I just remain skeptical that this tactic is successful on modern Android, with all the settings and scare screens you need to go through in order to sideload an app and grant dangerous permissions.
I expect scammers will move to pre-packaged software with a bundled ADB client for Windows/Mac, then the flow is "enable developer options" -> "enable usb debugging" -> "install malware and grant permissions with one click over ADB". People with laptops are more lucrative targets anyway.
The use case they're trying to protect against is malware authors "coaching" users to install their app.
In November, they specifically called out anonymous malware apps with the permission to intercept text messages and phone calls (circumventing two-factor authentication). https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2025/11/android-de...
After today's announced policy goes into effect, it will be easier to coach users to install a Progressive Web App ("Installable Web Apps") than it will be to coach users to sideload a native Android app, even if the Android app has no permissions to do anything more than what an Installable Web App can do: make basic HTTPS requests and store some app-local data. (99% of apps need no more permissions than that!)
I think Google believes it should be easy to install a web app. It should be just as easy to sideload a native app with limited permissions. But it should be very hard/expensive for a malware author to anonymously distribute an app with the permission to intercept texts and calls.
And how hard/expensive should it be for the developer of a legitimate F/OSS app to intercept calls/texts?
This should not be required for apps that do HTTPS requests and store app-local data, like 99%+ of all apps, including 99% of F-Droid apps.
But, in my opinion, the benefit of anonymity to you is much smaller than the harm of anonymous malware authors coaching/coercing users to install phone-takeover apps.
(I'm sure you and I won't agree about this; I bet you have a principled stand that you should be able to anonymously distribute malware phone-takeover apps because "I own my device," and so everyone must be vulnerable to being coerced to install malware under that ethical principle. It's a reasonable stance, but I don't share it, and I don't think most people share it.)
But yes they are my devices, and I should be able to do exactly what I want with them. If I'm forced to deal with other developers incredibly shitty decisions around how they treat VoIP numbers, guess who's going to have a stack of phones with cheap plans in the office instead of paying a VoIP provider...
But no, I have no interest in actually distributing software like that further than than the phones sitting in my office.
Getting someone to verify their identity before they have the permission to completely takeover my phone feels pretty reasonable to me. It should be a cheap, one-time process to verify your identity and develop an app with that much power.
I can already hear the reply, "What a slippery slope! First Google will make you verify identity for complete phone takeovers, but soon enough they'll try to verify developer identity for all apps."
But if I'm forced to choose between "any malware author can anonymously intercept texts and calls" or "only identified developers can do that, and maybe someday Google will go too far with it," I'm definitely picking the latter.
But these developer verification policies don't make any exceptions for permission-light apps, nor do they make it harder to sideload apps which request dangerous permissions, they just identify developers. I also suspect that making developer verification dependent on app manifest permissions opens up a bypass, as the package manager would need to check both on each update instead of just on first install.
I don't believe that it is. I follow this "scene" pretty closely, and that means I read about successful scams all the time. They happen in huge numbers. Yet I have never encountered a reliable report of one that utilized a "sideloaded"[1] malicious app. Not once. Phishing email messages and web sites, sure. This change will not help counter those, though.
I don't even see what you could accomplish with a malicious app that you couldn't otherwise. I would certainly be interested to hear of any real world cases demonstrating the danger.
[1] When I was a kid, this was called "installing."
Most of the apps on my phone are installed from F-Droid. I guess the next time I get a new phone I'll have to wait at least 24 hours for it to become useful.
I'm seriously considering Graphene for a next personal device and whatever the cheapest iOS device is for work.
> In addition to the advanced flow we’re building free, limited distribution accounts for students and hobbyists. This allows you to share apps with a small group (up to 20 devices) without needing to provide a government-issued ID or pay a registration fee.
i.e. Government-issued ID and fees are needed for more than 20 devices, e,g, every app on F-Droid
Note that the OP is about side loading, i.e. installing apps from non-Play Store sources and thereby circumventing developer verification.
