With both Android and Chromium, we're ultimately at Google's mercy.
btw, does anyone know if Huawei is following along with this in their fork?
Now I hate Google as much as the next person, but I also hate all the other Android manufacturers who just don't do better.
Ideally, major manufacturers would all contribute to AOSP to make sure that it runs well with their devices. And then we could install the "AOSP distro" we want, be it GrapheneOS or LineageOS or whatever the fuck we want.
> does anyone know if Huawei is following along with this in their fork?
They suck like all the other manufacturers: they forked as a quick solution, and then decided to go with their own proprietary codebase. If nobody else contributes, why would they make it open source?
What I see from the Linux experience is that the only way it works is to have a copyleft licence and a multitude of contributors. That way it belongs to everybody, and it moves too fast for one single entity to write a proprietary competitor on their own. But AOSP is not that: first it's a permissive licence, and only Google meaningfully contributes to it.
I was under the impression that we got that with GSI, including that Google required a device to support GSIs in order to be certified or something like that. Am I misremembering?
They are moving to their own completely proprietary OS called HarmonyOS NEXT.
As an iPhone user, I find it frustrating that deploying my own app on my own device requires either reinstalling it every 7 days or paying $100 annually. Android doesn't have this limitation, which makes it simpler and more convenient for personal use.
However, when it comes to publishing apps to the store, I take a different view. In my opinion, stricter oversight is beneficial. To draw an analogy: NPM registry has experienced several supply chain attacks because anyone can easily publish a library. The Maven Central registry for Java libraries, by contrast, requires developers to own the DNS domain used as a namespace for their library. This additional requirement, along with a few extra security checks, has been largely effective in preventing—or at least significantly reducing—the supply chain attacks seen in the NPM ecosystem.
Given the growing threat of such attacks, we need to find ways to mitigate them. I hope that Google's new approach is motivated by security concerns rather than purely economic reasons.
Personally I feel much more safe and secure downloading a random app from F-Droid, than I do from Google, whose supposed watchful eyes have allowed genuine malware to be distributed unimpeded.
I agree; stricter oversight is beneficial for the official app store. It should not be necessary (and neither should Google's (or Apple's, or Microsoft's, or the government's, etc) verification be necessary) for stuff you install by yourself.
> The Maven Central registry for Java libraries, by contrast, requires developers to own the DNS domain used as a namespace for their library.
This means that you will need to have a domain name, and can verify it for this purpose. (It also has a problem if the domain name is later reassigned to someone else; including a timestamp would be one way to avoid that problem (there are other possibilities as well) but I think Java namespaces do not have timestamps.)
> I hope that Google's new approach is motivated by security concerns rather than purely economic reasons.
Maybe partially, but they would need to do it a better way.
Making this verification mandatory is an absolute non-starter, ridiculous overreach, and a spit in the face of regulators who are trying to break Google and Apple's monopoly on mobile app distribution.
> However, when it comes to publishing apps to the store,
This isn't about publishing apps to the Play Store. If that's all this was about, we wouldn't give a shit. The problem is that this applies to all stores, including third party stores like F-Droid, and any app that is installed independently of a store (as an apk file).
> Given the growing threat of such attacks, we need to find ways to mitigate them.
How about the growing threat of right-wing authoritarian control? How do we mitigate that when the only "free" platform is deciding the only way anybody can install any app on their phone is if that app's developer is officially and explicitly allowed by Google?
Hell, how long until those anti-porn groups turn their gaze from video games and Steam onto apps, then pressure MasterCard/Visa and in turn Google to revoke privileges from developers who make any app/game that's too "obscene" (according to completely arbitrary standards)?
There's such a massive tail of consequences that will follow and people are just "well, it's fine if it's about security". No. It's not. This is about arbitrary groups with whatever arbitrary bullshit ideology they might have being able to determine what apps are allowed to be made and installed on your phone. It's not fucking okay.
In reality, the phone had 24 GB of free space out of 64 GB total. I simply uninstalled the fake cleaner and the annoying notifications disappeared.
How such an app could reach the Play Store is beyond me. I can only imagine how many people that app must have deceived and how much money its creators likely made. I'm fairly certain the advertisement targets older people specifically—those most likely to be tricked.
For better or worse, I'm pretty sure that such an app would never land into the Apple App Store.
This is not about the Play Store. This is about the whole Android platform. It's about running what you want on your own machine.
What are the requirements around domain renewal?
https://contact-the-cma.service.gov.uk/wizard/classify
It's very simple to submit a complaint.
Stallman did not find an economic model that works within our business/legal environment.
Maybe his biggest contribution is that his extreme stance and ensuing visibility probably helped shift the Overton window.
To be clear: this does not diminish his contributions in the field of software! His ideas about Free Software have been visionary and are as important as ever. One can be brilliant in one field and a fool in another. This is actually very common among technical people ("engineer's disease"). We cannot expect someone to be right 100% of the time.
The F-droid article states: "You, the consumer, purchased your Android device believing in Google’s promise that it was an open computing platform and that you could run whatever software you choose on it. "
This is an actionable issue. I believe this is a legally reasonable issue. If you buy a car and then the car manufacturer changes the car so you can only buy gas from them, or parts, that is an offense.
If you accept that users are wronged by googles action, the problem is what can be done about it?
Wrongs committed by companies like Google, Apple, Amazon are difficult to fix because of failures in our legal system. The typical legal action is a class action suit. These typically result in large "settlements" with little real effect. Users get a notice that they are entitled to $40 but only if they jump through seven hoops. Lawyers on both sides make out like bandits. The offenders have little incentive not to be repeat offenders, just not to get caught again. This is an acceptable risk for corporations and so does not act as a deterrent.
There are states Attorney Generals who can file anti-trust actions. The US government (ha ha) could file an anti-trust action. In my opinion neither of these are likely. And even if it happens, it will take years. And years.
A problem with these two legal solutions is that they rely on someone else. The result is that users are victims. We are all used to that by now.
Since we, as android users, are legally entitled to compensation - is there another way to take a legal action.
In most states the limits on small claims actions is between $3000 and $10,000. Well above the cost of an android phone. If there is one class action legal suit against google they can easily spend the money to defend it. And the time. They have the resources to do this.
However, what would happen if 1000 people filed small claims action, asking for a refund for the cost of their phone? Google is declaring war on users. They have their big legal tanks. Small claims are the equivalent of drones in the legal world.
We have the internet. We have AI. Can we generate reasonable and fair legal small claims court filings for each of the 50 states and put them online to help people.
We, the people, have learned helplessness. We need to learn something else or resign ourselves to simply being fodder for predatory actions by corporations.
Google was found to have a monopoly on android with the play store (even though you can side load other stores), Apple was found to not have a monopoly with the app store.
OK. But that is not the really bad part, the really bad part came from the appellate court this past July. Google pointed out that the Apple app store was ruled not a monopoly, but somehow Google's more open system was..
The judge, I am not shitting you, said that because Apple doesn't allow competitors on their phones, they cannot be anti-competitive. Google lost the appeal.
So now, clear as day, Google needs to kick out competition to be competitive. Good job legal system.