Unfortunately, this mostly means using the closed android ecosystem.
I run GrapheneOS and use several US-based banking apps. I'll not name them since I don't really want my HN account associated with my financials in any way, but I've got a mix of well-known national bank apps and smaller local credit union apps working.
I'll admit there is a single institution's app I've found that doesn't work, but that is just one of several that I use.
https://privsec.dev/posts/android/banking-applications-compa...
Google Pay does not work, but some other NFC payment apps do (e.g. Curve).
Laptops exist.
https://privsec.dev/posts/android/banking-applications-compa...
I'm using my GrapheneOS phone to log on to their web app without issues (though I typically only do banking on my phone, much more secure).
Edit: Someone also made a good point, one of my CC's I can barely even manage without the app since the website barely works.
I use NFC payments often, but I wouldn't say that amounts to more than a few percent of my total usage.
Everyone uses their phones differently, of course. I don't think your use is unbelievable or odd, but I do think your use patterns are not the common case.
whatsapp, phone, push authenticator, safari (having followed a link from a message), spotify, slack, mail, calandar, disney plus and camera
Do you not do any of that on a mobile device?
Maybe, but there's no technical reason for this. As I've mentioned before, I can do banking just fine on my Gentoo machine where the entire corpus of software on it, is FOSS and compiled by myself.
Let's focus on making it possible to use really open Linux systems on smartphones.
Regarding some concrete examples - Google can deeply integrate Gemini, but a competitor can't do this and users get no final say here either. Competitors are restricted by the permission system, Google is not restricted at all.
While rooting can alleviate this to some extent, Play Integrity is there to make sure the user regrets that decision to break free..
> We appreciate the community's engagement and have heard the early feedback – specifically from students and hobbyists who need an accessible path to learn, and from power users who are more comfortable with security risks. We are making changes to address the needs of both groups.
> We heard from developers who were concerned about the barrier to entry when building apps intended only for a small group, like family or friends. We are using your input to shape a dedicated account type for students and hobbyists. This will allow you to distribute your creations to a limited number of devices without going through the full verification requirements.
> Based on this feedback and our ongoing conversations with the community, we are building a new advanced flow that allows experienced users to accept the risks of installing software that isn't verified. We are designing this flow specifically to resist coercion, ensuring that users aren't tricked into bypassing these safety checks while under pressure from a scammer. It will also include clear warnings to ensure users fully understand the risks involved, but ultimately, it puts the choice in their hands. We are gathering early feedback on the design of this feature now and will share more details in the coming months.
It is also true that they have not updated their developer documentation site and still assert that developer verification will be "required" in September 2026 [1]. Which might be true by some nonsensical definition of "required" if installing unverified apps requires an "advanced flow", but let's not give too much benefit of the doubt here.
0: https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2025/11/android-de...
In classic Google fashion, they hear the complaint, pretend that it's about something else, and give a half baked solution to that different problem that was not the actual issue. Any solution that disadvantages F-Droid compared to the less trustworthy Google Play is a problem.
For it to be truly considered open source, you should be able to fork it and create your own edits to change the defaults however you wish. Whether that is still a possibility or not, is a completely separate issue from how they proceed with their own fork.
It's my phone.
You paid for it but Google still has the control. I understand that you prefers things to be different (as do I) but the reality is that we don’t have control over devices we paid for.
You answered the question here:
> You paid for it
If you paid for hardware, legally that makes it yours.
> Google still has the control
Therein lies the problem. Google should not exercise such control over devices which are yours, not theirs.
If you don't like their choices, you should be able to install other software you do like. There should be completely free options that people can choose if they desire. But the majority of people just want a working phone, that someone like Google is taking great pains to make work safely and reliably.
There are legitimate concerns being addressed by these feature restrictions.
IMO the way this should work is that Google can make their software however they want provided they don't do anything to stop me from changing it to work the way I want.
Unfortunately, they've already done a lot of things to stop me from changing it to work the way I want. SafetyNet, locked bootloaders, closed-source system apps, and now they're (maybe) trying to layer "you can't install apps we don't approve of" on top of that.
There is a difference between making a choice because there has to be something there (setting a default wallpaper, installing a default phone/sms app so your phone works as a phone) and actively choosing to act against the user (restricting what I can install on my own device, including via dark patterns, or telling me that I'm not allowed to grant apps additional permissions).
