Google: 'Your $1000 phone needs our permission to install apps now'". Android users are screwed - Louis Rossmann
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I have LineageOS on my second phone, so the issue doesn't apply to custom ROMs, as the developers assured me. On my main phone, however, I still have the stock ROM because it's a new and expensive phone, and there are no custom ROMs for it yet, especially as it's a MediaTek. If they try to block sideloading, it would be a good time to report it to the European Union.
They also stopped support that allowed for easier development of custom ROMs a couple weeks back. So it's not good news for custom ROMs. Either someone needs to form Android for good, or Linux phones are our next best bet.
Back in 2019 when the leadership changed, they moved to be 100% about advertising, which is why Google started going browser fingerprint tracking. Invasive is the name of the game. Within 6 months of that, they're also locking down their entire ecosystem like Apples does, specifically to squeeze more data out for advertising. This isn't an action taken in a vacuum.
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I get what you're saying and you're definitely right. I don't side load things all that much but the times I have was because there was no other viable way to get what I needed and it worked amazingly well (not to mention testing something before it's available on the app store).
It's one of those things like a fire extinguisher that you might not need but you are very grateful it's there just in case you ever do.
Yes, I love to have the capability, but haven't used it so long that it wouldn't motivate me to switch away from android to keep it.
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So the users will have to get their own key and give it to the patcher/manager?
im guessing the two possibilities are:
- the developer signs the apk with their developer key
- the user compiles an apk from the source code and signs it with their developer key
someone correct me if im wrong
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I trust China more than this current administration..What are they gonna do? Drone strike me? Oh, wait, that's the US.
If you are American, you should buy Chinese tech because the Chinese government is more interested in spying on and controlling its own people than you.
If you are Chinese, you should buy American tech because the American government is more interested in spying on and controlling its own people than you.
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Can you at least put a custom ROM on to disable this?
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If you are American, you should buy Chinese tech because the Chinese government is more interested in spying on and controlling its own people than you.
If you are Chinese, you should buy American tech because the American government is more interested in spying on and controlling its own people than you.
wrote last edited by [email protected]What if I am american, but travel to both countries? I am thinking xiaomi w/ custom ROM?
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In all fairness to smart watches, mine is what turned me on to regularly checking the UV index. That's an important thing for all people, but especially me because I have an increased skin cancer risk due to unrelated medical stuff. And it was extra-extra important this year because I have done a ton of good work outside this summer.
And to be more specific about my watch situation, there's more going on than just avoiding notifications. I have been minimizing the amount of stuff I keep on my person in general, right down to finally getting my wedding ring tattooed on this year. There are various reasons ranging from abstract introspective life improvement stuff to the practical where that outside work I mentioned was constant and pretty rough on anything on my hands/arms.
So even if I wore a nice mechanical watch, I'd probably still be going with the double bare wrists right now.
I look at the length of my shadow, if it's not taller than I am I use an umbrella.
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wrote last edited by [email protected]
It really should be a 3 level setting, disallow/allow & check/allow. Where the latter option is available but users are strongly advised to only select it if they are sure. Because I would not be surprised if a lot of sideloaded content comes from warez sites and is infested with malware so allowing & checking is still preferable and protects people to some extent.
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I trust in independent reviews, reproducible tests and hard numbers, not in brand cultivated images and subjective choices.
I don't care if it comes for Audeze, Sony, or a Chinese Knockoff, numbers doesn't lie.wrote last edited by [email protected]Could you show us the frequency response for the Bose vs the LCD-5s and tell us why you prefer the Bose?
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Forgive my ignorance since I've been out if the loop, how have EU switched from being good to bad?
As more countries within the EU shift to right wing governments, the EU as a political body itself will also shift more to the right.
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I trust China more than this current administration..What are they gonna do? Drone strike me? Oh, wait, that's the US.
You trust China more? The State-Capitalist Authoritarian regime? They country that developed the spyware known as Wechat, which is currently monitoring most of the overseas Chinese Diaspora? LMFAO. Spoken like a westerner who never stepped foot on mainland China.
Why are people always being campist lol. Just because you think "your side" is is bad, doesn't mean you should just blindly support the "other side".
