Edit: For what it’s worth, you can give Google feedback to stop this nonsense. Scroll down to Get Ready section and click on Share your feedback. You can use the following text as an example.
Android’s strength has always been in being both secure and open. Restricting sideloading goes against this principle and does little to protect users. The existing toggle and clear warnings are already enough to inform users of the risks.
Meanwhile, the Play Store itself continues to be the main source of Android malware. In 2023 alone, malicious apps on Google Play were downloaded over 600 million times. More recently, 77 infected apps with 19 million installs and 200+ other malicious apps with nearly 8 million installs slipped past Play Protect. These numbers make it clear where the real problem lies.
If Google truly wants to protect users, the focus should be on strengthening Play Store defenses. Android’s openness is not the threat; malware inside the official store is. Please prioritize fixing that instead of undermining one of Android’s core values.
I’m considering leaving Apple for Android for a very long time now. On my shortlist I have the Fairphone Gen 6 and the OnePlus 13. Other options are not possible. I don’t want Google or Samsung hardware, or any other manufacturers that make it difficult to unlock your bootloader.
One of the reasons is the freedom to install any app I want on my device, because it’s my device. But with the news about Google forcing developers to share their personal credentials it makes it difficult for me to go to Android. Basically Google is trying to kill sideloading. Should I even move to Android now or is Android with the limitation just like iOS?
I don't even know how to answer that. Currently they're very unequal. Android offers much more freedom. In the near future that benefit is gone and all of the existing benefits are in Apple's favor.
I especially feel like apple is opening up more and Google is closing down Android more. They’re moving to the same point in a spectrum. Which is IMO a false sense of freedom and ownership. It’s how dictators rule a country: you can do whatever you, but only if we like it.
Maybe, but we live in the now. Currently, Android is better for the causes OP mentioned. If someone cares about these causes, switching to something like Fairphone is a way to support these causes. Especially since Fairphone for example also works with other Linux-based operating systems in addition to Android (no matter if they are unusable because of whatever reasons right now).
Staying on Apple, where Apple is definitely closed right now and also definitely staying like that, is the antithesis to that.
So we shouldn't consider the near future?
Google is definitely closing. There's no reason for them to lie about this. The only lie is why they're doing it.
Of course we should consider the near future. And in the near future, Android devices will still keep working exactly as they are now. And the devices mentioned will have the ability to not update to a sideloading-blocked version of Android. And the devices mentioned will still have the ability to put other operating systems on them, in case stock Android is not satisfactory anymore. And in the near future, Android will not get worse than iOS, as iOS is blocking sideloading already.
The "near future" comes in a few months in the form of Google's Developer Verification, among other things.
Oh so your solution is to no longer install updates on your device?
It won't matter. No one is going to develop apps just for the 0.01% of users with custom ROMs.
So, what are you suggesting? Staying on Apple where all of this is already the case?
Yes but there are many other advantages like processing power, battery life, etc.
Who do you think the current downloaders of F-Droid apps are?
Anyone who wants apps from outside Google Play? 🤷
I think they're actually the minority.
"minority" = <50%. Very different from 0.01%
You really think 0.01% of people downloading from F-Droid are doing it from a custom ROM?
No, I think 0.01% of all Android users are using a custom ROM that allows bypassing Google's shitfuckery.
And they're the majority target for F-Droid apps.
FDroid apps are for all Android users...
I don't see how that is relevant. We are debating who actually uses F-Droid applications, not who can install them. The crossover between FOSS and privacy is significant; people who care enough about freedom and privacy to use FOSS apps generally end up running a custom ROM as well. F-Droid and FOSS apps are a complete unknown beyond this userbase so I'm not sure why you think these people who don't even know alternative app stores exist are the target audience for developers on those app stores.