Signal CEO Whittaker said that in the worst case scenario, they would work with partners and the community to see if they could find ways to circumvent these rules. Signal also did this when the app was blocked in Russia or Iran. “But ultimately, we would leave the market before we had to comply with dangerous laws like these.”

This is why we need the ability to sideload apps.

Most likely the reason, among others, they’re fighting tooth & nail to remove side loading too.

Are they?

Google will soon stop you sideloading unverified apps – here’s what that means for you

Google will soon stop you sideloading unverified apps

unverified

ie, unsigned, so they are not

fighting tooth & nail to remove side loading too

Sideloading is still available: you can sign it yourself or bypass verification with adb as they documented.

Will Android Debug Bridge (ADB) install work without registration? As a developer, you are free to install apps without verification with ADB.

If I want to modify or hack some apk and install it on my own device, do I have to verify? Apps installed using ADB won’t require verification.

So, cool misinformation.

Bruh, you’re trying to sanewash this of all things? Right now I can go to any third-party app store and click install on an app without me nor the developer having to kiss the ring of Google or by extension the regulators (EU with Chat Control) that they are beholden to.

After this I’ll have to fucking install Google’s SDK on my computer, manually download application files, and deploy them to my device over USB with CLI commands. I will never ever ever be able to get friends and family access to third-party applications after this change.

And fuck, man, there’s not even a guarantee this solution will last, either. Google promised they would allow on-device sideloading back when they started adding deeper and deeper settings restrictions on enabling sideloaded app support, their word means fuck-all and you know that.

You misidentified your objection. It isn’t sideloading removal, which isn’t happening. It’s developer verification, which affects the sideloading that remains available.

Just because you don’t understand the value of verifying signatures doesn’t mean it lacks value.

I recall the same alarm over secureboot: there, too, we can (load our certificates into secureboot and) sign everything ourselves. This locks down the system from boot-time attacks.

I will never ever ever be able to get friends and family access to third-party applications after this change.

Then sign it: problem solved.

Developer verification should also give them a hard enough time to install trash that fucks their system and steals their information when that trash is unsigned or signed & suspended.

Even so, it’s mentioned only in regard to devices certified for and that ship with Play Protect, which I’m pretty sure can be disabled.

Google promised they would allow on-device sideloading

Promise kept.

their word means fuck-all and you know that

No, I don’t. Developers are always going to need some way to load their unfinished work.

That’s twice that you’ve missed the point that everyone else is saying. Read it again:

without me nor the developer having to kiss the ring of Google or by extension the regulators (EU with Chat Control) that they are beholden to

Google is irreversibly designating themselves the sole arbiter of what apps can be freely installed in the formerly-open Android ecosystem. It’s the same as if they just one day decided that Chromium-based browsers would require sites have a signature from Google and Google alone. I honestly don’t give a shit if they did it just on Pixel devices, but they’re doing it to the phones of ALL manufacturers by looping it into Play services.

I just don’t understand: why the fuck are you so pussy-whipped by Google that you’re stanning their blatant power grabs?

I don’t understand why you can’t read: (1) developer verification can be disabled, bypassed, or worked with, (2) you called it sideloading removal, which it isn’t.

You just don’t like the extra steps that limit the ease for ignorant users to install software known to be malicious that could have been blocked. I don’t like handholding my dumbass folks through preventable IT problems they created.