As you may have gathered by now, Google is set to add requirements for any app installed on your phone, pushing it towards a walled garden like Apple's eco system.

Instead of, you know, just being able to install what you want on your own device, they are now making it harder and I think it's highly naive to think it'll simply stop there.

For some reason Google actually claims this is to "keep it open and safe".

I use open source apps from F-Droid because proprietary Play Store apps are riddled with trackers, malware and all sorts of funny business. With open source, the motives aren't profit and data collection. It's by and large a product of passion and actual interest.

Developer Verification will kill a lot of software. It's like when Google killed tracker blockers on Chrome.

I didn't start using blockers for ads, I did it for the trackers. But ads are largely trackers. And with time I grew very tired of how companies operate and didn't mind the ads being blocked anymore. They don't give a damn about users unless they make them money and it's important that we push back against damaging developments like this new "Developer Verification" program.

Any suggestions on how to counter this?
What's GrapheneOS's stance on this? Will GrapheneOS do away with this requirement and allow for so-called "sideloading" (aka, just installing an app...) like today?

Also, can we stop calling it side-loading instead of what it is? Which is just installing an app, like we're used to on our PCs? The term isn't doing us any good and makes it seem like you're not supposed to be able to just install what you want. For some reason, this has become the narrative for phones...

Articles:
https://www.androidauthority.com/android-developer-registration-3591988/
https://web.archive.org/web/20250825221004/https://9to5google.com/2025/08/25/android-apps-developer-verification/

Google's own information:
https://developer.android.com/developer-verification/
https://developer.android.com/developer-verification/guides