Hacker News Reader

Comment by MishaalRahman | Hacker News Reader

Googler here (community engagement for Android) - I looked into the developer options question, and it's my understanding that you don't have to keep developer options enabled after you enable the advanced flow. Once you make the change on your device, it's enabled.

If you turn off developer options, then to turn off the advanced flow, you would first have to turn developer options back on.

View on HN

Why can't stores take over the "verification" process (like they do already)? Why do app developers have to be verified themselves, why does the verification have to be done by google? There are so many options, why choose google of all companies? Just laziness?

If I understand correctly, the F-Droid store itself would be possible to install without waiting period, as it's an app from a verified developer.

Would apps installed from F-Droid be subject to this process, or would they also be exempt? Could that be a solution that makes everyone happy? Android already tracks which app store an app originates from re: autoupdating.

Also: Can I skip the 24h by changing the my phone's clock?

> as it's an app from a verified developer.

Well that's if they go through the verification process, which does not seem like a thing they'd want to do - https://f-droid.org/en/2026/02/24/open-letter-opposing-devel...

If one verified app can install many unverified apps, either aurora droid or fdroid basic or one of the many other frontends would end up offering that feature quickly.

But there's been some comments that even that wouldn't be possible, every app would have to be verified individually, or be signed by a developer with less than 20 installs.

(Which of course then begs the question: Why not build a version of Fdroid that generates its own signing key and resigns every app on device?)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com