolutely minimum amount of linux kernel that's required to boot the thing. Then it's blobs and restrictions all the way to the screen.

"Security."

As if I'm in the government or something. Why can't the people who need military level security get their own platform? Shouldn't they just have that already?

It's not very hard to imagine? Most people don't expect that level of control anymore; their desktop just updates with whatever corporate slopware is pushed out seasonally. Websites come-and-go. It's not a hugely motivating rally-cry for average person.

> We need to kill Android. And from the ashes, make a new platform that works for us, and not for a corporation's profits and anti-competition.

Android is the best-working part of that equation. Microsoft supported Android apps on Windows Phone. Jolla supports Android apps on Sailfish OS. Linux supports Android apps in Waydroid. You don't have to "kill" Android as a runtime or smartphone OS; just force Google to compete with 3rd party ROMs.

If Google had not done that, they wouldn't have lost.

My smartphone runs an FSF-endorsed OS, PureOS. This is reality. It's not open hardware, but it's a long way from Android in the right direction. You can also get a Precursor, which is open hardware.