After the news cycle recently exploded with the announcement that Google would require every single Android app to be from a registered and verified developer, while killing third-party app stores and sideloading in the process, Google has now tried to put out some of the fires with a new Q&A blog post and a video discussion (also embedded below).
When we first covered the news, all that was known for certain was the schedule, with the first trials beginning in October of 2025 before a larger rollout the next year. One of the main questions pertained to installing apps from sources that are not the Google Play Store. The answer here is that the only way to install an app without requiring one to go through the developer verification process is by installing the app with the Android Debug Bridge, or adb for short.
The upcoming major release of Android 16 will feature a new process called the Android Developer Verifier, which will maintain a local cache of popular verified apps. The remaining ones will require a call back to the Google mothership where the full database will be maintained. In order to be a verified Android developer you must have a Google Play account, pay the $25 fee and send Google a scan of your government-provided ID. This doesn’t mean that you cannot also distribute your app also via F-Droid, it does however mean that you need to be a registered Play Store developer, negating many of the benefits of those third-party app stores.
Although Google states that they will also introduce a ‘free developer account type’, this will only allow your app to be installed on a limited number of devices, without providing an exact number so far. Effectively this would leave having users install unsigned APKs via the adb tool as the sole way to circumvent the new system once it is fully rolled out by 2027. On an unrelated note, Google’s blog post also is soliciting feedback from the public on these changes.
Freedom-embracing goverments will hate this. Those with clout may force Google to make exceptions within their bordes. Freedom-hating goverments will love this, it’s one more step of a long march towards making it hard to do things anonymously online.
I wrote my own Android recipe app and have used it for a decade now. It’s just for me and my family (although you can use it if you want because I like to give back to open source in any way possible.) I have no interest in being a professional developer or applying for approval from the big G. This policy sucks.
what about webapps? No need to install, just create a shortcut on your home screen. sure, you need to be online to use it…
PWAs can be made to work offline by using a service worker. You only need to be online once to download the app, then it stays cached on your device.
When google goes full Apple and makes us use the built-in webapp replete with PrIvAcY sAnDbOx, PWAs will not be satisfactory. Let’s not paint ourselves into a corner.
I meant built in webview, intending to allude to the sheer ridiculousness that third party browsers on iphones just use safari to render the page under the hood.
Might as well just buy an iPhone at this point.
Just get rid of smartphone.
It sounds like this is just a way to stop people installing Revanced Manager unless the devs out themselves so Google’s lawyers can harass them for making 100% legal and non-infringing software.
The only way we can work around this on stock roms I think is https://shizuku.rikka.app/ .
Long live custom roms!
I would imagine that rooting and de-googling the phone would also work, at least for current Android versions. That’s what I will be doing. Unfortunately, there are no custom ROMs available for my phone.
inaxcetable google dictat0r
after ALL THE CRAP re capchat i m not a ROBOT ENOFF F,,,,…-– GOOGLE
I PAID MY phone i make with i want with IT !
GOOGLE ENOFF IS ENOFFF ––
BACK OFF GOOGLE -*-
Looks like my comment that used a 4-letter word starting with the letter “F” has been sent to a moderation queue. That’s totally fair enough. But I will state again, that anything on a phone that requires me to upload a photo of my ID will not be tolerated. In the name of some vague idea of “security” for some other party, it genuinely reduces my own security. A drivers licence is for driving. A passport is for passing through ports. Any other use is contrary to their design and insecure. I’d be happy to show ID to a human. But I would not let a business, or a bar, or a restaurant, take a digital copy.
I’d love someone to automate making fake pictures for these kinds of services. Some kind of script where I can input a photo and receive a plausible-looking “ID” in return. Seems like something ripe for an AI.
so you don’t have a SIM-Card?
Sim cards are for simming /s
Really though, if a sim was all that was needed for phone things, we wouldn’t be raging in this comments section, so whatever the implications of your glib rhetorical question might be, the premise is invalid.
Btw, I don’t have a (physical) sim-card.
We bought the device. Fingerprint it if you want, which is what a sim amounts to, but let me install my sketchy apks, that’s what I bought the thing for in the first place.
But that’s not what I’m mad about. I’m mad that F-droid will be decimated by this policy.
Email the google mobile strategy execs about this. I have. Their emails are on the press releases.
Here is what I sent on the feedback form:
The new Android developer verification requirements as described are absolutely atrocious and will destroy Android. These requirements negate the ultimate platform-defining feature of Android that makes it better than iOS: being able to control your own device whether online, fully offline, or otherwise. Mandating that users must check in with ‘Big Brother’ Google every time they want to install an app is something Apple would be expected to do, not Google. The developer verification requirement sounds like it came straight out of Orwell’s 1984, or even worse, Cupertino.
To be absolutely clear, these requirements should not be implemented. However, it takes a special level of gall from Google to not even provide an option to turn this Orwellian feature off. At least allow power users and developers to be able to install what they want at will with a toggle.
