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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 Googleโ€™s Terms and Conditions - Providing government identification - Uploading evidence of an appโ€™s private signing key - Listing all current and future application identifiers
Keep Android Open
Keep Android Open
Advocating for Android as a free, open platform for everyone to build apps on.

Replies (29)

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Don't beg them. Fuck them. Build the alternatives.
Zapstore's avatar Zapstore
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 Googleโ€™s Terms and Conditions - Providing government identification - Uploading evidence of an appโ€™s private signing key - Listing all current and future application identifiers
Keep Android Open
Keep Android Open
Advocating for Android as a free, open platform for everyone to build apps on.
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we need more devices with graphene >_< they can't make people sign these things for buying a pixel tho, so there's still a hole in this thing. they really can't ever completely close up custom rom dev because AOSP devs build many parts they depend on. i just wish there was an alternative to buying from the pigs themselves instead, i should be able to run it at least on samsung, motorola maybe. nope.
my plan to tackle this is to have two phones: 1) regular android phone only with the apps that require Google Play Store (banking apps, Gmaps etc.) 2) degoogled phone (either graphene or LineageOS without Play Store), with zap store and other APKs that are not currently on Play Store
โ†ฉ replying to Tony Acid
Most people will feel that it's too hard / expensive. Privacy awareness is not binary. It's a spectrum. Some people see privacy as super important and will go to great lengths to keep it. Some don't care about it at all and will not suffer any inconvenience for the sake of privacy. Most people are somewhere in the middle. Which means the easier it is to gain privacy, the more people will have it. A better solution will be a VM inside graphenos tor android apps. If it's easy to set up, people will go for it.