Advocating for Android as a free, open platform for everyone to build apps on.

Keep Android Open

In August 2025, Google announced that starting next year, it will no longer be possible to develop apps for the Android platform without first registering centrally with Google.

This registration will involve:

  • Paying a fee to Google
  • Agreeing to Google’s Terms and Conditions
  • Providing government identification
  • Uploading evidence of an app’s private signing key
  • Listing all current and future application identifiers

Sign the open letter. And get active to help oppose the enactment of the policy in other ways listed on the website. Are there any more ways to oppose this?

  • it_depends_man@lemmy.world
    23·
    4 months ago

    The big problem with this is that I don’t like android.

    It works relatively well, it’s support is ok, it’s probably better than apple because their garden walls are higher. But it’s not at all the operating system I would like to have. It’s already too restrictive, I have not seen/found good app building docs that make it actually easy and convenient to create “apps” and that massively rubs me the wrong way.

    With that move, google is enshittfying android, but that doesn’t mean we have to resist the enshittification and keep android, we can also let them do it and move to something else. In theory, anyway.

    So I’d like to see more calls for different OS, forks or stuff like

    https://www.fsf.org/news/librephone-project

    • PlanterTree@discuss.tchncs.deOPEnglish
      14·
      4 months ago

      I agree; the best option is to ditch Android … those who can do it. Some Banking apps, public transport ticket apps, and post/mail-delivery apps seem to be a hard requirement for people in real live though. Which leads to the question: But what about people who can not ditch their phones and can not afford multiple devices (this decade)? Maybe laws that introduce a hard requirement that everything should work through a (open source) web-browser can help, but then what about “offline” use cases?

      It feels like we are building our own digital prison in real time.

      • WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.worldEnglish
        8·
        4 months ago

        There really should be a focus on government-level efforts in the EU, to force mobile manufacturers to standardise and open source all firmware sold in its jurisdiction. All OSS mobile OS’s (not on custom OSS hardware) rely on Android solutions because mobile hardware is bespoke, closed source, and non-standard from device to device; the opposite to the PC ecosystem that enabled Linux. The Apple/Android duopoly won’t be broken if mobile hardware vendors can continue creating custom closed-source firmware for their hardware, and there’s simply no reason to allow this anti-competitiveness to continue.

    • Goodlucksil@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      2·
      4 months ago

      The big problem is that there are no entry-level linux phones. All of them I have seen are over 200, and evn those are horribly underpowered. It wouldn’t be that hard to make a 140€ phone and upmark it to 180€ for the effort of developing Linux for it?

      • it_depends_man@lemmy.world
        2·
        4 months ago

        My problem wtih the existing linux phones is that they are usually clearly labled as “experimental beta device + OS, only recommended for experienced users” and for linux, that’s scary to me. I’ve been using it for over 10 years, but as a user, you know?

  • onlooker@lemmy.ml
    211·
    4 months ago

    Forget it. Privacy-wise, Android is a sinking ship, they can do whatever. I’m out.

    • Slysilvercat@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      8·
      4 months ago

      I understand your frustration. I think this pill would be easier to swallow, if USA sold all phones unlocked, so you could add graphine os, etc. If I’m paying gaming PC proces for a handheld, I want full control.

  • Meatwagon@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    16·
    4 months ago

    Google can’t even keep its play store free of malware as evidenced by my mother getting popup malware every two weeks from ads on some showopera app she got from the play store, but sure enforcing their malware ridden play store on us will surely protect us.

    i use my phone for drawing with its inbuilt stylus, so swapping to anything else will probably disable that feature for me.

      • Slysilvercat@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        3·
        4 months ago

        I think I salty that because Window Phone tanked, Nokia tanked with them in USA. My last Nokia was made out of a bowling ball! Microsoft apparently wants completely out if hardware. They thrown no cares to the Xbox console either. I understand gamepass killed Xbox. I just expected Microsoft to be further ahead than they are.