> For instance, should you be able to text message one million people at a time? You might want to, but Android doesn't offer that feature.
There's a difference between not implementing something, and actively blocking it. While we're at it, making it harder to programmatically send SMS is another regression that I dislike.
> Do you want to install spyware on your girlfriends phone? Maybe that's your idea of complete freedom, but the fact that Google makes it harder, is a good thing, not a bad thing.
Obviously someone else installing things on your phone is bad; you can't object to the owner controlling a device by talking about other people controlling it.
> If you don't like their choices, you should be able to install other software you do like. There should be completely free options that people can choose if they desire. But the majority of people just want a working phone, that someone like Google is taking great pains to make work safely and reliably.
Okay, then we agree, right? I should be able to install other software I like - eg. F-Droid - without Google getting in my way? No artificial hurdles, no dark patterns, no difficulty that they wouldn't impose on Google Play? After all, F-Droid has less malware, so in the name of safety the thing they should be putting warning labels on is the Google Play.
I've lived through them locking down a11y settings "to resist coercion, ensuring that users aren't tricked into bypassing these safety checks while under pressure from a scammer", and it's a nightmare. It's not just some scare text, it's a convoluted process that explicitly prevents you from just opening the settings and allowing access. I'm not giving them the benefit of the doubt; after they actually show what their supposed solution is we can discuss it, but precedent is against them.
> Seems reasonable?
No. As I said before, any solution that disadvantages F-Droid compared to the less trustworthy Google Play is a problem.
This was already the case for enabling sideloading at system level: it warned you. Nobody really says having this toggle is a bad thing, basically the user shouldn't get an ad network installing apk's just browsing around the web without their informed consent (and android has been found to be vulnerable to popunder style confirmations in the past).
They also already had the PlayProtect scanning thing that scans sideloaded APK's for known malware and removes it. People already found this problematic since what's to stop them pulling off apps they just don't like, and no idea what if any telemetry it sends back about what you have installed. There have been a handful of cases where it proved beneficial pulling off botnet stuff.
Finally, they also have an additional permission per-application that needs to be enabled to install APK's. This stops a sketchy app from installing an APK again without user consent to install APK's.
The question is: How many other hurdles are going to be put in place? Are you going to have to do a KYC with Google and ping them for every single thing you want to install? Do you see how this gets to be a problem?
That describes the current (and long-established) behavior. App installation is only from Google's store by default and the user has to manually enable each additional source on a screen with scare text.
Even that is a step too far in the wrong direction. Doesn't matter if it's free, or whatever, simply requiring an account at all to create and run software on your own device (or make it available to others) is wrong.
There exists no freedom when you are required to verify your identity, or even just provide any personal information whatsoever, to a company to run software on your device that you own.
(And install GrapheneOS, the more successful open Android becomes, the better.)
Tech has a strong tendency to favor outcomes with only a handful large players that make competition impossible due to network effects, etc., distorting the market. The Digital Markets Act was made to address this problem.
IANAL, but Google's Android changes seem like a fairly clear violation of the DMA.
This is typically hard for people from the US to grasp (I saw that you are not originally from the US though). In Europe, capitalism is not the end goal, the goal of capitalism is to serve the people and if that fails, it needs to be regulated.
---
As an aside, the lengths people go to defend a company with $402.836B yearly revenue :).
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_single_market#Four_fr...
When 99% of government/banks/etc require you to use a certain service to access basic services, you need some way of ensuring you don't have to sell your soul to use it. Alternatives would be really great, but Google is part of a duopoly.
Just because you build the rails doesn't mean you get to decide who gets to use the trains.
The truth is, I gave party C money for a product. Party B does not get to say anything about what party C gave me. And they absolutely do owe me something, and that is the use of the product they gave me for my money. Whatever their terms of service say about licensing versus owning should not trump the fact that I made a one-time purchase and I have physical ownership that they cannot revoke. This is not a car lease where I have a contract with the dealership and they can reposses the car if I don't make the payments.
It's been our choice to drink this glass of wishful thinking while giving that company a solid dominant position in the market.
We ("you") can only make choices that will overturn that trend.
Fully opensource hardware with fully opensource software? Maybe, but also this is wishful thinking.
