415
Google gives Android users a way to install unverified apps if they worked hard for it(including waiting 24 hours)
(android-developers.googleblog.com)
this post was submitted on 19 Mar 2026
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No, you do this and then you can't install anything, because no developer will choose this process as their publishing strategy.
Apps outside the Play Store will be dead, which is the point.
What apps outside of the Play Store, and why do I care about them? (Again, assuming I'm a new Pixel/Galaxy user.)
I remember when I bought Titanium Backup (anybody remember that?). You could buy it for X on the Play Store, or you could buy the unlocker from the developer. IIRC you pay a little bit less, but he gets 100% of the money, so you just cut Google out. I don't recall exactly, but I did that.
I feel like anything you want to get that's not on the Play Store, you're gonna be savvy enough to install. Like FDroid. People who install FDroid tend to know what they're doing. Or ad blockers. Or whatever torrent/Dark Web app that's not in the Play Store. You're gonna know how to do it, and if these hoops stop you from doing it, you can always get a geek to do it for you... or maybe you'd be better off ~~not doing it~~ learning how your device works first.
Yes, that's my point. Google making it so that you have to be a tech savvy user to install anything from outside the Play Store is why there is nothing outside the Play Store that a non-tech savvy user would be interested in, because why would there be if no one is going to install it anyway. Fortnite was a big example where you had to download the APK from their website, and they sued Google that it was too hard for users. And it was before these changes which make it incredibly harder.
Meanwhile, TVDB doesn't have an app, and IMDb and Wikipedia have shitty apps, so I've installed all three as web apps. You can do a lot with web apps these days. It's not all inclusive, but it is something. And that's on iPhone. On Android I actually prefer to use the browser (Firefox with uBlock Origin).