Keep Android Open - Hacker News

Posted by LorenDB 10/29/2025

2693 points | 889 commentspage 5

clijsters 10/29/2025|

It is a story I heard way too often. Big Tech creates something which is so convenient, you don't want to miss it. Then Big Tech breaks that something, makes it more expensive or uses any other means of rent-seeking just pissing of its customers. We as consumers are by far the biggest lobbying-group, but nobody really gives an f. I'm trying my way with /e/OS but thats not for everybody. It also shows me how deeply dependencies on google services are woven into the whole ecosystem - even on open source apps.

immibis 10/29/2025||

These things simply do not work. Things that work: legislation (when enforced); lawsuits (when successful and very costly to the company); physical violence of course; people collectively refusing to buy the product because now it has zero advantage over Apple or because someone comes out with a new better competitor; forced interoperability via reverse engineering.

anonym29 10/29/2025||

I've got my Linux smartphone running and ready to go. VWYF, folks. I'll take shitty software and poor battery life over digital authoritarianism every single time.

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

jrflowers 10/29/2025||

>VWYF, folks

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Viewing Worked Yesterday, Frank

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wiseowise 10/29/2025|||

Vote With Your Francs, obviously.

jrflowers 10/29/2025||

Verily We Youths Frolic

Verify With Your Face

AndyKelley 10/30/2025|||

Very witty. You're funny!

jrflowers 10/30/2025||

Very Welcome,

-Your Friend

lern_too_spel 10/29/2025|||

You can still run an Android build that doesn't require a Google signature for apps. You'll just lose access to Play Integrity APIs, which you wouldn't get from non-Android Linux phones either. A better technical solution is to set up a federated replacement for Play Integrity that third party ROM developers can opt into and a library that can use that or Play Integrity for app developers that want it to use.

28304283409234 10/29/2025||

Banking apps will not work then.

xorcist 10/29/2025|||

That's a bit overblown. Almost all banking apps work fine. You might be one of the unlucky few of course, but there's no need to scare others from running free software.

baobun 10/29/2025|||

I think the "one smartphone for absolutely everything" era is over. Either switch banks (there are many who don't do this nonsense) or have a dedicated Android/iOS device for banking.

999900000999 10/29/2025|||

Which brand do you suggest ?

Google wants my apartment lease to let me distribute free games, so I just won't support their platform.

This is not about security, it's about control.

juris 10/29/2025|||

gonna say: the pinephone has been hell over the last few weeks. Phone auto-boots whenever power is applied (either by their keyboard case or via USB-C), then the battery dies very quickly, and you need a minimum charge to boot the phone, so that means you have to swap an SD card in there with JumpDrive just to charge the darn thing. There are some mitigating factors (larger battery, Tow-Boot + loading OS from SD card, potentially some SMT soldering shenanigans), but I genuinely feel like this is a fire hazard. I -do not- recommend inflicting this on others.

someone suggested (I can't lost the link) flipping the script with a GLiNet Mudi hotspot with SMS forwarding (to e-mail); I really like this idea. It would be suuuper neat to play around with the tethered model: make SIP calls with a hacked Switch with Android installed / dedicated ruggedized VoIP phone for emergencies, or justify making and carrying a cyberdeck.

Personally, I'm hoping to revive my 3DS because I fell in love with the darn thing again (and its near infinite battery life). I heard you can make calls on the original DS with SvSIP, so suuurely that can work on the 3DS too. As a fellow gamer and android dev I'm sure you'd appreciate the idea.

I don't want a phone owned and controlled and spied on by governments and mega corporations. I want a Gibson-Neuromancer style obelisk disk blob thing that does Internet, Telephony, and Computer stuff and uses whatever I tether it to as the human interface.

warkdarrior 10/29/2025||

Wow, PinePhone is mess. So much for a consumer device... Do they even use their own product?

userbinator 10/29/2025||||

This is not about security, it's about control.

Of course we know, but they always spin it as being about security.

xorcist 10/29/2025|||

They are just careful not to say whose security.

It's not a lie if it is to secure their cashflow.

hsbauauvhabzb 10/29/2025|||

One man’s security is another man’s control.

Edit: and to be clear, I’m against this change by google. I think there is value in protecting grandma from sideloaded apps (if that even happens in the real world) but this isn’t about protection of consumers, it’s about centralised control of what you can and can’t do, in preparation for handing over the reigns to an authoritarian government. ‘Security’ either to protect you from scams, protecting YouTube from third party apps, or preventing nation state hacking or similar will inevitably be the driving narrative.

goodpoint 10/29/2025||

No, it's not security. It never was.

hsbauauvhabzb 10/29/2025||

Weird micro-aggression without any argument to back it up.

anonym29 10/29/2025||||

My primary for the time being remains GrapheneOS, which, ironically enough, only runs on Pixel hardware for now (though the GOS team is working with an unnamed major Android OEM to produce a handset that meets GOS's strict platform requirements).

