Meanwhile, back at the ranch
Malware-ridden apps made it into Google's Play Store, scored 19 million downloads
https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/26/apps_android_malware/
this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2025
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Right, only install "verified" from Google Play, but that is where malware is, other 3rd party app stores like F-Droid, that really verify apps are at risk of getting killed by Google
This is very obviously step one in a plan to kill apps like alternative YouTube clients that block ads, just like the Manifest V3 rollout was intended to kill ad blockers in Chrome. Once they have everyone using this verification system, then they can just arbitrarily deverify anything that contravenes whatever new acceptable usage policy they just made up.
The opensource apps like Newpipe, SmartTube, termux and many others are the "malware", not the ones with binary blobs on PlayStore that fork VLC, Newpipe and many opensource apps illegally, supposedly "verified" but don't follow opensource license like GPL, creating fake clones with ads and (real) malware.
Google can't keep malware off the platform now, but sure, make it mandatory you can't go anywhere else unless they say so first.
Oof, time to bite the bullet and switch email providers. Shit like this is why I've spent the last couple years de-googling my life.
Do it! It's not that bad. Everyone's got different needs, but I switched to fastmail and have been enjoying it.
If you're making the switch anyway, get yourself a domain name from a separate company to run it through. That way in the future you can keep using your domain even if you switch mail/web-hosting providers.
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How about letting the users decide what to sideload? What the hell?
I hope the EU is ready to also sue Google.
The EU already forced sideloading to be officially supported on iPhones thanks to the Digital Markets Act, and that law applies to Google as well.
The US will likely apply pressure, just like they are trying to force their death machines to be legalized on European roads. Apple already tried to pressure the union and failed, but the political climate has changed a bit since then, and while EU bureaucrats can be fierce, European leadership tends to be weak as fuck.
But yeah, chances are that this change won't apply to the EU. :)
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Modern business strategy be like "If you're not building an illegal monopoly, consider doing so for more money"
I don't like how tech is evolving...
Devolving*
It’s evolving, just towards authoritarianism.
There's already a firm divide between the foss/self sufficiency crowd and modern tech.
If this is bad enough, you'd see every foss faithful walking around with a laptop, mp3 player and camera like they're in 2009.
Every day that passes I use my T480 more and more, it will die with me
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The moment I don't get to run my own stuff and F-Droid, I'll be switching off smartphones.
Dumbphone with tethering
A mini laptop/cyberdeck
A modern mp3 player
A small, modern point and click camera
hey gramps, where'd you get that gear, 2007?
It's not a cyberdeck unless I have trodes and a halo, chummer. But some kind of netbook would be great.
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I'll use the ugliest command line only smartphone over fully walled garden android
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so basically i have to send in my id to google just to sideload a test apk i made in flutter to my own phone to test it out?
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Sure glad I de-googled with GrapheneOS that ironically runs on Pixel phones.
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Is that even legal? Monopolistic behaviour.
The US Government hasn't given a shit about harmful monopolistic practices in a long time. They only pretend to care from time to time to force large companies to start donating to politicians.
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