Recently Google decided that in the future for an app to be installable on an Android device, the developer of this app needs to be ID’d and registered at Google. They claim this is in order to “to better protect users”. However, I think, this is a move to get more control over the Android ecosystem, and the data they can collect with it. If anyone who wants to develop an app for Android devices has to be registered with Google, this puts all the power of who to allow distributing an app to Google.
Furthermore F-Droid shows, that safe app stores can exist without registration, neither of users nor of developers. There is zero malware or spyware on the F-Droid store. What there is on F-Droid is thousands of beautiful, useful and, most importantly, safe apps. And this entire ecosystem is at risk, because Google wants to gain more control over its users and over the Android operating system.
What I don’t understand yet: custom ROMs don’t need that dev verification. Everybody cries now, that F-Droid can close shop, if Google comes through. But why? F-Droid would still be the #1 distribution platform for de-googled ROMs. So why this “that would kill F-Droid” sentiment?
I mean, yep: it is a shitty move by Google, but who expects non-shitty moves from Google these days? Of course they will punish and oppress their customers. That is what Big Tech is here for. If anything we ought to help those users.
Phone hardware is getting locked down too, making it much harder to install custom ROMs. This is a full court press on our rights to use our devices as we want. They’ll close most of the loopholes.
Majority of users don’t use custom ROMs.Who wants to develop an app with no audience? Who wants to develop open source software on a platform that is more and more behind closed doors. I see why developer don’t agree with their terms. We need the right to use the software we want on our devices.
But Google also stopped publishing device trees for their devices. And they are withholding the Android source code until release. Android is being developed in secrecy behind closed doors now. Public access to security patches is delayed by four months.
Google is increasing their chokehold on the platform. Development and maintenance of custom ROMs is getting more and more difficult. More and more vendors such as Samsung and Xiaomi are removing the possibility to unlock the bootloader. Installing a custom ROM was never a mainstream thing, and it is increasingly becoming impossible for most people.
Yep. As I wrote: Google does shitty things. It’s time to try to establish an alternative OS for mobile.
Do a lot of people use custom ROMs? As much as I am interested in the software, the main reason I haven’t installed them are the hardware limitations. I admit this isn’t a topic that I have a lot of knowledge on, but I assumed very few people who use FDroid are using custom ROMs and that FDroid was developed to run on stock Android specifically, even if it can be made to work with other ROMs.
No, probably a very small minority. Still, for those F-Droid is THE “store”. So, I don’t get how that “kills” F-Droid in any capacity. Anyhow, one could hope, that people who love F-Droid but are not de-googled yet would try out a custom ROM to keep their favorite store.
Ah I wasn’t aware FDroid ran on custom ROMs. I think perhaps the fear is that the userbase goes way down and kills any desire to keep up the project. I hope that isn’t the case.