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If they only cared about thwarting malware they could have just relied on code signing via public certificate authorities, like with binaries on Windows.
Code signing offers slight protection from malware but not as you might think. If a company signs an installer, or executable then it tells you it came from them but not what it does. It could still be malicious, or it could be inadvertently bundled with malware in DLLs or scripts and you wouldn't know. You're just hoping the company has done its due diligence and you trust them to run.
Microsoft does have an antivirus system on top and fingerprints downloads too and applies some kind of trust score that is better if an exe is signed. There is probably no single mitigation that stops malware infection but apply lots of smaller mitigations in in depth and most people will be safe.
The irony is Microsoft still lets people run files ending with .scr way too easily. Much of the malware on torrent websites is a file ending with .scr knowing the OS will hide the extension, e.g. movie.mp4.scr appears as movie.mp4 in File Explorer and people click through and get infected.
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If you are American, you should buy Chinese tech because the Chinese government is more interested in spying on and controlling its own people than you.
If you are Chinese, you should buy American tech because the American government is more interested in spying on and controlling its own people than you.
Seems like I'm fucked. Being Chinese-American means the US government is constantly suspicious of me being a "CCP Spy" and also the CCP has overseas illegal "police stations", I'm getting fucked over by both sides. Just perfect
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I find it very strange how many people in the comments here think the solution is to buy an iPhone. Maybe you are all just rich and can afford to spend $1000+ based on vibes, but considering the Android market still has a massive value advantage I'm not really sure what the point of switching is. This all feels very similar to how some Westerners decided Chinese tech and even the Chinese government were suddenly problem-free just because Americans elected Trump for a second time.
Can you even (easily) install custom apps on iOS?
The last thing I remember is it being a huge pain in the butt... -
Can you at least put a custom ROM on to disable this?
Afaik, yes
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Yes, in a way it's like linux more than a decade ago. Kinda fun tbh, looking forward to giving it a try.
More like linux in the 90s
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Code signing offers slight protection from malware but not as you might think. If a company signs an installer, or executable then it tells you it came from them but not what it does. It could still be malicious, or it could be inadvertently bundled with malware in DLLs or scripts and you wouldn't know. You're just hoping the company has done its due diligence and you trust them to run.
Microsoft does have an antivirus system on top and fingerprints downloads too and applies some kind of trust score that is better if an exe is signed. There is probably no single mitigation that stops malware infection but apply lots of smaller mitigations in in depth and most people will be safe.
The irony is Microsoft still lets people run files ending with .scr way too easily. Much of the malware on torrent websites is a file ending with .scr knowing the OS will hide the extension, e.g. movie.mp4.scr appears as movie.mp4 in File Explorer and people click through and get infected.
These arguments would apply the same to Google's approach. My argument is that Google appears to have another agenda.
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Gonna have to elaborate on this because the European union has both good and bad people pulling strings.
If this is about chatcontrol. Scary as it is that the idea keeps coming back it has also always gotten shot down.
them bringing it up again and again is a very significant problem. Imagine you're spending time with a girl and asking her to have sex with you. She says "no", and you simply keep asking her daily until she says "yes" once, probably because she's just not paying attention to your actual question on that day. Such a behavior would be recognized by most people as being improper, immoral and not in the spirit of "consent".
Now, the same is happening on the EU. They keep asking the same question after they already got an explicit answer, and such a behavior should be illegal by itself. No means No.
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So in your world, a completely locked down phone is better than a phone that you can easily open up again by flashing a ROM or replacing Gservices for MicroG with adb + Magisk?
not every android phone's hardware even allows installing custom ROMs, as far as i'm aware of. and even if the phone technically does allow it, that doesn't mean that any good custom ROMs are even available for it. so the issue is a bit more difficult than that.
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Because the cheapest new iPhone is $600 and you can get a cheap new android phone for around $100-$200 and get 6 years of security updates (Galaxy A16 for example)
If a smartphone is no longer a computer where you can install whatever you want, why bother investing so much money on a very locked-down phone? You can use the hundred of dollars you saved to spend on a small portable PC or something to run any software you want.
Yeah but my banks don't support my small portable PC, nor does my mobile phone provider. If I wanted a small portable PC I'd get a small portable PC. What I want is a smartphone.