MSFT Market cap: 2.951T AAPL Market cap: 3.883T
Edit: this will likely exist "uncensored" in other markets but conform to the PRCs standards and practices domestically, similarly to how tiktok operated prior to selling a version specifically taylored to US censorship and propaganda.
This is what lack of options does to a MF
Say it with me: “Living in a police state is bad no matter who’s running it”.
You may theoretically find it advantageous to use such a system anyhow. To a first-order approximation, the danger a government poses to you is proportional to its proximity to you. (In the interests of fairness, I will point out, so are the benefits a government may offer to you. In this case it just happens to be the dangers we are discussing.) Using the stack of a government based many thousands of miles/kilometers away from you may solve a problem for you, if you judge they are much less likely to use it against you than your local government.
But China certainly won't put out an "open" anything.
Maybe it's just my experience.
Not Google controlled for sure but also not open.
As far as HarmonyOS i dont see many uptakes outside strict US free requirements as the other OEMs are lazy and also dont want to be locked into a competitor.
SailfishOS looks like its your time to faceplant once more , by not having a proper stratergy on monetizing on the many missteps from the current monopoly.I thonk at this point they need a leadership/biz stratergy overhaul - the tech is nice and polished, user demand is off the charts for an alternative . And they are just .. missing. Not even in th e conversation.
Where you been? They already had Huawei get kickbanned by Google and made their own OS (it's not more open): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HarmonyOS
This view NEEDS to be central to the tech freedom rhetoric, else the whole movement is literally just begging politicians and hoping corporations do the right thing... useless.
(these are honest questions and not "gotcha")
To recap the storyline, as far as I understand it: last August, Google announced plans to heavily restrict sideloading. Following community pushback, they promised an "advanced flow" for power users. The media widely reported this as a walk-back, leading users to assume the open ecosystem was safe.
But this promised feature hasn't appeared in any Android 16 or 17 betas. Google is quietly proceeding with the original lockdown.
The impact is a direct threat to independent AOSP distributions like Murena's e/OS/ (which I'm personally using). If installing a basic APK eventually requires a Google-verified developer ID, maintaining a truly de-Googled mobile OS becomes nearly impossible.
I don't think this is true, right? An AOSP build can just decide to still allow installing arbitrary APKs. Also see this post from the GrapheneOS team:
https://mastodon.social/@GrapheneOS@grapheneos.social/116103...
So at the very least you’d have to keep patches up to date.
Long term divergence could be enough that’s it’s just a hard fork and/or Google changes so much that the maintainer can’t keep the patches working at the same pace
I couldn’t read your link as it asks to join mastodon.social
I know iPhones aren't affordable for the layman in many countries. But for anyone with an option, why would you buy an Android? All the "customization" things I cared about when I was on Android are either doable on an iPhone now with better implementation, or something I don't care about.
I was a die-hard until I went through enough cycles of Google deprecating and reinventing their apps and services every year, breaking my workflow/habits, that I got sick of them and moved to Apple everything. And all the changes I've seen since then are only making me happier I got out of the ecosystem when I did. Unlimited Google Photos backups with Pixels are gone, Google Play Music is gone, the free development/distribution environment is gone, etc.
If people can't even develop for the thing without going through the Google process, they're really just a shitty iOS knockoff.
You must find truth. Lies will find you.
I don't see a real future for Andrioid as an open platform unless the community comes together and does a hard fork. Google can continue to develop their version and go the Apple way (which, funny enough, no one has a problem with). Development of AOSP can be controlled by a software foundation, like tons of other successful projects.
It's the same as the situation with Chrome/Chromium. There are a million "de-Googled"/"privacy focused" alternatives to Chrome all using the same engine, and when Google pushed manifest v3 changes to block ad-blockers every single one of them was affected.
You are making an orthogonal point. Yes, Google maintains AOSP. No, that does not mean that AOSP OSes that are not in Google's Android program (calling it that to avoid semantics games) have to adopt this change. If you want to hear it from the experts: https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/116103732687045013
That's just objectively wrong, both Brave and Opera still support manifest v2 and are committed to continue doing so for the foreseeable future. Even Edge apparently still has it, funnily enough.
We need some pro-consumer regulations on hardware which mandate open platforms. Fat chance of that happening, though, as the likes of both the EU and US want these locked down systems so they put in mandatory backdoors.
