The clock is ticking for Android as a (somewhat) open platform.
If you are running Android 8 or higher, a virus has been installed on your device and is silently awaiting remote activation. Over the past few months, devices around the world have been infected with this novel strain, with as many as 4 billion Android handsets and tablets estimated to have already been contaminated, meaning that around half of all humanity may be at risk from this threat.
Disguising itself as the innocuously-titled “Android Developer Verifier” (ADV) process, this trojan horse runs surreptitiously in the background as a system service with full root privileges, quietly awaiting an activation signal. The service cannot be blocked, disabled, or removed. Unlike a commonplace bit of malware, this extraordinary strain won’t be detected and neutralized by Play Protect (the malware scanning and remediation service that is installed on all Android Certified devices). In fact, Play Protect is itself the vector through which this virus is transmitted and installed.
That is because it is Google themselves who is propagating ADV. And once activated, this malevolent process has exactly one goal: to block you from running software by developers who haven’t been approved centrally by Google.
↫ The F-Droid news website
If nobody steps up, if no regulator takes on Google in this matter, we could very well be looking at the end of F-Droid and similar open source application repositories on Android. I use F-Droid, and in fact, one of the most important and most-used application on my Pixel 10 Pro comes from F-Droid: Fennec. This Firefox fork is not available through any Google-sanctioned means, and I could just wake up one day and have the browser on what is supposed to be my phone stop working.
Age verification, tying crucial services to iOS and Google Android, killing the ability to install your own software on your phone, purposefully making people hopelessly addicted to and dependent on “AI”, and so much more – we’re facing a multi-pronged attack designed to beat us into submission and give up on the idea of Free computing. I have to admit I’ve lost all hope we’ll be able to win this battle, as the combined interests of technology megacorporations and our own governments are just too powerful to fight.
I feel like we’re living in the computing end times.
This is an absolute travesty. If google have their way, it could very well be the end of openness and app store competition on a mainstream phone. Things were already bad enough with apple killing off owner rights on their mobiles, but with google locking down android now the pressure to submit to the google & apple duopoly will be stronger than ever. I agree with the sentiment – openness is dying for future generations. Of course as a billionaire CEO Sundar Pichai can afford not to care, but he’s spitting on owner rights and stabbing the open community in the back.
Thom Holwerda,
Would the EU step up? I don’t know if that’s in the cards but in the rest of the world nobody stepped up to stop apple’s owner restrictions, as egregious as they were. So, I don’t have much faith in politicians protecting owners from corporate takeover. Odds are high this will become the new normal and future generations will just take it for granted that all the hardware consumers own will be controlled by corporations rather than owners.
On the other hand, we may begin to see the emergence of new mobile operating systems.
Yes, there are some alredy I believe. They just need to get enough momentum so that mandatory eID apps in emerging techno-fascist states (like Sweden) will be ported to them.
Subject to government approval. I don’t see graphene os or anything that grants root access ever getting approved. In fact the government will make every PC and phone even more locked down than even iOS currently is. And with government malware on top
The EU is part of the problem. Most world leaders and unelected burueaucrats have discussed about what to do with the internet behind closed doors and have agreed to implement a digital id and digital currencies in the UN Pact For A Sustainable Future (aka Agenda 2030) which was agreed to by every nation. As far as they’re concerned the decision is final and they just need to get every nation to follow a rehearsed script to pass the relevant laws without too much people complaining. And as a side effect they will kill open computing by law so they can implement digital id.
Also keep in mind that this might be a matter of national security since once China invades Taiwan there might be a new world War and they want to know everyone who posts Chinese propaganda online. Since they might have to do that anyway they might as well be as totalitarian as China.
Magnusmaster,
Do you think they don’t already know Chinese double agents?
“For the children”, “for your safety” are the oldest tricks in their chest. And unfortunately they were all the time.
https://www.thecentersquare.com/national/article_ee075c72-b681-4618-96e5-75de408ef28c.html
They know exactly who they are, at least those who are active.
But this is a very good excuse to reduce hard earned freedoms in the civilized world. Yet ask yourself: if we behave exactly like CCP, what moral superiority is left there?
The people in charge aren’t morally superior. They only care about power. They will try to appease xi. If China becomes a real threat to them there will be war. Regardless of who wins that war totalitarianism will likely win
Magnusmaster,
Yes, it saddens that in our 250th anniversary we are still worried about basic human rights and freedoms.
what does a new os help when it can’t be loaded onto a phone
root it and a fuse blows and phone is considered non-trusted and gone is the warranty as well
and this is permanent
Welcome to the nasty world of embedded, welcome to the nasty world of ARM. And yet, FOSS people will sing the praises of ARM, ignoring the baggage it comes with.
