If you haven’t seen this yet, Google is planning to require mandatory developer identity verification for all Android apps, including apps distributed outside the Play Store, taking effect September 2026. This affects every independent and open source Android developer directly.
This is not just about the Play Store. After September 2026, on any certified Android device, applications from unverified developers will be blocked by default. The only proposed bypass, the “advanced flow”, exists only as a blog post and has not appeared in any beta, dev preview, or canary release. No one outside Google has seen it.
The community has been fighting back at keepandroidopen.org:
- Read the full breakdown of what this means
- Sign the open letter (organisations only)
- Contact your national regulators — contacts listed by country on the site
- Add the countdown banner to your project
September 2026 is closer than it looks. The time to push back is now.
Google is the biggest threat to anything good in technology, this cancer must be eradicated
There actually has been an update on this. The advanced flow has been revealed and it’s like a 24-hour wait and a few prompts to go through and I’ll reboot and enabling developer mode… Bit of friction but all in all it’s better than nothing I guess.
The dev verification is “optional”. With the condition that if a developer doesn’t then users can only install after jumping through a few hoops.
Yeah at least it’s better than Apple’s approach, where you have to connect your phone to a PC once every 7 days to reactivate Developer Mode. Don’t have a computer? Fuck you!
That said, I have zero faith in Google sticking with the compromise solution in the long run. They’re going to try to force the change on everyone again in the future, once they’ve broken us down a bit more.
Meanwhile at least we have a little longer than September before they actually ruin the platform completely… How long? Who could say but I’ll take what small victories I can get
verified but still not responsible.
Fuck them. I hope open source / de-googled android can somehow survive this.
So much for their “don’t be evil” policy
didnt they drop it like decade ago?
Yeah, about the same time we started cutting Google out of our day to day. Every time we hear about Google it’s just getting more and more evil/greedy in one way or another
Wait that’s not a thing already?
So people can just make scam apps and once you report it to the App Store there is no recourse because even the company doesn’t know who they are?
So the way compute used to work, is you could install any program you want from anywhere. You could buy a program from a web site or copy a disk and install the program.
Smartphones have been around since the late 1990s in various forms, it used to be, you could just install whatever you want.
Then, in 2008, Apple released the iPhone app store, and it was a closed space, a “walled garden”. You can only install apps on their phone if they approve them.
Google decided to join the phone race and released a phone where one could still install applications from anywhere, not just their store. There are multiple stores like others have mentioned, or you can download an APK file from anywhere and install it on your phone.
Part of their behavior since is slightly open to interpretation, as the technology is now used by everyone, not just tech nerds. People could install “bad” programs, and they could lose money, cell networks could be compromised, etc.
It likely costs a lot of companies a lot of money to deal with dumb users doing stupid shit. So from one perspective, making it extremely hard to install unknown programs from anywhere will curb that expense.
It could be a defensive move, as LLMs now allow anyone to write computer software with very little knowledge of it, and it is just bad timing.
On the other hand, since the beginning of computers, the owner of the machine could run whatever software they wanted.
This move by Google is basically making it so there is NO mobile compute platform that the owner of the device actually owns, and is allowed to do with their hardware what they want. Apple or Google, that is it. Apple had always been closed, which should have been made illegal, but I digress.
It has been a slippery slope with Android for almost 2 decades, and this move is basically the end of the ability for free humans to install free software from anywhere on the hardware they own and paid anywhere up to $3000 for.
Basically a huge dive for personal freedom on a planetary scale, decided by one corporation.
The recourse has been removal.
And the solution proposed is not requiring identification specifically for Play store developers, but any developer at all.
Removal but no means for consumers to seek money back or damages because it’s just the Wild West?
I think if you’re publishing an app to a public store then they should know who the fuck you are.
Rhis isn’t related to payment systems, which mostly have kyc requirements and extensive capacity to claw back money.
If it was only a question of publishing on the Play store, then I think that would make some sense. That’s not what’s happening here.
This includes not in the Google play store so like f-droid or like how people would get software from a places website or GitHub or sourceforge or wherever and installing it like you can on Windows or a Mac or Linux
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I’ve never used a banking app. Don’t they usually have web sites? What am I missing on?
Nothing, but in some countries banks force you to use apps. You know, "for your security ".
Pretty much. My bank imposes transfer limits on the web portal vs the app, since there’s purportedly more security in the physical device rather than a web page accessible from any system.
While I don’t necessarily disagree with this, it means those apps also have to be searching for things like “Is USB debugging on? Is this running in an emulator? Is the device rooted?”