My Linux phone is a PinePhone pro, which I believe is no longer being sold. It's not great. Phosh could generously be described as "in progress" last time I used it. UIs for many applications aren't built for small touchscreens like that.

I'd have to review the hardware market again if I were going to make a fresh recommendation. Librem looks cool conceptually, but they're a bit pricey, and their framing of a "Made in USA" variant as a premium feature rather than a red flag, a reputation risk, and a supply chain risk make me skeptical of whether Librem is a trustworthy entity at all, or might just be controlled opposition. That could just be me erring on the side of paranoia, though.

khimaros 10/29/2025||||

i've had a positive experience with OnePlus 6 and Mobian, but if you want something more modern with a business behind it, check out https://furilabs.com/

999900000999 10/29/2025||

This looks kind of cool, but it lacks a headphone jack...

Which you think would be the first thing you'd put on there since Bluetooth pairing is extremely difficult to get right when you're using custom operating systems.

ElegantBeef 10/29/2025|||

If you're cheap like me a used Pixel3a is a grand device.

hsbauauvhabzb 10/29/2025||

This works now, but good luck in 10 years time when the radio chip requires a digital signature from the host OS signed by google or apple and your current phone is deprecated by 6g or whatever.

userbinator 10/29/2025|||

when the radio chip requires a digital signature from the host OS signed by google or apple

China will never let that happen.

codedokode 10/29/2025|||

I remember, when DVD players were required to show mandatory, non-skippable sections of video, chinese players violated the standards and international agreements and allowed skipping those sections, and they also sometimes illegally ignored regional restrictions.

hsbauauvhabzb 10/29/2025||

I think times were different back then. Modern times are more like China selling Playstation 5’s with mod shops: to my knowledge, they currently don’t. Even if it ever becomes a thing the PS6 is only a few years away and will be even harder to break.

hsbauauvhabzb 10/29/2025||||

5 eyes governments would be able to mandate this to stop against the ‘persistent evils of China’

numpad0 10/29/2025||||

Google, Apple, or CCP. Problem solved.

I mean, the actual implementation will be that CCP signs Google DragonFly Global Root CA cert, and Apple runs Google signed firmware, but those are just minor implementation details.

realusername 10/29/2025|||

The irony, software freedom is now dependent on China.

anonym29 10/29/2025|||

Mobile hotspot with a wireguard tunnel wrapping all traffic. Different RF bands (e.g. Starlink). Unauthorized private autonomous mesh networks. I don't care how hard they make it. I am never going to stop uncompromisingly exercising my right to absolute control over hardware I bought and paid for.

28304283409234 10/29/2025||

I just bought a fairphone6 hoping this phone would last me a decade with security patches and lineageos support. Naively I was assuming Google would keep Android open for that period. Now I might as well switch to Apple so I'm in sync with the rest of my family. Ugh.

xorcist 10/29/2025|

You will probably run some kind of community Android distribution on that phone, like Lineage or Graphene, and those will likely not include this limitation. The world will be worse off, but you and I will be unaffected. Worst case is that future Google will decide to kick us out of the Play Store, but there has been plenty of workarounds for that before.

yohbho 10/29/2025||

The nice thing about laws in the EU is: if Google locks it down, like iOS, we just enforce that it needs to be more open again.

But for iOS, that did not work well so far, as I have zero apps installed via AltStore PAL (iOS), yet some apps via F-Droid (Android).

lilOnion 10/29/2025||

What's the best resource to keep track of all efforts to make open source phone OSes?

I'm looking for a new phone and it's tough with the current state of things.

Also about contacting your government, what's the best approach? I'm in EU.

nonethewiser 10/29/2025||

Let's not forget Google was legally forced to open up distribution to alternative app stores and direct downloads. This gives them some baseline security/accountability that applies to even side-loaded apps.

markus_zhang 10/29/2025||

How about linuxonphone.org and just dump all your financial/auth related apps to an old Android phone?

Actually, better, dumbphone.org and dump all financial/auth/chat apps to an old Android phone that costs some $200.

rjdj377dhabsn 10/29/2025|

That's doable for now in some places. But in an increasing number of countries, payments for just about everything are done directly from an Android or iOS app, so you'd always have to carry around this locked-down phone as well your Linux phone.

markus_zhang 10/30/2025||

Yeah I do carry two phones with me. I agree it’s inconvenient.

HumblyTossed 10/29/2025||

I love this and I'll support it, but I know that in the end it won't make a difference. Consumers decided they only wanted 2 choices, and these are the consequences.

AtNightWeCode 10/29/2025|

This battle was lost a looong time ago. The effort it takes to keep up with all the shenanigans of Google and that play store is way worse than these new changes.

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