Developers can choose to not undergo verification, thereby remaining anonymous. The only change is that their applications will need to be installed via ADB and/or this new advanced flow on certified Android devices.
Either way, you can still distribute your apps wherever you want. If you verify your identity, then there are no changes to the existing installation flow from a user perspective. If you choose not to verify your identity, then the installation will still be possible but only through high-friction methods (ADB, advanced flow). These methods are high-friction so anonymous scammers can't easily coerce their victims into installing malicious software.
That means those apps still keep on existing, they are just more of a hassle to install.
- Must enable developer mode -- some apps (e.g., banking apps) will refuse to operate and such when developer mode is on, and so if you depend on such apps, I guess you just can't sideload?
- One-day (day!!!) waiting period to activate (one-time) -- the vast majority of people who need to sideload something will probably not be willing to wait a day, and will thus just not sideload unless they really have no choice for what they need. This kills the pathway for new users to sideload apps that have similar functionality to those on the Play Store.
The rest -- restarting, confirming you aren't being coached, and per-install warnings -- would be just as effective alone to "protect users," but with those prior two points, it's clear that this is just simply intended to make sideloading so inconvenient that many won't bother or can't (dev mode req.).
Something like Github's approach of forcing users to type the name of the repo they wish to delete would seem to be more than sufficient to protect technically disinclined users while still allowing technically aware users to do what they please with their own device.
Scammers aren't going to wait on the phone for a day with your elderly parent.
24 is just so long.
But also, my expectation is that a scammer is going to just automate the flow here anyways. Cool, you hit the "24 hour" wait period, I'll call you back tomorrow, the next day, or the next day and continue the scam process.
It might stop some less sophisticated spammers for a little bit, but I expect that it'll just be a few tweaks to make it work again.
There will be some proportion of people who mention to their spouse/child/friend about how Google called them to fix their phone, and are saved by that waiting period.
They have infinite time and patience.
"Google will call you again tomorrow to get you your refund."
There, we've successfully circumvented all of Google's security engineering on this "feature."
https://youtu.be/YIR-nJv_-VA?t=121
They don't mind being patient when they have dozens of other victims in the wait queue.
tl;dr of this post is that Google wants to lock down Android and be its gatekeeper. Every other point of discussion is just a distraction.
JFC. Why would an app be allowed to know this? Just another datapoint for fingerprinting.
0: https://developer.android.com/reference/android/provider/Set...
If you turn off developer options, then to turn off the advanced flow, you would first have to turn developer options back on.
What apps are those? I've yet to run into any of my banking apps that refuse to run with developer mode enabled. I've seen a few that do that for rooted phones but that's a different story. I've been running android for a decade and a half now with developer mode turned on basically the whole time and never had an app refuse to load because of it.
Hi, I'm the community engagement manager @ Android. It's my understanding that you don't have to keep developer options enabled after you enable the advanced flow. Once you make the change on your device, it's enabled.
If you turn off developer options, then to turn off the advanced flow, you would first have to turn developer options back on.
>- One-day (day!!!) waiting period to activate (one-time) -- the vast majority of people who need to sideload something will probably not be willing to wait a day, and will thus just not sideload unless they really have no choice for what they need.
ADB installs are not impacted by the waiting period, so that is an option if you need to install certain unregistered applications immediately.
Someone is just going to make a nice GUI application for sideloading apks with a single drag-and-drop, so if your idea is that ADB is a way to ensure only "users who know what they're doing" are gonna sideload, you've done nothing. This is all security theatre.
Not applying the policy to adb installs makes a lot more sense if the people this is trying to protect don't have a computer
This just adds the step of "download Cool ABD Installer from the play store" to the set of directions I would think.
It says something about 'restart your phone and reauthenticate' that's why I'm asking. What do you autenticate?
> ADB installs are not impacted by the waiting period, so that is an option if you need to install certain unregistered applications immediately.
Um yeah but then do I have to install every update via adb? I want to just use F-Droid.
Google: I already said I love it, you don’t have to sell it to me.
Enable dev mode, sideload the apk, then disable dev mode. I'd argue that it is poor opsec to keep developer mode enabled long-term on a phone used for everyday activities, such as banking.
