On my end the experience was more pleasant on f-droid than on Google. On f-droid I had to manually push some things, in repositories. That I solved in a week or so.
On Google end I had to verify my account. Which was not easy feat.
- had to provide my ID several times, because it got rejected multiple times
- I uploaded driving license
- the verification process was stuck
- only after help ticket google employee pushed it forward
- I had to provide many more details, also had to use banking to pay substantial amount of money
- I currently trying to create app, but it requires 14 testers, and it can still be rejected, if their involvement was too poor
I am wondering what more things Google will invent to make my life worse.
By the way my app: https://github.com/rumca-js/OfflineWebSearch
You can go download a random, no-name app from F-Droid and be very confident it does what it says on the tin and won't be riddled with ads or spam you with notifications.
It "just works".
As opposed to play store apps requiring "play store services" meaning having to sign into play store. It refuses to do so on a FOSS principle so I am literally cut off from a lot of apps.
Aurora store helps but apps that "require play store services" don't work.
We need governments to mandate both Apple and Google to allow web installs of apps. No requirement for Apple/Google pay, Apple/Google login, or Apple/Google services.
Total freedom for users, for developers, and for competitors.
This duopoly has fucked over America and the EU by training us to think only these two companies have the right to decide what gets to be on your phone that you pay for.
They've created a moat so strong that it's impossible to compete with Android/iPhone, so the market cannot even have healthy competition.
F-Droid is not the answer. Regulation is.
And I'll have none of this fangirl/fanboy "but my grandma will fall for scams" nonsense.
Google and Amazon and all the platforms have scammy ads on their platforms. Nobody's doing anything about that.
Technology can be sandboxed, permissioned, signed, fingerprinted, attested, scanned, and blacklisted. It's easy to make this safe in the year of our lord 2026. Don't pretend we don't have a million ways to make this safe for your meemaw. She's more likely to fall down the stairs or get a scam call.
Regulate Google. Regulate Apple. Make our phones free.
Corporation like Google should have been fined to the edge of bankruptcy for such predatory behaviour.
Google has an alternative at least (can download other app stores, apks, and have been able to for 15 years), I have no idea how Apple has been allowed to get away with what they do.
This is why software should not be subjected to an "app store" type distribution system, where a monopolist retains absolute control of what software can run on your devices, and can capriciously deny distribution to developers for whatever reason it likes.
Windows added ads - well you can disable them, if you don't like it.
Chrome brought up mv3 - well you can still use mv2, it is only optional.
Reddit locking subreddits behind login wall - well there's always old.reddit
Android moving everything to playstore - there's always FDroid.
How many of these are still true and for how long?
If someone's country is a dictatorship, it doesn't help to tell them that there are 100 other democratic countries, just move. Not everyone can emigrate or want to emigrate for any number of reasons.
'Why not both' is an argument, but clear as day what Apple does is worse. There's no alternative.
The mathematician in me wants to solve the problem of the duopoly by first reducing it to a monopoly, which we have known solutions for.
And the menacing messages of installed something from F-Droid. My mother would never do it. Even my programmers colleagues usually don't do it.
But it's a good thing, actually because: - when reddit is good it's way to addictive - reddit has become nearly as bad as most other social media sites
So if they force me to use an account, I'll finally be able to kick the habit ;-)
The real problem is that old.reddit.com and its ecosystem are all becoming worse and worse. Just off the top of my head, things like image galleries, message notifications, RemindMe bot, RES, /r/random, etc all have various problems and breakage.
They banned "VPN"
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/after-vpn-ban-in-k...
Then came arrests.
https://www.medianama.com/2026/01/223-jammu-kashmir-vpn-ban-...
Street level checks. Police literally stop you roadside and check your phone for VPN.
This is happening in 2026. RIGHT NOW.
I talked to some officials and "oh you know what happened in Delhi blasts? They were using signal. If we had only caught them before".
other times people share a problem and just want to feel validated ("yeah that sucks dude")
it sounds like you wanted the 2nd but got the 1st
Everyone is speed running towards a future where you need a permit to write software.
Try to run a binary that doesn’t have the right cert( or whatever it’s called on Windows) and you get a bunch of warnings.
Even if Android is open , normal people will only use the App Store. I can imagine China forcing Apple to allow 3rd party installations of software one day .
The EU did something where to my knowledge Apple still gets a cut of each sale.
This article appeared in the February 1997 issue of Communications of the ACM (Volume 40, Number 2).
> Starting in 2027*, a silent update, nonconsensually pushed by Google, will block every Android app whose developer hasn't registered with Google, signed their contract, paid up, and handed over government ID.
> Every app and every device, worldwide, with no opt-out.
>> Wait 24 hours
>> Pick "allow temporarily" (7 days) or "allow indefinitely
Geez. I don't like what they're doing either but this fear-mongering is not helping your cause. So the "trap door" here is just that you can't buy a phone and immediately start loading apps from unverified developers onto it until 24h have passed? Of all the hills we could be dying on, that's the one we're picking?
- the "24 hours" is enforced by remotely-run code, meaning Google remains in control of it and can unilaterally alter how this works, any time they feel like.
