The author is so giddy to defend this monopolistic restriction on Google’s part. Hackers can use F-Droid without annoyance, but this really does kill any chance at normies using it. They absolutely will use the worst spyware on Google Play instead, and the author seemingly loves it.
It still remains to be seen what the actual requirements are, and even if F-Droid could become "approved" that doesn't mean they want to. Time will tell.
The "security" rationale is horseshit given just how much malware is readily download able on the Play Store. Google never cleans its own house before going after others.
(Allegedly the main actor behind this push is Singapore)
This is why those scams so often rely on gift cards (or sometimes on cash which a local mule converts to crypto).
Maybe you have the criminal idea of installing an adblocker, for example.
That is not allowed since corporations need to make money.
The government and ad networks need to track you for your benefit.
Ads are needed before listening to each minute of a song.
You must submit to crpyto miners running in the background from the ads, increasing your electricity bill and pollution.
Only USA sanctioned and approved ads are allowed, also. We wouldn't want you seeing an ad from a competing entity, right?
If you install an ablocker, you are a terrorist and broke 324582 American laws.
I’m betting on the latter. No Kitboga video mentions custom Android apps. What actually appears on almost all videos are online ads/spam or fake celebrity accounts messaging random people on Facebook.
It's funny how you aggressively push solutions that ignore the most common scam vectors investigators encounter. Could it be a coincidence that your proposal conveniently places every aspect of people’s lives at the mercy of big businesses? Or that the scam vector you downplay, ads and social media, just happens to be cash cows for some of the richest companies in history?
We already have plenty of paid lobbyists cheering the transfer of wealth from the poorest to the richest. There's no need to do that dirty work for free. Weaponizing the elderly being scammed of their life savings while protecting those that benefit from it is beyond messed up.
They let so much malware in their stores already.
As somebody put it, Google goes after others without cleaning their own house first. It's just abuse of power at this point.
Don't mistake obscurity for security. FDroid isn't the size to even be noticed by problems that Play Store and AppStore are dealing with.
Now, it might be a problem of vetting at scale or malware being really subtle, but if that's the case Google should focus on improving their process before locking down Android for "security".
If you (not you specifically) are unsure of your abilities to use computers, let a friend or a family member buy a dumbed down device for you or install parental controls or something. Or maybe have clicking the build number 7 times reveal "toddler mode" where you can lock your device down irreversibly as much as you want.
This way, consumers are helpless victims of the same megacorporation, which will use its near-absolute power over the mobile ecosystem (shared with one other megacorporation) to profit on the back of consumers.
This is 2026, for God's sake! How long has this grift been playing out? At least two decades? What will it take people, much less the tech savvy ones, to learn that all these are designs of greedy and power lusting minds?
Basically, Google needs an answer when men in suits ask them why they have technology that enables users to install sanctioned Iranian banking apps.
Seems like a move to get around the Epic Games ruling (and assorted rumbles from countries like India).
Of course, many people who want to de-Google their phones won't want to do either. This is an attack on people who want to keep their lives separate from Google.
F-Droid has the benefit that it essentially doesn't have to deal with malicious actors. It's very easy to have a high quality library when there are no malicious actors.
> While sadly, it doesn’t look like there will be any ADB command you can send to your phone to make it immediately jump to the end of that 24-hour delay
There's also no evidence that adb-sideloaded app stores will be able to skip PackageInstaller's developer verification enforcement, so no, you will have to wait 24 hours to install F-Droid and actually use it.
The horrors!