How long until they patch out getting developer mode working on you phone without a registration, requiring you to pay for it and also take a “short” AI generated crash course in app development and monetization?
Google Confirms Non-ADB APK Installs Will Require Developer Registration
Submitted 3 weeks ago by mesamunefire@piefed.social to technology@lemmy.world
Comments
ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
randomaside@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
Literally TODAY someone I know installed an application called “PDF viewer for android” that had a green adobe icon and it started wrecking absolute havoc on their phone with pop ads and redirects to scam support sites.
The AppStore is full of this shit.
ravachol@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
How does this affect termux? Is it going to die or is it only going to be able to have packages that are from registered developers?
tal@olio.cafe 3 weeks ago
That’s actually a really interesting question.
I understand that Apple takes issue with packages that can themselves “take packages”. But historically, I don’t believe that Google has. Of course, Google also hasn’t done the registration thing historically, either.
lone_faerie@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
Termux is already available on the Play Store, so I imagine it won’t be an issue. Sideloading will still be possible, it just requires developer’s give Google their private information (which is fucking stupid) but you already have to do that to be on the Play Store, so I don’t see why Google wouldn’t verify the Termux team.
kieron115@startrek.website 2 weeks ago
look at it from the pessimists point of view, they could have killed sideloading too!
ravachol@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Yeah I really hope they wont ask termux packages or apps installed through termux to also be verified.
foremanguy92_@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
Again not on custom ROMs.
(And could help the push of new alternatives os)
Ferk@programming.dev 2 weeks ago
If it’s easy to patch this out, I wonder if there will be manufacturers that will choose to do so for their official ROMs. It would be extra value for the brand, imho. A reason to choose, say, Samsung, over a Pixel phone, if Samsung were to patch this restriction out, for example.
foremanguy92_@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
I didn’t read the terms but I think this is against Google terms of services, so sure you can patch this out but as a company you would suffer legal actions or would be forced to remove Google services from your devices.
Samsung will just ask Samsung Store devs to be registered
masterofn001@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
So, will an app like this
codeberg.org/muntashir/AppManager
which uses (w)adb, be able to install apk as I currently do?
Or will they also fuck this up ?
Peruvian_Skies@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
They won’t fuck this up YET. If AppManager doesn’t currently use ADB to install APKs, it van be made to. So can any F-Droid or Aurora Store client.
However, I’d say that the odds that Google will stop at this certificate demand and will not eventually try to paywall ADB somehow are currently 0% in my estimation.
Eagle0110@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Thankfully I have root, I’ll just simply hook into it runtime via Xposed to bypass this nonsense.
Seriously anyone who doesn’t have root on their Android devices these days and age, well may Google have mercy on you lol
REDACTED@infosec.pub 2 weeks ago
I used to root every phone, but by 2025 I’ve goven up. Hard to unlock bootloaders, random apps (especially banking) thinking you will get hacked and stops working, the entire community around rooting and mods is like 10% of what it used to me, hardly any modern phone still gets custom roms, etc… Recently saw some statistic about custom roms - on average, around 50 phones 5-8 years ago had support for custom roms. By 2025, that number has fallen to 4.
Eagle0110@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
You said it like banking apps will be happy to work with a Linux phone lol, and rooting and getting a custom ROM (one which exists or otherwise) are two completely different things that have nothing to do with each other, and you shouldn’t support manufecturers who choose to make it difficult to unlock bootloader anyway.
By 2025, rooting still empowers you to make your own Android device however you like it to be.
Also not many people care about custom ROM these days because Android stock ROM got much better in average, so there’s much less a need for creating a brand new ROM just to get basic features. Why making a brand new ROM instead of modding the pretty good one you already have now. And root empowered ROM modding tools that are developed as Magisk module or Xposed modules still have a pretty big community, there’s a long list of pretty big repos with hundreds of modules each, and with how sophisticated Magisk and Lsposed have evolved it’s easier than ever to write your own mods
undrwater@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Are you certain you’ll be able to do this? Do you have more info?
Eagle0110@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Recent AOSP repo added lines of code to Package Installer to handle enforcing restricting whether Package Installer installs an APK file or not based on dev signatures, as well as denying installation if internet isn’t available so it can’t contact Google’s servers for dev signature verification.
So this is enforced by Package Installer, which is already how Google enforces their ridiculous minimal SDK version requirement for installing APK packages, as well as for updating an app with an APK package with mismatched signature or blocking downgrading an existing app with an APK package, which I already have bypassed via Xposed this way.
yukichigai@lemmy.sdf.org 2 weeks ago
Don’t say that on XDA. Half the people there will say you don’t actually need root to do what you want and the other half will demand you justify why you need root before they even entertain the idea that having full privileges on your own fucking hardware is a valid desire.
Eagle0110@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
XDA is dead, and you just described one of the symptoms of a forum being dead.
That said there are still a small amount of people posting detailed posts for rooting Xperia phones, for how to flash OS updates with unlocked bootloader without losing your user data, for how to bypass carrier restrictions to get international model to work with the 5G bands in the US via build.conf edit and baseband flashing, etc. There are perks of a community being small and niche, and I guess not everyone is brained washed by Samsung’s propaganda they use to justify permanently locked bootloader on their phones lol
lustrum@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
The crux of the issue is not as many people will do this so app devs will be less inclined to release the good OSS
Eagle0110@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
And not as many people ever even care about doing this is exactly how we got to this point.
DoucheBagMcSwag@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
Install with options bout to be my new best friend
DanVctr@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Do tell? I couldn’t find that app in the Play Store
DoucheBagMcSwag@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
You’ll beg to ADB that one
jsomae@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
I use LineageOS. Will this affect me? I’m getting unclear answers. Someone told me that the apps will be forced to verify the OS.
c5e3@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
but directly installing apks on the phone should still be possible then, right… riiiight?
DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
wireless debugging, you can connect the phone to itself via a wifi network, then send adb commands to itself. loopholes lol
c5e3@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
i somehow skipped the “non-” part of the headline. thanks for the info though - when i came across this a couple of months ago, i couldn’t really think of any good use for it
Petter1@discuss.tchncs.de 2 weeks ago
I smell revival of jailbreak days 😁
And maybe a peak of smuggling china android phones running chinaDroid with crapChecks
Mohaim@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
This is the final push I needed to switch to GrapheneOS. Thanks Google! Now, if only I didn’t have to give Google money for the Pixel so I can install GrapheneOS.
NuclearDolphin@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
This will kill the FOSS app ecosystem regardless. Android forks of any form should be abandoned. GrapheneOS can be a decent stopgap though.
ricdeh@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Sorry for the downvote, but I see this take repeated here on Lemmy so often and it just makes no sense. This will not kill the FOSS app “ecosystem”. Nothing whatsoever changes for FOSS ROMs like LineageOS or GrapheneOS. And as long as there are FOSS operating systems, apps will be developed for them. If anything, this could drive mainstream adoption of free/libre Android forward, re-invigorating the scene through public outcry.
And to the people who propose fully jumping ship from Android to “Linux phones” because of Google’s recent changes, you would only make the app support matter worse. As someone who daily drives both a phone with LineageOS and one with postmarketOS (mainline-ish Linux), mobile app support is endlessly worse on Linux than the fallout from Google’s developer registration could ever be. That is not to say that Linux phones will not eventually get to a point of reasonable maturity, but it is way too early and frankly utterly irrational to bury AOSP Android or needlessly hate on it.
jsomae@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
You can use LineageOS on your existing non-pixel android phone, instead of purchasing a pixel.