Imagine you went to the shops, and found that one shop, while it had the goods on display, and could totally just let you pick them up and buy them, was required by the shop next door to make you go away and come back no sooner than 24 hours later. Meanwhile, the shop next door is right there, and it's open, and it has no such restriction.
On what planet do you think anyone other than the most dedicated of dedicated people would choose the shop that requires waiting a whole day to use it when the alternative has no such restriction?
> unverified developers
The developers in F-Droid are verified, just not by Google. That's the whole fucking point. Google is not the be-all and end-all, but with this power-play, they are making themselves that.
I have no clue what you're referring to or worried about here, could you clarify? Are you worried Android is going to lose power users to iPhone? What are the alternative shops you're referring to here? We're not buying pastries.
> The developers in F-Droid are verified, just not by Google.
"Unverified" in my comment was a shorthand for "unverified by Google", not an insult.
> Google is not the be-all and end-all, but with this power-play, they are making themselves that.
The complain about that? Rather than wasting time complaining about the 24h wait?
I don't know if people's imaginations are lacking here, but there could easily be a world in which your 'alternative' verifier would still make you wait 24h (or longer). The wait is clearly a security mechanism, regardless of who makes you do it. (And yes, it could have been chosen for plausible deniability.) Is your actual problem the wait itself, or is your actual problem the identity of the entity making you do it, or is your actual problem that the power is too concentrated in one entity, regardless of the entity? These are very different issues with very different solutions.
In this analogy, the alternative shop that is preventing you from buying stuff from its competitors without a 24 hour wait is the Play Store monopoly.
> but there could easily be a world in which your 'alternative' verifier would still make you wait 24h (or longer).
Then in this hypothetical world where there were a free market for verifiers rather than a single, monopolistic choice, I would choose another alternative verifier that doesn't make me wait 24 hours, or no verifier at all.
I'm sorry, I thought I owned the phone I bought, and had a right to decide what software I want on it whenever I want.
Indeed I have not. In fact I haven't even heard of people doing this until your comment. And that's before unknown app developers coming into the picture. I assume you do this to avoid border phone searches? And you feel the (ostensibly) security-related mechanisms for the rest of the world to be centered around this use case? Meaning the rest of the world should pay the cost to their own security to cater to this flow?
Why shouldn't people be free to install their preferred software immediately after purchasing a phone? How does it help anyone other than Alphabet shareholders to restrict that?
So we started with an OS (when Google still needed to gain market share and goodwill) which was opensource. Now Google is no longer developing Android source code in the open and decreasing the "opensourcing" to a couple of source drops each year (the interval has been decreased multiple times). Google Play was introduced (basically clamping down the app store ecosystem) and from there Google has only made it harder to get around Google Play. Introducing things like phone attestation. Supposedly a security measure, yet for some reason a Samsung phone which hasn't had an update in 4 years still passes basic level attestation. And now Google is yet again making it harder to get around the Play store.
And for some reason you seem to think it is reasonable to assume it is going to stop here?
I really don't. That is, actually, my entire point: people are going to roll their eyes at this right now. And then you're going to lack/lose the supporters you'll need when things really get bad.
This feels like complaining about the color of the bikeshed, me saying you should save your complaints for when things get really bad, and you replying "things are really bad already, there is a rotten carcass in there and the roof leaks."
Okay, so let's keep complaining about the color then.
I don't see much difference between Android and iOS in terms of openness nowadays personally.
"Block[ing] every Android app whose developer hasn't registered with Google, signed their contract, paid up, and handed over government ID. Every app and every device, worldwide, with no opt-out"
...would be "really bad" in my view.
Which is probably exactly why they worded it that way, despite knowing fully well they are (rather blatantly) lying. They literally explained how to avoid it themselves further down below, after you've already been angered.
Personally for me, a fake convoluted opt-out is the same as no opt out so we're already there.
Even Fortnite failed to distribute outside the Play Store, if they can't despite being famous, well you can't.
Convoluted, yes, but fake? Aren't you just repeating the same lie? That means it looks like it bypasses the verification but doesn't actually do so. What are you basing that off of?
The difference is that the default app stores require you to make an account to be able to use them. This would rightfully be considered insane on desktop OSs, yet is considered normal for phones.
> Note: 501(c)(6) is a tax-exempt status; donations are not tax-deductible for the donor. Google's communications explicitly state "tax-exempt".
Isn't it pretty obvious that the problem is the donations aren't tax-exempt, despite the organization being tax-exempt? Your note suggests you already understand this.
Logically, the payment processor (who deals with sales taxes rather than income taxes) should worry about the taxability of the transaction rather than the tax status of the recipient, right?
> Specifically, your app allows users to contribute donations to an organization that is not tax-exempt.
So whoever is writing their email is mixing these two up, but you're reading the policy itself and it is fairly clear-cut what it means for you, right?
Or are you saying the key point is that the donation not tax-deductible for the donor, which is a different thing to being tax exempt (and does not have anything to do with the "taxability of the transaction")?
Having to deal with bookkeeping or paperwork for tax deductions could also make things harder.
