Comment by chasil 7 hours ago
If Google provides a permanent mechanism to disable this in developer settings, then this devolves to an inconvenience.
The setting to allow unsigned apps could be per appstore tracked by an on-device sqlite database, so a badly-behaving app will be known by its installer.
Time to figure out how to live without a phone - gotta find some sort of ultramobile pocket pc with 5G and run your own FreePBX for text and calling, etc. I've been wanting to do this forever, anyway. Using Starlink 5G would make it palatable, or maybe even preferable, assuming the performance is solid.
I have been thinking of secondary machine that would just use my phones wifi and encrypted vpn tunnels. Basically, the phone is only used for the banking app and whatever future government ID app will be required.
The secondary device would basically be built on a open platform etc. Once we can't use the phone for sharing the connection, then we are basically stuck using other wireless connections, LoRa for short to medium connections, direct wifi links and offline home cloud environments. It gets a bit grim when you think about it, but there are always options. Now, would you travel with a home made tablet phone in an airport for example? What a about a train station with xray scanners. Cyberpunk always comes to mind as well when thinking of these possible futures.
Seems like setting up a shareable wifi6 hotspot should be trivial, in this scenario - either a wifi 6 usb dongle or an m2 board like Intel WiFi 6 AX200/210 , can turn on hotspot mode for other devices.
WRT banking, you'd just use the browser - the whole point is to get away from the whole 'you need to spend $150/month and subscribe to a device and open yourself up to a whole suite of third parties in order to use an "app"'
You could use AI to build convenience scripts and UI tweaks, depending on your use case. Use tampermonkey or other script engine browser tools if you need to recreate a UI feature that a banking app provides.
I can build a much better machine for less than a flagship phone costs me, including video glasses and a few power packs. A wireless video stream to a dumbed down phone that only serves as the interface for swype style keyboard or something like that would also be an option - I think this might be a viable strategy.
I've seen raspberry pi phones and tablets that would absolutely terrify TSA agents, but I'm thinking more along the lines of a modded framework laptop with display hacks, or a boxy little pocket PC with a chonky battery - nothing that would alarm people unnecessarily.
I think I mostly take issue with the idea that the walled garden is necessary, or even preferable. Google at least had the barest shred of "the user has control" left - eliminating sideloading just eliminated any possible reason I would bother with them as a company.
Why would google implement a restriction then allow someone to disable it? That's literally how it works today. By default your Android phone with Googled-OS installs only from Play store, where all apps are verified. When you want to install non verified apps you need to explicitly allow it first.
Because F-Droid is going to regulators.
"We urge regulators to safeguard the ability of alternative app stores and open-source projects to operate freely, and to protect developers who cannot or will not comply with exclusionary registration schemes and demands for personal information."
https://f-droid.org/2025/09/29/google-developer-registration...
No, I like F-Droid, but I don't want them to need an official Google status to operate, or for anyone who wants to compete with F-Droid to have to obtain that special status.
edit: because the next step would be Google paying F-Droid a half-billion dollars for default search engine placement, or something else stupid. It becomes a captured organization, an excuse subsidiary.
Have you read anything about this? What you are proposing is exactly what is being disabled.