The future of this elegant and proven system was put in jeopardy last month, when Google unilaterally decreed that Android developers everywhere in the world are going to be required to register centrally with Google. In addition to demanding payment of a registration fee and agreement to their (non-negotiable and ever-changing) terms and conditions, Google will also require the uploading of personally identifying documents[^regid], including government ID, by the authors of the software, as well as enumerating all the unique “application identifiers” for every app that is to be distributed by the registered developer.
If it were to be put into effect, the developer registration decree will end the F-Droid project and other free/open-source app distribution sources as we know them today, and the world will be deprived of the safety and security of the catalog of thousands of apps that can be trusted and verified by any and all. F-Droid’s myriad users5 will be left adrift, with no means to install — or even update their existing installed — applications.
Yes, some of the latest commits to AOSP repo added code to the Package Installer app for denying .apk package installation based on developer verification result, and even for denying installing .apk packages when internet isn’t available so it can’t contact Google’s servers for developer verification results. Google is already making it clear this kind BS is how they intend to enforce this ridiculous decree.
That’s egregious and really will impede using open source software on Android. Guess my phone will turn into a device for tethering now, instead.
Or just root your phone and continue to use your phone exactly how you would use a Linux laptop lol
Why would anyone use an Android phone without root after Google started showing their true face with Android half decade ago anyway lol
Fair point, but there’s quite a large hurdle to rooting a phone nowadays, and I’m not optimistic that FOSS will continue to work as well on Android for the average person once Google introduces these restrictions. iPhones could be jailbroken but there never really was much open source software on those things.
Unlike iPhones, where Apple dictates all iPhone to require literally hacking the phone via exploits to jailbreak, the ease of rooting a phone depends entirely on its OEM. Indeed there is Samsung the Apple wannabe who makes it physically impossible to root with locked bootloader, but there’s also Sony Xperia phones where Sony makes it clear about their specific open device policy with step-by-step instructions on their dedicated developer support webpage for how to unlock bootloader and the process itself taking less than 10 seconds.
Vote with your wallet, remind others to vote with their wallet, support OEMs who don’t do the kind of anti-rooting and anti-bootloader-unlocking practices, and support FOSS projects. This is our best chance, and Google is NOT going to stop themselves doing all the evil.
Also Mr. Average McPerson is not a real human being, and we shouldn’t be too concerned about the opinion of someone who doesn’t physically exist and is merely an abstract conceptual construct.
Regarding Sony, they too may be interested in enshittifying.
Recently they removed USB camera monitor and control from non-Sony phones, locked it to only flagship Xperias, and further behind a $4.99/month paywall.
https://www.androidauthority.com/sony-xperia-monitor-and-control-camera-3593061/
Also a video from Louis Rossman regarding this shit: https://youtu.be/PqPfM6lxv90
That’s hardly enshitification, the USB camera monitor feature is NOT USB video output capability, which remains as a hardware feature on all Xperia phones, it is a proprietary software feature for receiving video output from Sony’s Alpha Cameras into the phone via standard USB-C port, and displaying the camera’s viewfinder feed on the phone. This is exactly the same as what you can do with for example Spacedeck to use your phone or any other Android device as an external monitor for PC, but with Sony’s own proprietary implementation. And Sony’s implementation is exclusive to their professional Alpha series cameras, you could never use your phone as an external monitor of any other device with that feature, which would always require another software to encode the video feed to transmit theough the standard USB-C interface anyway. So it’s been an extremely niche proprietary feature only used by a very small group of people who happen to be professional photographers, doing certain specific types of photography, and happen to be using certain Sony Alpha cameras instead of professional cameras from other vendors. I agree it’s a ridiculous and beyond stupid decision from Sony but I do also think it’s a bit of a stretch to call that enshitification, especially compares to the kind of practices from many other much bigger OEMs that have unfortunately become almost ubiquitous these days throughout an entire industry.
While at the same time, Sony Xperia phones remains some of the very few high end Android phones these days that still have BOTH 3.5mm headphones jack and SD card support, together with an open device policy where you’re always free to unlock bootloader and root without artificially losing major core OS features.
Because unfortunately rooting makes the device significantly less secure. It was fine back in the day when a smartphone was a cool new thing to tinker with but now it’s got all my personal information and more on it I value security a little more.
That’s one of the biggest lies that’s been systemically propagated by the industry. A rooted phone is as secure as you make it, because you are in control of your device’s security.
And a device you have control over is as secure as you make it so.
You can’t root a ton of phones. My Samsung phone is 5 years old, and it still isn’t possible to root it. Also, at current I believe the Linux OS options have a much more severe battery drain.
Okay then keep buying Samsung phones and support their aggressive and audacious push for walled gardens on a platform that started as an open source OS, when they are neither the most affordable nor the most feature rich option.
You deserve every bit of the enshitification and corporate exploitation that you have enabled and supported directly yourself.
There’s a difference between you cannot root on a lot of phones and you cannot root on a lot of Samsung phones. Saying you cannot root Samsung phones isn’t all that different from saying you can’t root iPhones is it?
Can can say “a lot” and “most” because Samsung has over half of all android phones in the US and is also globally the most used android phone.
So yeah. A LOT of android phones can’t be rooted.
By 2025 Q2 Samsung smartphones have 19.7% global market share, how cute.
Oh don’t worry it is not even close to being the biggest problem people in the US are having lol
19% of cell phone market share. That isn’t android market share. Your number is including iOS and the sliver of other operating systems.
Doesn’t rooting it mean a lot of apps no longer work though?
Personally I’ve had my phone rooted for years and only twice encountered an app that really wouldn’t work anymore.
You mean rooting causes some of the apps which were deliberately designed to be anti-consumer, from some of the companies that are known to be most consumer-hostile with a long history of screwing over not only their customers but also the entire industry? Yes.
But why would you use those apps anyway.
I mean rooting causes some apps that rely on androids security model may stop working so malware can’t steal all your money.
(I think, I don’t know how common this is)
So downstream just removes that code? I don’t see the big deal
It doesn’t work like that for mainstream manufactures, the way Google does this, as they have declared so far, is making it a contractal obligation to keep this code in order for them to get Google’s GMS certificate, which Google requires for authorizing them to integrate Google’s suite into their phone’s ROM, including Play Store and Google Service Framework, which are all proprietary software which manufacturers are not legally allowed to distribute without Google’s authorization. And outside China it doesn’t look like most mainstream manufactures dare to sell an Android phone without Google’s Play Store, thanks to the wonderful collective of the Android users making fricking brilliant choices with their wallet over the decade, didn’t they?
The only way out of this for a government agency to step in it seems because Google really does have the manufacturers cornered here.
Why would you run the OS that comes with your hardware, anyway? Any business is going to do a wipe and OS reinstall as a required first step before issue. Phones should be no different.
Because the most popular choices for Android phones don’t even let you unlock the bootloader, let alone install a different OS (also custom rom support can be a tad spotty at times).