In any case, whether you think these are easier or harder, and regardless of which cases should be supported from a business perspective, their policy page (at least the one that I'm reading) very clearly says you can't use their system for such donations.
(As an aside, I have no idea if donations to OSC are subject to sales tax, but I would be surprised if they were given there is no sale or supply happening, and no one here seems to have suggested they are.)
> In any case, whether you think these are easier or harder, and regardless of which cases should be supported from a business perspective, their policy page (at least the one that I'm reading) very clearly says you can't use their system for such donations.
I disagree, because it uses the loose term "tax exempt donations", and nobody, it seems, can agree on whether that means exempt from income tax (ie, recipient does not need to pay income tax on it), exempt from sales tax, or deductible for income tax purposes (personally I think this is likely what it is intended to capture, and the only real basis on which to distinguish between 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(6) organisations, but in fact is the least supported by a literal reading).
It's not clear given Google's policy wording and replies. We've removed the links, and can move forward once clarification has been provided.
From another angle: why/how do you feel the tax-exempt-mess of the recipient itself could sensibly be the determining factor here, rather than the taxability of the transaction itself? Is there any law or precedent or anything outside their emails that would suggests a payment processor should look at the tax status of the recipient rather than that of a transaction?
I don't know every jurisdiction, but that's not the only relevant factor. If they are tax-deductible, they still introduce the need for paperwork etc. for the payment processor to let the payer deduct it from their own income. A 0% tax on some action doesn't imply you don't have to worry about tax law when performing said action.
Though I think you can just read the policy and take it at face value and not even have to know any of this beforehand.
A donation is not a sale of a good or service. This is not a question of sales tax collection.
In this case they clearly have to exempt this transaction from sales tax in order to support it, when other transactions through their system do get sale tax applied. So the mere fact that they have to deal with sales taxes in general is likely to introduce additional complications for them even here, in cases where sales tax turns out not to be applicable.
This (rhetorical?) question seems to suggest that you have a level of understanding or have done the analysis required to come to such a meaning. It seems to me that it would be most beneficial if you simply shared that analysis.
To me, seeing this here for the first time, it is not at all obvious what the terms mean for someone seeking a donation, because of the past behavioral detail of WireGuard going through something similar. The terms you quote seem to me to state that since there is a tax exempt donation involved, the prohibition on routing to a non-Google Play billing workflow should not be in effect.
> Because we are a 501(c)(6), OSC is not a registered 501(c)(3) charity; donations to hosted member projects are not tax-deductible. This is consistent with IRS guidelines — open source donations aren't automatically classified as charitable simply because they are FOSS.
> If your project has a clear charitable purpose, a 501(c)(3) fiscal sponsor may be a good fit.
- https://docs.oscollective.org/welcome-and-introduction-to-os...
These donations aren't tax exempt. 501(c)(3) are tax exempt. If users are paying via Google pay these payments must be tax exempt to the *user*.
https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answ...
but make sure to "pay the relevant Play service fee, starting October 1, 2026."
Very cool, Google.
We were promised alternative app stores in the EU, but the European Commission does not stop them.
The UE should make it mandatory to permit PWA install popups on all platforms.
Such problems wouldn't arise, because this app could be installable as a cached Web app. A native mobile application could be installed only for specific functionalities.
"It works better in the app?". No thanks. In 99.95% of cases the reasons for that popup are predatory, not in the interest of the user.
It works great on Mac, and iPhone. I imagine as more people try this sort of user experience, they might wonder like I am "Why use a Google experience device at all?" Most of what I use these days is simple and the extra value-add AI features, attention driven designs that justify new OS and new hardware, and even app stores barely feel necessary. OK some people say "but banking software" but very rarely do I have to use my banking software in a way I couldn't get to in the web browser?
I believe we're very close to having a 80:20 experience designed out in both hardware and software for laptops, phones and smart watches. I can't see these monopolies holding out much longer.
I'm amazed to see the exact playbook be used here. Instead of people opposing Apple's horrible App Store, it seems that every other store is studying their strategies.
I think by the time of Apple's next court case on the App Store, the judge will pay them something back as they'll arrive at the conclusion of Apple doing nothing out of the ordinary.
Also - all those monopoly-stores need to be broken up. It can not be that these mega-corporations continue to be protected by a selfish US government wanting to install monopolies globally.
As I understand it, there are ways to work around accepting payments or donations outside of the app stores.
It adds one more thing to have to do and explain to users. And even with that piece taken care of, we would need to be constantly vigilant about changes in Apple or Google policies that might eject our app from the storefront.
Epic Games v. Google: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_Games_v._Google
GitHub Sponsors is another way to raise for an open source organization.
Which they do in fact use, with OSC as a fiscal host. Still doesn’t help here though – Google is unhappy with the nature of transaction (donation that is not tax-exempt in the U.S.), not with the platform on which it occurs.
If they instead made the donations go to e.g. the lead developer, it would probably be allowed (“peer-to-peer payments” can’t use Google Play billing, so the app can “lead users to [another] payment method” [1]). Whether this is a good idea is a whole another question.
[1]: https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answ...
― Benito Mussolini
So you are still complying.