Mastodawn

We all know that #Google wants to kill the “unverified/sideloaded” apps (names carefully selected by Google’s professional gaslighters to give a negative connotation to “apps that are not distributed by Google’s own store”).

We all know that the new “verification process” amounts basically to a ransom where you need to give Google your keys and your money if you want to build apps for Android.

It involves developers handing their signing keys to a user-hostile American company (so they will sign your package for you and will also able to decrypt your secrets) and paying them a $25 fee for each app.

Even if you don’t even use the Play Store to distribute your apps.

This is not a price to pay to get the app distributed through them, nor for using any of their services. It’s a price to pay just because they want to control the whole ecosystem end-to-end, and they know that they can get away with that because you’ll keep using their shitty OS even if you’re outraged at them.

We all know that they got a lot of backlash. And after the backlash they reiterated that they “listened to the community” and would have made a process to still allow people to “sideload apps”.

Well, today that process has been finally unveiled. And it sounds even shittier than I thought.

That’s because Google is currently filled with the best professional enshittificators in the world: the job role of these people is not to build new things, nor to listen to customers and build what they want. No, their job is specifically to find the sweet spot where they can make things as shitty as possible, add as much friction and user frustration as possible to prevent them from doing a certain thing, while still being able to tell regulators “well, it’s not that shitty, you see? We still give users an option - buried under 10 layers of dark patterns”.

In order to install apps external to the Play Store you will have to:

Activate the developer settings (the usual “tap the build number 7 times to show the hidden menu” thing)
In the developer settings, enable “Allow Unverified Padckages”
Confirm that you are not being coerced (seriously, how much malware did they actually see installed by people being coerced or tricked to download and install random APK files?)
Restart your device
Wait 24 hours
Return to the unverified packages settings
Scroll past 3-4 additional warnings whose sole purpose is to scare you off
Select either “Allow temporarily“ (7 days) or “Allow indefinitely“ (and I’ve got a hunch that the Allow indefinitely option will probably be gradually phased out)

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/03/google-details-new-24-hour-process-to-sideload-unverified-android-apps/

Google details new 24-hour process to sideload unverified Android apps

The "advanced flow" will be available before verification enforcement begins later this year.

Ars Technica

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The 500 Hats of LambdaCalculus Mar 20

@fabio Problem is though is that @postmarketOS, while a great project and one I will always advocate for, is hardly ready for primetime on a vast number of devices.

Seriously, look at all the devices listed under "testing" and "downstream" and see how many of them hardly support all the features or even have working flashing functionality.

Plus, it doesn't have an intuitive way of installation for a good number of end users.

I do hope this changes so it becomes a viable alternative.

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Fabio Manganiello Mar 20

@lambdacalculus @postmarketOS it must change because by the end of this year the Android ecosystem will get three lethal punches from Google (Play Store developers verification, age verification and more and more hardware manufacturers blocking the bootloader). And that may leave us with very little viable alternatives to enshittification. I really hope that funding gets redirected where it needs, after two decades of complacency we need something that works.