None of these are bad checks to make from a security perspective, but by relying on the app on a single device as a defacto MFA hurts the ability to manage personal finances when you’re in a position like this, with Google defining the security requirements of their ecosystem at a higher level than any single app.
I am forced to use the app to access the website.
my main use of my bank application is for verification for government stuff, as well as managing my money without having to get on my pc. it would be really annoying to lose access to it, as with it i dont have to use the verification number table which is physical table of numbers that has to be replaced occasionally and could get lost.
save that table to ur bitwarden vault
its like 100 number codes, kind of like authentication codes some programs generate. Writing it all down would be really annoying and ultimately pointless since you can also use one code only once.
yep, I used to copy paste them in a google doc
Everyone freaking out when this is actually something you would want as a consumer. I want to know who the fuck is making my apps, where they are from, and where my data is going. If you don’t want this. I am guaranteeing you get viruses and shit all the fucking time.
Nope. As a consumer i dont want one conglomerate to have power to decite what i can and cannot do on my personal device.
It would mean they have 100% control over me as a consumer.
In play store fine, but any other sideload store, why?
As a consumer I want privacy and freedom, not a monopoly that controls what I can or cannot do on MY device that I bought with MY money. So up until now I installed any app that I wanted and never got any virus ever:) While you might be happy with your data going to google, I’m not.
It just occured to me what this is all about: shutting down the ICE tracking app. They won’t carry it on the play store, but its still being shared.
With this, you can’t get it on your phone. And, given how much Google is sucking up to tRump, they want to help him shut this down along with all the other evil.
The governments put pressure on Google to police off play apps and harm because they are attached to Android so they’re being required to build this.
You can still get it, you just need to wait 24h before you can install the first app the first time, and there will be some big scary warnings.
Right, but after this change over?
Ya, this is their new workflow for people who dont authentic themselves.
Turn on developer mode and choose the right setting, reboot phone, wait 24h, then you can install anything. You have the option to stay like this, or revert to 24h wait after 7 days.
Edit: they just announced it in the past few days.
Starting to think phones should just go back to being exclusively for calling and texting anyway, maybe emailing too. Everything else can be done from a laptop. Does it really make our lives better to have access to everything through our phones?
Yeah, I’m not dragging a laptop around everywhere with me to search business opening hours / locations etc
Sure, mapping and locale data is extremely helpful and makes up a significant portion of what I use my phone for when I’m out and about. My question is more geared towards whether the ability to bank, shop or use social media from my phone is really necessary.
Obviously, it’s a personal choice and I’m more thinking aloud when I question whether I’d be okay with the trade-off of having a phone with fewer capabilities.
Banks, government apps and main apps (Whatsapp, etc.) are on Google Play. It’s clear governments will stick with Google. What is left to know is how seriously democratic governments take civil liberties.
There have been talks in Europe about how we are dependent on American tech for our digital infrastructure. Some politicians even pushing for an alternative to Apple and Google. I hope everyone else wakes up before it’s too late.
Fuck Google.
This is what happens when you don’t have strong competitors. We need to promote more independent OS platforms for smartphones like Linux distros.
AKA: Don’t waste time and energy fighting google, spend it helping GNU phones.
Which GNU project are you buying from/supporting?
Both are important.
Legal cases create precedents which can be used to fight similar cases in the future.
In bizarre legislation systems like the US and the UK if I understand it correctly. I hope the EU will find some non BS thing to do stopping this crap.
And that graphene os will come to good cheap phones 😬
I expect the opposite but hope I’m wrong.
have you read the process - it’s all about anti scam which is a billion dollar industry right now
https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2026/03/android-developer-verification.html
We are taking about Google. The US tech company that works with the US government(which is rotted to the core now). No matter how noble the reasons they will tell you for this actions, this identity verification will be used for surveillance and control of personal life. This is basically the same thing as with child safety now.
I get that you can get around this but there are 2 major problems I see.
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Google now has a flag on my phone they can control remotely to keep me from accessing the apps I want to use.
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Alternative app stores like F-Droid will never be any more popular than they are today. This raises the barrier to entry so much that we can effectively consider the open source phone app movement to be dead in the water.
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Graphene os announced a partnership with Motorola. My next phone will be a Motorola with Graphene OS.
Motorola should make their own wallet app that works on graphene os.
People don’t get it: it doesn’t matter Graphene or LineageOS. Its still Android and will still be bound to the same limitations, unless you go fully degoogled which means give up on internet banking, cardless payments and government apps. (And much more like m Donalds app and more… But I don’t care for those)
We need open trust platform not one controlled by Google, Graphene or lineage are just not valid alternatives. We need a Linux phone.