Somehow, despite absolutely every horrible thing every massive tech company has been doing for the last several years, Google has finally found a way for me to hate them more than every single company in Silicon Valley combined. Truly impressive.
*-holes doing *-hole things.
More news at 11.
I’ll probably ditch my phone completely and instead build a linux pocket computer with 5G modem.
For years I have been waiting for open source based mobile phone. Unfortunately, all those who have tried have failed to gain enough of momentum or critical mass. Why? From what I have seen it was chip manufacturers protecting their intelectual property. Without good quality hardware you can not succeed on the market. Too bad. I would really like it!
Google can revoke your developer account for the apps they don’t like (security, insert another excuse here). Sorry folks, but the security of the app i develop for alternative stores (including websites) is none of your business.
Goodbye F-Droid.
We need an upgrade of the EU DMA to tackle this.
I’m quite sure there are very strict laws here already about collecting and storing government IDs. I remember on several occasions where I had to use my ID and they had to place it in a special scanner that would strip out certain details (they explained because I asked). So asking for flat copies of my ID is very likely already a violation of some law. My job was very clear on “Do NOT email us your passport, we will scan it here and blank out the parts we are not allowed to store. And an email goes into the backup system and is hard to scrub”
Having my government ID stored in some database in another country does not sit well with me as well. There are plenty of other ways to verify someones identity as well. Hell, as you have to pay $25 (another problem on it’s own as well) you could use the bank transfer as ID. Yes, you can get anonymous bank accounts, but you just won’t accept those as ID.
As i understand it – only installing apps from phone will be disabled – adb (through usb cable or wifi) will still allow sideloading. Is this really a problem? If you want to really install custom apk, you will still be able to without root or custom rom, you will just need to use cable.
I dare you to explain in 10 words or less how to use ADB on a fresh phone to install an APK.
“Download the APK and press ‘yes, I really want this'” is all that is needed right now, the ADB route is about 100x as complex.
It’s an annoying extra step. Sometimes you are far away from a laptop or desktop and need to install some half-baked app that’s only distributed as an apk on GitHub. Google killing this is another proof that their greatest desire is to become Apple, not to make exceptional phones.
What is the sign with that most midlest finger on a hand already? Ho, look I have two of those!
I guess it’s time for the development of a new mobile platform operating system perhaps based on Linux that will replace Android phones. It’s a shame that Google has decided to completely ruin the Android platform.
The world will create a new open source mobile platform that will replace Android and see if Google likes that option.
It will take time but eventually Android will go away.
This is not ok on so many levels. Google does not own my phone, period. I generally avoid google play since it’s full of ad/malware. This will effectively kill all open source apps, and these are what makes my phone useable.
I’m writing this from a phone running linux based SailfishOS. I’m hoping more people can discover the alternatives to Android in the future (PostmarketOS, Droidian, Mobian, etc.) It’s not yet ready for most people, but a lot of the people visiting HAD would probably be ok with loosing some features to gain A LOT of freedom.
I meant to say that all the good open source apps made my ANDROID phone useable. I’m using mostly open source sw on my sailfishOS phone too. But the first part of my post just turned out wrong.
Exclusively jola and sony phones, are you kidding me?
I’m using both a jolla phone and a oneplus6. There are quite a few unofficial ports. You are not limited to jolla or sony.
Our Android app is part of a larger integrated system that we provide to our (enterprise) customers. Our customers trust us. We’ve built a good relationship with them through the quality of our product and our excellent support. They know our system is secure (in fact, our security is one of our selling points).
I think the main reason I don’t like this is that Google wants to insert themselves into this relationship with our customers.
In theory, they may one day, for some arbitrary reason decide that we’re not trustworthy, and then through this mechanism prevent our customers from installing our software on phones that they (our customers) own.
Couple this with Google’s reputation that decisions like that cannot be appealed, let alone reversed, and it feels like a recipe for disaster.
For background, our users typically use our app from a company issued phone. We just give them a QR code that takes them to the APK that they then sideload.
We don’t need to be on the Play store for marketing or monetization of our product. Users who access our system through the app number in the hundreds, not thousands or millions. The only benefit we’d get from putting our app on the Play store is that it would make distributing updates easier, but even then most of the work in our system is done server side so we haven’t deployed an update in the past year.
IMHO, Google, seeing itself as the Verizon (Apple seeing itself as Comcast, or, maybe it is the other way around, no matter) now starts taking steps removing any resemblance of the competition.
Call me paranoid, but I was wondering which cell service providers won’t just brick my phone if/when they suddenly find something they don’t like (and I am not aware of) on my phone. Since I rely on my cell phone in case of emergencies, I am afraid I am stuck with their unquestionable communist party choices in exchange for the cell phone service. Glad I do not rely on it to do my banking, or other mission-critical tasks (paperwork) and can always fallback into real-world (albeit, much slower) routines not dominated by the cell phone usage :]
“a video discussion”, surely by definition that is a monologue.