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

Nextcloud joins open letter opposing #Android developer verification program. Because we don’t need more control from #BigTech, do we? 🤦

Like dozens of other signatories, we don’t think this is about #datasecurity…

Read our opinion and the full letter: 👉 https://nextcloud.com/blog/open-letter-android-developer-verification-program/

May has actually been using her stack of laptops and learning that “legacy” distros make more sense, the Firefox flatpak performs better than other packages, Linux Mint is a fine distro, Linux has the best calculators, and GNOME’s scaling is really good now.

https://linuxafterdark.net/linux-after-dark-episode-117/

#podcast #linux #opensource

6× faster? 🏎 With #NextcloudHub 26 Winter, we’re introducing the biggest architecture upgrade yet with:

• The new ADA engine
• Improved Rust & Go backends for Nextcloud Files & Talk
• Faster privacy-first AI

Watch on PeerTube: https://peertube.nextcloud.com/w/gGgvRkcAGgyPkNe8x73tDZ

The first week of our Open Letter to Keep Android Open has been a resounding success! Our signatories list has grown to nearly 50 organizations from 20 countries around the world, including the
@eff, @OpenMediaOrg, @brave, @Vivaldi, and many more!

https://keepandroidopen.org/open-letter/#signatories

Remember our "experience" with Google Safebrowsing in December 2025/January 2026? And that I doubted the "Safe" in its name? Well:

"Google is, quite literally, hosting phishing attacks on its own infrastructure and not catching them with its own detection tools."

Not catching a single one, that is – see the graphic below (hint: red means missed). But they compensate that by flagging safe sides, no worries 🤦‍♂️

https://www.norn-labs.com/blog/huginn-report-feb-2026

#Google #SafeBrowsing

Google announced that as of September 2026, it will no longer be possible to develop apps for the Android platform without first registering centrally with Google. This registration will involve:

- Paying a fee to Google
- Agreeing to Google’s Terms and Conditions
- Providing government identification
- Uploading evidence of the developer’s private signing key
- Listing all current and future application identifiers

https://keepandroidopen.org/

#android #opensource #keepandroidopen