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Google's plan to restrict sideloading on Android has a potential escape hatch for users
(www.androidauthority.com)
this post was submitted on 06 Sep 2025
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It's not completely meaningless because if it's truly the only option I'm going to be using it until I eventually replace my current phone with one with an unlocked bootloader.
I'm afraid that won't help. There will be even fewer people developing apps specifically for the 0.01% of us using custom ROMs.
They're already developing the apps for the 1% of us not just using proprietary apps from the play store. I don't think this just kills open source app development.
That's not who we're talking about. We're talking about the 0.1% who have custom ROMs.
It won't kill it completely but it will severely hurt it. The more complicated it becomes, the smaller the userbase becomes.
Apps like Syncthing have already discontinued development due to Google shenanigans + lack of users. That'll only get worse as the userbase shrinks.
There are plenty of people developing apps that require root, and users who run those are already jumping through a million hoops of cat and mouse to keep their fucking mcdonalds app detecting it so they can get cheaper coffees and free fries.
Like seriously, wtf McDonalds, your app is like the ultimate root/safetynet/device id detection tool, I don't think there exists even a banking app that is as hard to fool.
When my current phone dies I'll be buying a flip phone.
Guess what!? Those are all Android too!
But I guess those don’t have Google Play or anything Google, they’re more like a limited Android.
Nope, some of them run KaiOS
Guess what!? KaiOS is Android!
They can go back to being a Linux OS much easier than anybody else
Rimjob_steve moment