People should just stop being so addicted to convenience.
Quit internet banking and cardless payments.
Quit internet banking? That’s the only form of banking available when the banking offices only have open on every other Tuesday, during the full moon between 11-12:30, closed for an hours lunch.
I don’t care for cardless payments, but I do use internet banking, you cannot do without at least here, and government apps too are useful and doing with out is just… Impossible.
Mobile banking is mandatory here, if not able to do mobile banking then you can use non free SMS messages, which sucks.
Government apps mandatory I mean that without, you are cut from most digital government services, which is not practical at all. Survivable, but a pain.
Methinks anyone fighting the system will have to carry two phones: one phone presenting a fake happy face to the government and corps and usable only for bank transactions and bureaucratic processes, and a degoogled phone for the things we actually want to do, like organizing rallies and redistributing samizdat.
Found the swede? 🇸🇪😁
No, sono Italiano… But I guess it’s similar across the continent…
You say non free SMS messages as if it’s otherwise “free”, but the product is you.
Utility or privacy, it’s your pick. If you value privacy more, you won’t give in to utility.
Government apps are the only one I think are hard to do without.
You talk of what you don’t know. Bank apps here are mandatory by law. If you don’t or can’t use a bank app then you can use a SMS verification approach where you are required to PAY SMS that the bank sends you.
Receiving SMS here is free, only those from the bank for verification are to be paid without the bank app, it’s just a scam to force you to use the bank app.
The bank app itself is not a scam like a you are the service approach, and it’s not free either as you pay the bank services with your bank account fees already. Maybe you don’t pay a specific fee for the app, bit you already pay your home banking fees anyway.
For me its maps. Getting directions is mostly why im still on /e/. I would love a linux phone! But im stuck at the moment.
Well, FairPhone has GPS support on Ubuntu and that opens the world to a bunch of native GPS apps
Note that I haven’t tested this, I’m an iOS user, but Linux with Fairphone is starting to sound better and better. I moved from Android to iOS because Android started feeling so restrictive compared to what it used to be in the single digit version numbers era, it stopped making sense to prefer it over the more convenient OS. Now it seems Linux on certain phones is starting to get usable enough that it can be what Android used to be a decade ago when I still liked it.
Friend have a non-google fairphone and has some maps-like app that works at least well enough.
Her bank app worked most of the time? Guess it’s a cat & mouse game until it’s finally established or killed.
Interesting i may have to give it a shot.
Do let everyone know if you do, I think there’s actually quite a few people here who’d be willing to make the change to Linux if the Fairphone is truly as well supported as the UBPorts website claims
100%. I have one app for work that i also need. Do you happen to know if two oses can work on a phone? Like grub allows?
We need a Linux phone.
For now a linux phone will still lack native banking apps, cardless payment and government apps. Unless the app can run on a degoogled OS (Graphene, waydroid, etc.).
By open trust platform do you mean something akin to play protect?
Yes an alternative to play protect/play integrity… But at very least not vendor locked
Graphene isn’t a ROM, it is a standalone mobile OS based on the Android Open Source Project. So yes, Google primarily develops it, and has de-facto control. But Graphene is actively working to change that, especially with partnering with OEMs so that they can increase device driver support and give more devs incentive to work on AOSP/Graphene in general. For mobile devices the device drivers are huge, unlike desktop/server linux where MOST (obviously not all) things work.
I beg to defer on the device drivers. Maybe you don’t remember, but it’s been decades before Linux would adapt, reimplement or convince manufacturer to provide drivers for it.
Modems first. Graphics card next. Wi-Fi networks also. Winprinters. They all come to my mind. And it’s only by time and effort that now looks just works everywhere.
And now while graphene indeed is doing a great job that I appreciate very much, at the same time they are not developing an operating system. Google is.
There is a huge effort behind developing a full operating system, and it also requires standardization and somebody who defines what the standards are.
At this point, Google is the only one doing that. And if they go closed doors, no open source AOSP clone could keep up with Google changing standards and still be compatible, which would end up as an incompatible operating system.
My point is that currently Android needs Google, and there is no fooling around. We are years away of being independent from Google, whatever the great effort other developers are doing.
I appreciate everybody’s work and I have been a lineage supporter and maintainer myself.
There are tons of issues that we need to solve to be really independent from Google. Forking he’s the least of those.
This is the route I’ve gone, also if you think any bank, or government is going to suddenly support a Linux phone I’ve got bad news
Given an open certification process anybody could apply and achieve that, at least in theory. Something that with play integrity you cannot being obscured and proprietary.
