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Google's shocking developer decree struggles to justify the urgent threat to F-Droid
(www.neowin.net)
this post was submitted on 29 Sep 2025
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Google’s developer verification will only run on mainstream Android with play services. It’s not supposed won’t be running in standard AOSP so the easiest solution would be to switch to a custom ROM like GrapheneOS.
They are also working to similarly kill custom ROMs. Just recently the GrapheneOS team mentioned that Google is no longer making their hardware drivers Open Source, and so compatibility with new phones means reverse engineering their own drivers - which is a big reason that custom ROMs support such narrow hardware options already and very often come with limitations and/or features that just don't work. At best, they figure out how to make it work, but it takes time and updates can lag significantly behind.
We have a lot of options on the software side for avoiding google (or android), but very limited options on hardware. We need open source mobile hardware support ASAP.
But remember, unlocking bootloader is harder and harder for many devices. And Google's Play Integrity and API changes makes removing trace of unlocked bootloader harder. Many apps not just banking, ChatGPT, games, some of social media is completely unusable in that scenario.
While true, the pool of unlockable devices are dwindling fast.
True…. I heard GrapheneOS is having trouble porting to the Pixel 10
Also, aren’t some critical apps like banking apps starting to ban unlocked / non-stock systems? Heard someone complaining about this a while ago.
Yes, banking apps, streaming apps, even some shopping apps. This has been a problem for a long time. Sometimes its for “security” reasons and sometimes its simply because the app uses Play Service APIs. Another issue on de-googled systems is push notifications, though that is often fixed through alternates like Unified Push
I don't have that choice in Denmark due to NemID.
Like other people have suggested, maybe get a second phone (one of those really cheap ones with play Services) and use that for that stuff, and keep your main personal phone google-free.
At this point the solution seems to just be having a second phone for that kinda shit
I don't like that my neighbours are noisy, guess i should get a second house for when they're shouting
ah yes because phones are $400,000-$1,000,000+