Wondering how long the blogpost would be if it explained what the flow for corpoloading applications approved by Google's shareholders would be?
The onus of protecting people's wealth should fall on the bank / institution who manages that persons wealth.
Nevertheless, this solution is better than ID verification for devs.
I'm not sure what you're getting at with the rant about police power and a state? Google isn't the government either. What would legislation provide that banks can't already do today?
It's nice that Zelle has checks and identity information shown to you when you're sending money, but if I click through 5 screens that say "Yes I know this person" but I actually don't.....no amount of regulation is going to solve that.
Now if only Android would allow for stronger sandboxing of apps (i.e. lie to them about any and all system settings).
I suspect they are hoping users just give up and go to the play store instead. Google touts about "Play Protect" which scans all apps on the device, even those from unknown sources so these measures can barely be justified.
Imagine if Microsoft said you need to wait 24 hours before installing a program not from their store, which is against the entire premise of windows.
Computing, I once believed was based on an open idea that people made software and you could install it freely, yes there are bad actors, but that's why we had antivirus and other protection methods, now we're inch by inch losing those freedoms. iOS wants you to enter your date of birth now.
The future feels very uncertain, but we need to protect the little freedoms we have left, once they're gone, they're gone for good.
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...?
Edit: I've put one up there now - if there's a better article, let us know and we can change it again. I put the submitted URL in the toptext.
I don't have a Google account on my Androids. But I can't remove play services on them, sadly. As an intermediate protection I just don't sign in to Google play, that gives them at least a bit less identifying information to play with.
I hope this can be done without a Google account.
You will not need a Google account.
It's not a win by any means. I hope that we don't stop making noise.
Ruining Android for everyone to try to maybe help some rather technologically-hopeless groups of people is the wrong solution. It's unsustainable in the long run. Also, the last thing this world needs right now is even more centralization of power. Especially around yet another US company.
People who are unwilling to figure out the risks just should not use smartphones and the internet. They should not use internet banking. They should probably not have a bank account at all and just stick to cash. And the society should be able to accommodate such people — which is not that hard, really. Just roll back some of the so-called innovations that happened over the last 15 years. Whether someone uses technology, and how much they do, should be a choice, not a burden.
So long as the 5g chips and the 2 mobile app stores remain under control, then 5 eyes has nearly full coverage.
That's ridiculous. Phones are being made more and more of a requirement to participate in society, including by governments.
Having to wait a day for a one off isn't a big deal, if they kept it looser then you'd be shouting about the amount of scams that propagate on the platform.
I'd say this has nothing to do with preventing scams, but to make independent software more difficult to distribute.
Yeah, I know... Stockholm syndrome...
Although I may not have to live with it, as none of my present devices are recent enough to still receive ota updates.
Context: I don't use alternative app stores. I occasionally side-load updates to apps that I've written myself, and very occasionally third party apps from trusted sources.
Like when Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, et al. cooperated with¹ the unconstitutional and illegal² PRISM program to hand over bulk user data to the NSA without a warrant? That kind of harm to my personal data that I did not intend?
If so, I'd love to hear an explanation of why every Google/Alphabet, Facebook/Meta, and Microsoft application haven't been removed for being malware already.
¹ https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/06/us-tech-giants...
² https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/us-court-mass...
More people moving to GrapheneOS is the best tool we have against Google's continued and escalating hostility to user freedom and privacy and general anti-competitive conduct. (Of course, you could ditch having a smartphone entirely..., but if you're willing to consider that you don't need me plugging an alternative).
mzajc•2h ago
- You need to enable developer mode
- You need to click through a few scare dialogs
- You need to wait 24h once
I wonder how long this will last before they lock it down further. There was a lot of pushback this time around and they still ended up increasing the temperature of the metaphorical boiling frog. It still seems like they're pushing towards the Apple model where those who don't want to self-dox and/or pay get a very limited key (what Google currently calls "limited distribution accounts").
throwuxiytayq•24m ago
This is so overt.