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[–] 205 points 4 months ago (13 children)

A 24hr waiting period to use a competitor's product has to be one of the most blatant anti-competitive behaviour in history.

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  • [–] 47 points 4 months ago* (7 children)

    If only the founding fathers had written the right to bear apps shall not be infringed in an amendment.

    Oh well can't change the ancient text now, just have to be governed by it forever. 🤷 (It's a shame the ancient powder-wigged wizards that wrote the constitution weren't clairvoyant.)

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  • [–] 27 points 4 months ago (3 children)

    If only there were some way to change the ancient text. Some sort of amend-sion. Surely our benevolent leaders would have figured something like that out by now. I guess we'll just have to keep voting and hoping every four years

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago (1 child)

    I am not from the US but can't you interpret the first amendment in a way that would work here?

    Code is just information and you could argue that a platform is infringing on private free speech.

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  • [–] 6 points 4 months ago*

    i am American, and yes we have a long history of interpretation that is expansive. the problem is we have narrow minded people running the institutions now who don't even want the narrow interpretations to be in effect so they do everything possible to limit them.

    if you pay attention long enough you will see them use one argument to get their way, then later use the opposite to get their way on a different issue. there is no moral consistency because morality is just s tool to them.

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  • [–] 3 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    I‘m curious I read the petition and didn‘t see mention of „24h waiting“ anywhere could you tell me what you‘re referring to?

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  • [–] 6 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    The 24h wait period is a part of the so-called "advanced flow" which will become the only way to install apps not verified by google once their new rules go into effect, as described here: https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2026/03/android-developer-verification.html

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  • [–] 59 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    @duckling5746@lemmy.today as a reminder the reason this is related to self-hosting should be obvious, whether in the title or the post text.

    For this one, I'll note that this is key to self-hosting, and I think many know it. Many, myself included, use f-droid or similar 3rd party repos to manage the apps that we use with our self-hosted setup. With this change, many of the current apps we enjoy using will either need to register with Google, or essentially become unused. While there is a way to still do it, it is really messy, and requires an absolutely wild number of steps + 24hr "cooling off period". Its ridiculous.

    Personally, I'm leaving the android ecosystem one way or the other. It may be using an android phone and hotspotting for another device running PMOS or similar, or getting a Moto with Graphene, whatever, but this change is impactful and horrendous.

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    [–] 114 points 4 months ago (27 children)

    please just make an android alternative

    I want a phone that isn't a closed ecosystem race to the bottom shit phone

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  • [–] 66 points 4 months ago (3 children)

    There are, but the market is rigged by monopolists. And things like banks increasingly require apps that won't even run on customer Android ROMs easily.

    The regulators are needed here.

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  • [–] 25 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    The problem with regulators is that they a) gladly suck corporate dicks, b) gladly opt-in for the same authoritarian methods of population control, and c) gladly ignore common sense altogether.

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  • [–] 46 points 4 months ago* (14 children)

    All of the alternatives eventually run into the same "Will my banking app work on it?" problem. The absence of a healthy app economy is the one thing that can't be fixed by throwing software engineers at it, and it is what caused the death of Windows Phone.

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  • [–] 9 points 4 months ago (7 children)

    They should work in a browser no?

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  • [–] 10 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    Not for things like check deposits, unfortunately

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  • [–] 8 points 4 months ago

    @PabloSexcrowbar @anon_8675309 When my bank doesn't allow check deposits via website, I will switch banks. Ain't installing a stupid app for a bank of all things, and why would I bank from a device that I could accidentally lose at the grocery store?

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  • [–] 4 points 4 months ago (3 children)

    Many banks require apps for 2FA. This varies greatly by country.

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  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    There are open source 2FA. They require like specific apps OTP or something else?

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  • [–] 6 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    You have to use the bank's own app to 2FA.

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  • [–] 3 points 4 months ago

    So you can use the website in your browser but still have the have their app installed for 2fa? That's peak bullshit there.

    Google reCaptcha is going to have a similar requirement for accesing half the bloody internet once that goes through. In summary, I think we are fucked.

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  • [–] 7 points 4 months ago

    Right. It wasn’t the zune guy, limited adoption, Microserfs killing the platform after 7 years or a general lack of interest, a climate of distrust after 10 years of garbage operating systems with new logos and the same Windows NT internals…

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  • [–] 8 points 4 months ago (3 children)

    God I fucking LOVED my windows phone. Nokia body, windows OS, and no one fucked with making viruses because eleventeen people bought one in total.

