Google has news on what you will need to do for still being able to sideload apps:

* enable developer options
* confirm that you are not tricked
* restart phone and re-authenticate
* wait one day
* confirm with biometrics that you know what you are doing
* decide if you only want unrestricted installs for 1 week or forever
* confirm that you accept the risks
* enjoy the few apps that still have developers motivated to develop for a user-base willing to put up with this

https://goo.gle/advance-flow

@grote Something tells me LineageOS is about to suddenly get 100x more popular....

Of course then they'll have to start more obsessively locking down bootloaders and probably even remove the unlock option in anything they can. We've begun an age where even the open devices are now going to soon be closed and locked down.

And yeah, it's past time for a real OS.

EDIT: Wow, amazing levels of hate and fear towards the idea of using something more open that gives the user control over their own devices just because it's not as easy as simply buying something and it's already there...

You, uh, might want to look a little deeper into why you feel that way. Seriously, I'm not kidding. Think about it.

@nazokiyoubinbou @grote However scary the whole new Google process is for the non-expert user, installing a new OS on your daily driver phone is a hundred times scarier.

@FifiSch @grote I don't really understand that. The instructions are so simple and detailed and the "new OS" is basically exactly the same thing right down to having the same basic startup configuration and etc. The only difference is the Google connections are optional and one can decide for themselves how far they want to go.

It's pretty much just tapping a few things, then copying and pasting two lines or so. Once it's booted you wouldn't tell it apart from stock other than its cleanliness. It's easier than installing Linux on a PC and that's actually a lot easier and less scary than people have been convinced.

I bet if people didn't let Google, Apple, and etc convince them that they are so scared of installing third party options we never would have reached this point.

@nazokiyoubinbou @FifiSch @grote Consider the failure state. If a user fails to set up installing outside programs, they can still use their phone and make calls. If a user fails to install a new OS, they have no phone until they succeed.

@Epic_Null @FifiSch @grote That's the assumption, yes.

Two things.

First, you can just flash again if you for some reason did something stupid like yanking out the cord while it was transferring.

Second, modern Android devices usually use two separate partitions. When you flash it goes to whichever it's not currently using. So if you render it broken and for some reason can't flash again, you can still just boot the first.

Again, people have let themselves be convinced to be scared of things rather than trying them.

@nazokiyoubinbou @FifiSch @grote

you can just flash again

Look that is comforting to someone who knows they can flash their phone. For someone who is doing it for the first time with exactly one device, that's essentially saying "If you find you do not have what it takes to do this, you can just do the thing you found you could not do to fix the mess you made!"

That is NOT going to be comforting to those who need that comfort.

@Epic_Null @FifiSch @grote What?

I'm saying if you for some reason yanked out the cable or something and broke the initial flash you can press up and press enter then this time not yank out the cable.

@nazokiyoubinbou @FifiSch @grote You said you don't understand why the process of installing a new OS on your phone is so scary for the average user? I was responding to that part - it's scary because if you fuck it up, the only way through it is to not fuck it up.

@Epic_Null @FifiSch @grote And I'm saying it's not scary if you mess it up is because you can just simply try again and not do something really stupid like yanking out the cable the second time.

I'm also saying most have dual partition layouts where if you do screw up the second one you can go back to booting the first.

Also, there's nothing wrong with the old tried and true "just ask someone who knows this stuff" like people used to do back in the day. I don't know why everyone decided that they had to just buy stuff certain ways and if it wasn't right toss it and buy a new thing rather than just asking someone who knows the thing like everyone used to do...

@nazokiyoubinbou @FifiSch @grote and my response is that's only comforting to those who are already confident in their ability to complete the task at hand. If this is your first time, you have no clue what "something really stupid" looks like, or what happens when that occurs.

@Epic_Null @FifiSch @grote Ok, let me say it more clearly: you can't mess it up to such an extent that it won't boot ever again without doing some things that basically require you to know what you are doing and intentionally screwing it up because you wanted to make some kind of point or something.

And, again, even if they screw it up to that level, they can just boot back to the original which wasn't overwritten because again, as I just said, modern phones use two separate partitions. When you tell it to flash, it goes to the unused one unless you very specifically manually tell it to use the wrong one.

You really really really don't like the idea of having control over your own device do you?

@nazokiyoubinbou @Epic_Null Peak Fediverse battle 🍿🗿

In my opinion, the hardest part of installing a custom ROM is finding one that supports your phone model. And that does not depend on you unless you have the skill to port Lineage or whatever to your proprietary distraction rectangle.