So there was the very concrete problem that F-Droid could not continue to function with the verification requirements, because they rebuild every app and so would have to know every key.

Do the changes here do anything for F-Droid?

8 days ago Google and Epic announced a proposed settlement and modification of a permanent injunction that Epic won, I believe this proposed settlement would likely have prohibited Google's plan to forbid installation of third party apps (excluding app stores from the definition of apps) unless those app developers had paid google a registration fee. The proposed settlement is here [1], the relevant portion is

> 13. For a period beginning on the Effective Date through June 30, 2032, Google will [...] and will continue to permit the direct downloading of apps from developer websites and third-party stores without any fees being imposed for those downloads unless the downloads originate from linkouts from apps installed/updated by Google Play (excluding web browsers).

6 days ago the court expressed skepticism as to the proposal and announced that they'd have a hearing, with testimony from expert witnesses, as to whether it would prevent the market harms that the original injunction was trying to cure [2].

Today Google announces this, effectively confirming that they're backing down from their requirement that third party app developers pay google prior to distributing their apps.

Nothing (yet) is explicitly tying these together, but I can't help but suspect that this move is in large part being made to convince the court that they're actually intending to honour this portion of the proposed injunction even though Epic would have little reason to enforce it.

[1] https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.36...

[2] https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.36...

Glad to see Google come to their senses on this. Disabling it entirely would have basically guaranteed an exodus of power users over to iOS. If your only choices are walled gardens, you might as well pick the easiest, prettiest one.

In the end when supporting the non tech people in the family, what I would really like is to setup their device so they can install anything on Fdroid but nothing from the play store (unless approved by me) nor direct from an apk.

Sounds like they're rolling back the mandatory verification flow:

Based on this feedback and our ongoing conversations with the community, we are building a new advanced flow that allows experienced users to accept the risks of installing software that isn't verified. We are designing this flow specifically to resist coercion, ensuring that users aren't tricked into bypassing these safety checks while under pressure from a scammer. It will also include clear warnings to ensure users fully understand the risks involved, but ultimately, it puts the choice in their hands. We are gathering early feedback on the design of this feature now and will share more details in the coming months.

If adb is unrestricted and can work with the Linux command shell (something I seem to remember I had read about before; you will need to enable the developer mode to use it), which is aparently a separate system but runs on the same device, although if it has the ability to communicate with the main Android system using adb (which it might be reasonable to require that to be explicitly enabled with another setting, for additional security in case you do not use adb), then this would help since you do not require another computer that would be compatible with adb in order to do it.

However, I think there are other things they should do as well (in addition to the other things) if they want to improve the safety, such as looking at the apps in Google Play to check that they are not malware (since apparently some are; however, it says they do have some safeguards, so hopefully that would help), and to make the permission system to work better (e.g. to make it clear that it can intercept notificatinos; there are legitimate reasons to do this but it should require an explicit permission setting to make this clear).

This brings back memories of "sure you can root your phone, but if you do secure apps like payment won't run anymore"

This is great news to me. I'm going to celebrate it. As evil as everyone thinks they are, they did the right thing here. Thanks google.

so still distributing with f-droid is messed up? i now have to pay a fee to develop an open-source app via f-droid to everyone?

this is a misleading title. they only allow side-loading unverified apps only on fewer devices.