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  • [–] 25 points 4 months ago (2 children)
  • [–] 6 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    I feel like that won't be enough. Google is working on locking down the entire internet unless you can pass their reCaptcha with a verified device. See this article related to GrapheneOS and their reCaptcha concerns.

    Sites need to stop using reCaptcha or we are all doomed anyway.

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  • [–] 87 points 4 months ago (3 children)

    I genuinely appreciate the cause, but to sign this, I have to provide PII, agree to their terms of service and privacy policy, and get automatically opted-in to their mailing list that I'll have to unsubscribe from later.

    So to petition against this shitty tech stuff, I have to go through this other shitty tech stuff. It sucks how normalized this all has become.

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  • [–] 20 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    here it makes at least some sense to verify that each person voted once. the mail list stuff is of course to much and should be optional from the beginning.

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  • [–] 4 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    Anyone know if this affects GrapheneOS users? I can install GrapheneOS like 50x faster than it would take to understand what I'm legally binding myself to by signing the petition.

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  • [–] 6 points 4 months ago

    custom OS shouldn't be effected by it. I'll probably change soon as well.

    anyway, that is rather independent on the petition. a petition is usually not for your own short term benefit, rather for the common good, or outreach of the general problem. so doing either is for different reasons, both reasonable

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  • [–] 28 points 4 months ago

    Mandate that all boot loaders can be unlocked by consumers/device owners!

    That single change alone would open the floodgates of development.

    Manufacturer locked boot loaders was the single biggest mistake made in the phone world. Now just consider all the work it'll take to reverse that simple misstep made years ago that nobody gave a single thought to.

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  • [–] 63 points 4 months ago (18 children)

    You aren’t going to keep Android open. Respond by shoring up Linux phones.

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  • [–] 10 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (6 children)

    Most of the world can't afford to buy one specific android and hope not to brick it. Most people can't afford a google pixel and if they can, aren't going to risk it.

    And what happens when google cuts off third party tools like MicroG. I need WhatsApp for almost everything from talking to family and friends to Work. Most of the world does, and the same is true for Facebook.

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  • [–] 8 points 4 months ago

    Most people can’t afford a google pixel and if they can, aren’t going to risk it.

    And they shouldn't. By buying Pixels you are supporting Google, the same company that is destroying Android freedom.

    Today's best alternatives are phones that come preloaded with custom ROMs (Brax3, Fairphone, Murena, Iodé, and so on), or if you're feeling more adventurous, a Linux phone (I have heard good things about FuriLabs FLX1).

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  • [–] 4 points 4 months ago

    Then you are fucked right? What's app and Facebook have you.

    I too live somewhere this is expected. I said no. I won't do it. Facebook is easy, because whatever.

    WhatsApp is harder even the doctors want to use it. But I won't. Someone has to start saying no.

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  • [–] 4 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    Which is why you stop using Android and use Linux phones instead.

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  • [–] 0 points 4 months ago

    "I need WhatsApp for almost everything from talking to family and friends to Work. Most of the world does, and the same is true for Facebook."

    Whatsapp and Facebook bring convienence for sure, but you can live without them. All those that know me, know i refuse to use Whatapp. Those that want to keep up with me have installed Signal. I admit that for business it can be tricky but we have to start somewhere?

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  • [–] 10 points 4 months ago (5 children)

    I don't want to buy a new phone

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  • [–] 14 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    Google doesn't give a shit about what you want. It only understands two things: credible legal threats and not giving them your money.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 months ago (1 child)

    I'm saying I don't want to buy a new thing, so saying "just buy new phone" doesn't really help for a lot of people

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  • [–] 2 points 3 months ago

    These people are screwed, then. You can't expect an uncaring universe to accomodate your wishes, if you're not willing to move yourself. Stopping using stuff is always an option that doesn't cost money.

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  • [–] 21 points 4 months ago

    Not only would that solve this little problem, it would reduce Google's power and remove one's data from the claws of US authorities (were the Patriot and Cloud acts let them mass track everybody using a Google product).

    Just make sure you chose a non-US Linux phone.

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  • [–] 20 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

    Fuck you Pichai. They should be sued.

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  • [–] 13 points 4 months ago

    Only an Android alternative will fix this. No amount of proactive work from users will change Google's mind on this.