So who knows, maybe one day even a Linux phone could. But not unless we get an open certification approach.
I see this take repeated again and again it is simply not true. LineageOS and other FOSS AOSP-derivatives are the best, most-supported and most-accepted FOSS mobile operating systems that we have available to us. And no, you neither have to give up on contactless payments nor on internet banking or government apps. There are many applications that don’t play nice with FOSS Android, but if you make the effort to choose your service providers with intent, so that they are compatible, then it is very much possible to daily-drive a fully de-Googled phone.
I agree with most of everything you wrote.
But banking apps and government apps is not a convenience, is a requirement, especially because, well, by law, they are required to provide an app and there is no choice around it. At least here.
I could indeed go back to bicycle everywhere I want to go and take in the train, but that is not convenience, that is life, so I need a car.
My point is that Google controls Android, whether they graciously allow us to have our foss Android and recompile it from sources is nice, but we still depend on Google and this is not good.
This is what needs to change, and there is no way around it.
WTF are you talking about?
will be bound by the same limitations
It’s based on AOSP (open source). They can easily fork Android and do whatever they want. Open source means full control over software / OS.
Starting from scratch has zero benefits, and only means the experience is shitty and app ecosystem is nonexistent.
give up on internet banking…
And those apps which require hardware verification using Google APIs are available on Linux? How does this equate to “we need a Linux phone”?
The issue, as you said, is “we need an open trust platform”. The best path forward is we push for that so that Graphene and anyone else can us it.
Giving up all the open source work and app ecosystem of Android is irrelevant and only prevents 99.999℅ of people from adopting it.
I am sorry to say that forking AOSP is not an easy solution.
I cannot talk for Grafene as I don’t know much of that organization, but I have been part of the Lineage Os organization for a little bit as a maintainer, and I can tell you that nobody is actually able to start working on such an effort as an AOSP fork.
I would gladly be happy if such a work would actually be maintained and supported long time, but I’m skeptical that anybody but a big organization has a power and a resource is to do so. After all even Linux is actually brought along by lots of organizations and also commercial organizations.
Yes, we need an open source trust platform, and I believe that is the only real way forward. I would vouch for a Linux mobile operating system, but indeed, air truly open, Android would be good as well.
They’re not wrong.
Of course you can fork and have full control over your fork, but Graphene and company want to be able to keep merging AOSP’s code to keep up with features and improvements.
Merging code from a divergent codebase is harder the more divergence there is, and with big codebases it can easily overwhelm small and medium-sized teams.
It’s the same reason there aren’t lots of chromium forks with manifest v2 support, while it is technically feasible, it requires a bigger effort than most projects can afford.
Keeping an open AOSP fork is not a bad idea, but it’s not clear whether GrapheneOS or any other project will be able to keep up with that workload.
Of course Linux phones require a lot of work too, but it’s work oriented towards making it work instead of towards undoing whatever sabotage google ads to AOSP, so it might motivate more people or be easier to do.
Also, both approaches are compatible.
Linux phones can use waydroid, which depends on AOSP, to run Android apps.
What about fairphone? A friend has one and choose the “no google” when she bought it. Works kind of apparently.
Ask you friend if the McDonald app works out of the box.
I know, I don’t care for McDonald app as well, but it’s an easy example of a stupid app requiring play certification to work…
There is some sandboxing, so maybe, but I sincerely doubt she has a mcdonalds app lol.
Graphenes is degoogled and can support play services in a locked down environment so it doesn’t have full control of your entire system. Play services is what is expected to be used to do the verification process.
While play services are mandatory for play cartification, the opposite is not automatic. In fact, bootloader and device fingerprint play an important role and when you replace the stock OS usually play integrity fails by design.
Do you know first hand that you can achieve play integrity with Graphene and no strange tricks like spoof signature or root?
https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/116261301913660830
Not sure if it applies to users only or to developers making apps too. Anyone knows?
This is a totally unrealted point. This applies to the age verification requirements and not the freedom to install apps outside Google control
I hope Motorola comes out with a Graphene-compatible phone before September.
What other recourse do we have if they don’t?
e/OS on a Fairphone? Sony Xperia?
My next phone will be a Motorola with Graphene OS.
I’m thinking maybe my next phone is a dumb phone that can only make calls and maybe text. They still make those, right?
LightPhone?
Hopefully they launch it before September, it certainly seems like it will take longer.
I’m using a Motorola 5G Ace with /e/ OS and its been a great phone (camera is just OK)
