gofossSep 29, 2025

For 15 years, F-Droid has been the antidote to Google Play: no trackers, no ads, just open source apps. Now, Google wants to kill it.

Under the guise of "security", Google is forcing devs to register, pay, and surrender control. F-Droid can’t comply without betraying its principles. Thousands of apps could vanish overnight.

Fight back: demand sideloading rights, pressure regulators/Parliament, and defend one of the safe harbors for ethical tech.

https://f-droid.org/2025/09/29/google-developer-registration-decree.html

@marcprux @fdroidorg

F-Droid and Google's Developer Registration Decree | F-Droid - Free and Open Source Android App Repository

For the past 15 years, F-Droid has provided a safe and secure haven for Android users around the world to find and install free and open source apps. When co...

Show threadBryan HaskinSep 29, 2025
@don_atoms @marcprux @fdroidorg the best thing you can do is stop using android. There are alternatives out there. They might not be as good as android currently, but android wasn't that great when it first came out either.
Show threadzetabetaSep 29, 2025

@bhhaskin @don_atoms @marcprux @fdroidorg
i don't think it is ios, ipados, macos, iphone or any other apple's system.

apple's systems are totally controlled.

Show threadBryan Haskin
@zetabeta @don_atoms @marcprux @fdroidorg I agree. I am hoping general Linux phones continue to improve in quality.
Sep 29, 2025 at 9:12pmWeb
Show threadThe Mad HatterSep 30, 2025
@bhhaskin @zetabeta @don_atoms @marcprux @fdroidorg hope for a linux for phones distro with good waydroid support. Would allow us to keep the good apps from fdroid on our phone
Show threadMr. TeatimeOct 1, 2025

@bhhaskin

That's a nice hope, but is there any chance they'll be good enough that most major phone manufacturers decide to ship their phones with general Linux instead of Android, before Google's new policy comes into force?

I'm happy to note that Fairphone has an option to buy their devices with /e/OS preinstalled, directly, and Shiftphone (Disclosure: I'm typing this on a Shiftphone) provides all necessary means to custom ROM developers to support them -- but much more than that is not likely to happen soon.
Unless some actual law or sufficient bad publicity stops Google, they'll just force people to decide between the Google world and the free software world, and then you're either in or out. Not happy.

@zetabeta @don_atoms @marcprux @fdroidorg