Tbh dont know too many foss people singing arms praises precisely because of the bagage. Developing Android apps is somewhat easier than desktop but the hardware itself has always been frustrating. No one on the desktop linux side of things like desktop or laptop arm cause its so painful to spin a system up and the rom devs working with the phone handsets dislike the way that the handsets artifically lock kernel and driver versions causing massive problems every android version
Imagine if you could go back to the 90s or the early 2000s and tell some neckbeard with a Linux t-shirt that the most open mainstream OS in 2026 is not a Linux-based OS called “Android”, not the semi-open MacOS (remember, until Tiger, Darwin was buildable as a CLI-only OS), it’s Windows… since Windows is the only mainstream OS that still allows you to run unsinged executables with only minimal warnings and no need to mess around in the settings.
And while you are at it, that PC compatibles are not only still around but the most open hardware ecosystem by far. Not PowerPC, not SPARC, not some other RISC thing, but PC compatibles with x86 CPUs at their heart.
Google will never ever be allowed to prevent normal installation of applications for Android.
Hi All,
Just a thought about Thom’s comment ‘.. I feel like we’re living in the computing end times’.
Obviously no use for the mobile but do many here use Trisquel on the desktop?
Is it time for a review/ profile of Trisquel?
Thanks!
So far, I’ve managed to use my latest Android phones (from Unihertz) …
— without logging in (ie. hitting “skip for now” whenever a new Android wants my login info).
— disabling as many of the default Google-reliant apps as possible, including GooglePlayStore
GooglePlayServices seems to be the only one that _must_ be enabled in order for the phone keep working.
( F-Droid’s AuroraStore was useful for getting the apps that our office commanded that we use ).
— getting most of my apps from F-Droid.
— by not using my Android phone for anything tied to bank accounts. For me, Android is a phone, not a desktop.
So my question:
Can this predicted Android doomsday be avoided if someone comes up with an open-source replacement for GooglePlayServices …? Does such a replacement exist already …?
ponk,
MicroG *is* the FOSS replacement for google play services…and it works to the extent that 3rd party software allow us to use it without denial of service, but therein lies the rub. Google provides the functionality that blocks alternatives.
If you need an application that doesn’t work with microG, tough luck. Bank and DRM apps are common culprits. This affects me, I’ve been forced to give up e-checking on my phone and have to physically go to a bank teller.. I had a job that forced me to use an authentication app that required google play services. This company forced me to get a 2nd phone at my own expense to do my job. This is what sucks about the current duopoly, even when you personally commit to going with a FOSS alternative, there’s a lot of coercion locking us in. Google coyly shifts blame away from themselves “we didn’t block migroG ourselves. That 3rd party devs use the technology we provide them to detect non-google authorized services is that party’s fault, not google’s” Since the vendor locking is happening through 3rd party apps, it’s harder to convict google on antitrust grounds :-/
Alfman,
That is the dilemma of open computing: “Xyz replacement” almost never works
There was one period where we were excited to have open interfaces. “There will be specifications where multiple vendors can implement with CORBA/SOAP/ActiveX”
But it almost never materializes. As long as the original is in play, they will continue “innovating” and hence moving the goal post.
It worked for FreeDOS, as MS-DOS was abandoned, but DR-DOS stood no chance even without Windows shenanigans.
Linux worked, because most UNIX vendors were stagnant or inaccessible. But today alternate OSes don’t work due to Linux (irony)
OpenAI APIs work for LLM vendors, this is because there is basically no new functionality.
So competing on merit, or alternative priorities (like being open) is a very hard hill to climb. Why would software vendors care about MicroG, when they can get to use 20 new APIs from Google every release?
sukru,
I would point out that many devs actually would prefer open platforms that do away with the coersive tethering and fees. However the costs of breaking away from mainstream markets is quite substantial. Oligopolies create immense pressure for others to follow regardless of merits. This is true even if customers dislike what corporations are doing with the mainstream platforms. When new & better alternatives show up, they are often relegated to a small niche who exist in isolation from mainstream. Unfortunately most executives just aren’t very interested in serving these communities when targeting the mainstream is typically much more profitable.
TLDR; profit incentives to focus on mainstream keeps monopolies in power.
Of course nothing about this is new; it’s a classic chicken and egg problem. There are so many improvements to be had if we can get there, it just takes extraordinary circumstances for newcomers to overtake all powerful monopolies. As you suggested sometimes change only happens when the incumbents give up control over a market they’re no longer interested in.