Maybe for the Singapore thing. For the play integrity thing, it applies to apps from anywhere except the play store directly. I use Aurora to install apps that say "not compatible with your device" for no reason. But a week or two ago ago, they started blocking access and saying I needed to install from the play store.

Fortunately I was able to downgrade and they kept working, but I don't know how long that will last. At some point the server side will change the API.

The article says it only applied to apps requesting certain permissions. I agree I'm an ideal world it would be nice to get f-droid directly from the Play store but at least according to the article the ability to install it isn't being blocked here.

Yikes this really doesn't look good. Is there any reporting on it from independent journalists (or anyone else who isn't also advertising their own competing operating system)?

From what I can tell, all of this shit is on Google versions of Android. If you are on AOSP such as lineage or graphene, from what I understand this has no effect whatsoever.

This is my immediate first thought seeing this. This fucking sucks. Part of the whole benefit of something like LineageOS or e (OS?) was being able to use Fdroid to stay away from Google as much as possible. Now this is going to potentially make things weird.

But this is not the only aspect of Google's autocratization; Apps who's developers have enabled the Google Play Integrity APIs will not run on custom roms.

cool, any dev who requires that is acting in bad faith against my privacy and doesn't deserve my support.

So you can't use banking apps, or you mean like you cant even use F-Droid FOSS apps at all?

That doesnt appear to be true, the restriction seems to be on apps being installed from file managers, web browsers, messaging, etc.

F-droid and the like are not part of that list.

This still isn't good, but it doesnt stop you from having F-droid manage your messaging apps it would seem.

Edit: If you're down voting because you think its using the same method as a file manager as the user that replied to me, this is incorrect. This is also an issue going back several versions.

F-Droid uses a session installer method for 3rd party app stores, it does not use the same method as a file manager.

For an article about a similar issue brought up by similar restrictions in previous updates, you can refer to this article:

Android 15 cracks down on sideloaded apps even harder to protect users

Android 15 places new restrictions on what permissions sideloaded apps can be easily granted. Here's what you need to know.

Android Authority (www.androidauthority.com)

You can also refer to this thread in the F-Droid forums which covers this as well, from 2 1/2 years ago:

Sideloading restrictions or removal in future, how it effects fdroid?

recently there is rumour or fact about sideloading apps in android 14. google is making mandatory of minimum api or os version for all apps on google play store [ gps ] and perhaps it will give toast message [ warnin…

F-Droid Forum (forum.f-droid.org)

Which also includes a merged discussion from the last time this came up 9 months ago.

F-Droid has been using the session installer method for quite some time.

Purism is sketchy btw:

(Louis Rossman videos explaining how a customer was denied a refund for a "pre-order" and then they tried to coerce Louis to take down the video.)

Edit: typo

But this is not the only aspect of Google's autocratization; Apps who's developers have enabled the Google Play Integrity APIs will not run on custom roms.

The problem comes when it's not an app you're using for the app's sake, but because it's the app of some company you have a real-world relationship with. Your bank's app being the most important one that comes to my mind, considering I've already heard about some banks trying to restrict users to only Google's flavour of Android before this.

Well, both will be unable to install certain types of apps.

In Singapore, lots of boomers are downloading scam apps from facebook lured by promises of discounts and free gifts, handing out accessibility privileges, and they'll even argue vehemently against loved ones and bank staff when confronted. When it all inevitably blows up, they blame absolutely everyone except themselves, including praising Apple for some reason.

Being the largest voting block, they managed to get banks responsible for reimbursing their losses and there was even an idea floated of getting everyone to contribute to a shitty scam insurance fund. Many major banking apps are paranoid af and block usage from simple things like usb debugging turned on.

Absolutely stupidity. And there's nothing we can do about it when the politicians love them so much.

F-Droid uses the same way to install packages as the file manager does.

I'm sorry, but in that case, it wasn't worth running the app to begin with. You can either find a third-party app that lets you access the same content, such as Newpipe and YouTube, or you can use it from a web browser, such as your bank, and if you can't do either of those, then just don't fucking use that service.

I was willing to totally switch banks because my previous bank required me to use a mobile app and I did not want to do so. If I must go through some annoyance to use something that works properly, I will.

For me at least, running as much open source as I can possibly do is worth more than the inconvenience caused by not being able to use these shit services.

Usb debugging is sketchy as shit. You should almost never turn that on, and immediately turn it off once you're finished with whatever it is you're doing with that on.

I use open source whenever I can, but sometimes that just isn't an option in the real world. I work in IT at a hospital that REQUIRES Duo. I use GrapheneOS. I was able to get it to work, but it was a horrible experience.

Aaaaand now I'm carrying around a laptop again, at least mini pcs are tiny now, maybe a small handheld would do...

if any of this shit hinders me, I'll get a dumb phone and the cheapest iphone available for manditory work-based things and say so-long to being a mobile OS user.