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  • [–] 11 points 4 months ago (6 children)

    I don't get it, how tf they gonna stop you on phones that already exist?

    A. You can disable any new OS or device updates from Google.

    B. You can keep your existing phone on Android 16 or prior (hell, I'm on 12)

    C. Use alt OS like Graphene, Lineage, Iodé, /e/OS, CalyxOS (they're back!!), etc

    D. Sign out of Google on your phone, install F-Droid or something from APK package on FF derived browser.

    I'm sure on brands new devices with that patch, plus anyone who doesn't disable the auto updates will be blocked. But no way no how can Google stop us all!! 🖕🖕🏻🖕🏿🖕🏼

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  • [–] 24 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    A. It's not an OS update. It's part of Google Play Services.
    B. I'm pretty sure this applies even on Android 12 because it's Google Play Services. Years back, Google started moving functionality like this into Google Play Services so your phone could get new features even if you had a bad manufacturer and OS updates were months or even years behind. It was introduced as a feature then.
    C. This does work, but some apps (notably banking apps) block non-Google Android, even if there is no legitimate security reason for doing so. This will vary by OS and even phones running the same OS. Official GrapheneOS builds for officially supported devices probably have the best compatibility with apps in terms of the apps not blocking your phone. Maybe there are some rooted phones that patch apps to bypass "integrity" checks. Some features of your phone just will not work, even if you have a third-party OS with official support for your phone (contactless payments). Hopefully the EU gets on this and at least Europeans or people who can trick their phones into thinking they are Europeans will get some of their control back.
    D. Most people can't live without the apps that are available only on Google's store or that require Google Play Services. That's most apps. Even if you don't need those specific apps, you will need to deal with other stuff like setting up Unified Push if you want to receive timely notifications. My parents are not going to set up a Unified Push gateway.

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  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago

    Most people can't live without the apps that are available only on Google's store or that require Google Play Services

    Example of that: governments apps, like the eID app for the european eID (which, it's not a must for everyone but it may be for some specific people or just everyone in a country)

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  • [+] 11 points 4 months ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (4 children)
  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    Yep, just reinstall the OS so that's removed, and you're unimpacted. Easy.

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  • [+] 2 points 4 months ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)
  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    No, it doesn't come back. Google will not be installed by default.

    I've never had it on my phone because I never add gapps when installing Android.

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    [–] 46 points 4 months ago (9 children)

    The number of times that signing an online petition has prevented the plans of an evil corporation is exactly zero.

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  • [–] 12 points 4 months ago

    There are already some movements, like #Keep Android Open that ask to contact local regulators and law makers, this petition is useful to have a concrete number of people that agree and that can be used officially

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  • [–] 10 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    Companies have reversed unpopular decisions in the past (just saw a thing about Facebook reversing some AI thing). So there may be some possible chance of them reversing this decision. I'm not hopeful but the cost is cheap, and it has a better chance of success than doing nothing

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  • [–] 17 points 4 months ago (4 children)

    I am not so sure. It creats activity, being passive is worse. We should encourage all type of protests, even petitions.

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  • [–] 10 points 4 months ago

    It dissipates righteous indignation by making sure that people feel the satisfaction and the release of "doing something" (and thus not act any more forcefully) whilst said "something" is the least impactful thing imaginable.

    It ultimately makes those who would do more do less instead.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago*

    I agree. Doesn't do anything it would be better to get people to buy stock in the company and vote on what you want. Get enough people and you can make change.

    But that process is also.... Gross. And expensive.

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  • [–] 9 points 4 months ago

    let's get real..google isn't going to stop. why would they? there's zero repercussions for their aggressive strategy against their own consumers.

    so stop using their products. cut google out, entirely.

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  • [–] 16 points 4 months ago

    Most online petitions are nothing more than a way to safely (for those targeted and for those amongst the authorities who support them even against the public interest) dissipate the common people's righteous indignation, by making them feel like they "did something" whilst said something is just about the least impactful thing imaginable.

    (Some official ones, for example those mandating parliamentary sessions on the subject if they reach a certain threshold, might not be so, though its unclear as it really depends on the legislation around it allowing politicians to just ignore it at will)

    This bullshit will require a lot more than adding your name into a list on some corner of the web in some legal jurisdiction where they're free to sell your private information.

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  • [–] 5 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    I guess at a certain point I just stop using electronics.

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