It will cost a lot of money and as long as Google is still doing regular AOSP code drops, what's the point?
Google listened.
Blame the judge for one of the worst legal calls in recent history. Google is a monopoly and Apple is not. Simple fix for Google...
Remember how hard Amazon had it to attempt an Android fork?
I was due to OEM SOC access being locked out due to those contracts....
Any open source mobile OS attempting to complete with AOSP needs access to mobile OEM soc providers not touched by AOSP contracts and currently that is somewhat hard.
It's time to say goodbye.
Nothing lasts for ever. The sooner you make the switch, the better off you will be.
stackghost•1h ago
I own a Pixel and while the hardware seems decent, I've had a buggy and annoying experience with Android, and it's been getting worse lately.
Are Google so high on their own supply that they think people use their phones out of preference for the OS? Because frankly it's not very good. That's like Microsoft thinking people use Teams because of its merits.
People buy Android phones because they can be had cheaper than an equivalent iPhone and because in spite of the buggy and inconsistent mess of an OS, you aren't beholden to Apple's regimented UX. Locking down Android will not give it a "premium experience"... It'll always just be "Temu iOS" at best.
StopDisinfo910•1h ago
Honestly having gone back and forth between iOS and Android every three years or so, both OS are the same. It's not like the grass is really greener on the Apple side. The UX is virtually identical for anything that matters. Personally I put material Android above liquid glass iOS. The alleged polish of the Apple UX was lost on me when I had my last iphone.
The reason Google's moves are surprising has more to do with them embracing being a service player more and more with the arrival of Gemini and them having regulators breathing down their necks everywhere.
I guess they did it after the truly baffling US decision in the Epic trial but it's very likely to go against them in the EU.
tadfisher•1h ago
StopDisinfo910•1h ago
gf000•1h ago
Come on, that's absolutely laughable.
There are several topics where Android is significantly ahead to the point that iOS is just a toy, and there are areas where the reverse is true.
And I say that as a recent convert, so it's not like I have a decade out of date view of any of the OSs. In my experience I had more visual bugs in case of iOS than android (volume slider not displaying correctly in certain cases when the content was rotated as a very annoying example).
stackghost•1h ago
It's not, though. Google phones are not going to suddenly become luxury devices.
It's going to remain at the same level of polish (i.e. mediocre), except now without the major selling point of being able to run your own apps and have alternative app stores, etc. Back around Ice Cream Sandwich or thereabouts they got rid of "phone calls only mode" and forced us to rely on their half-baked "priority mode" that's an opaque shitshow.
When my wife is on call she gets random whatsapp notifications dinging all night, whereas when I had an iphone I could set Focus mode and achieve proper "phone calls only".
Android is not good. I use it despite its flaws, because of the trade-offs, not because it's better.
gf000•1h ago
stackghost•1h ago
malfist•1h ago
Pixel Fold disagrees.
> When my wife is on call she gets random whatsapp notifications dinging all night, whereas when I had an iphone I could set Focus mode and achieve proper "phone calls only".
You can do that with do not disturb.
> Android is not good. I use it despite its flaws, because of the trade-offs, not because it's better.
That is your opinion. My opinion is different.
drnick1•1h ago
Android is good, but Googled Android is not. You should check out GrapheneOS to see what Android done properly looks like.
franga2000•1h ago
And yes, I can also click one button and go into phone calls only mode. I can even set it on a schedule or based on my calendar. I don't know where you're getting your half-baked Android, mine Just Works.
You might not agree with every one of those points, but you can't seriously think everyone thinks like you. Go outside your bubble some time.
stackghost•58m ago
Where do you live? I've literally never seen anyone using a Fold or Flip device, ever. My kids are at the age where some of their peers are starting to get phones. All those kids have iPhones.
franga2000•9m ago
And I don't quite see your point about your kids' friends using iPhones. I sure as hell wouldn't give a kid a "luxury" phone. I'd take the cheapest thing that does the job and lasts a long time. An iPhone has a very long software support window so the cheaper models actually end up cost-competitive with budget Androids.
As for folds and flips, I've mostly seen people in suits using them, along with a few techy power users and some kids with rich parents. That's a luxury phone in my book.
drnick1•1h ago
stackghost•1h ago
drnick1•49m ago