Google says Android 12 will make using third-party app stores easier

Google says Android 12 will make using third-party app stores easier

“make it even easier for people to use other app stores on their devices while being careful not to compromise the safety measures Android has in place.”

I hope this benefits F-Droid!

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Sounds like it could be good, but we shall see. Hopefully its more than PR.

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Android 12 will make it easier to use third party app stores Google has announced through a blog post. The new change has come into place alongside a “clarity” being released specifically for Google Play’s payments policy

And you repeated that for?

Unlock able bootloader will make this easy. No gapps no privacy undermined.

That’s not the point, as the majority does not unlock, also that should not be the point, as disabling bundled apps should be easy.

And today that can be done, disable google apps and bloatware, mostly.

But the store part will still end up as “manual”, and people fancy an automated experience.

Some care has to be taken if disabling / uninstalling the Play Store as it provides regular important security updates for the webview provider. Also an increasing number of devices are part of Project Mainline which means they get some important operating system components updated via the play store


A neat way to get around this is to create a secondary user profile and keep Play installed there for getting these crucial updates

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It sounds much like an effort to avoid claims that they have a monopoly over distributing apps on Android with regard to antitrust regulations, though that’s not necessarily bad.

Though I’d imagine this to be something like Google-approved apps showing a slightly less scary warning when installing…

“[E]ven easier” is of course typical marketing speech, though admittedly, it is already easier in recent Android versions where the package manager (install dialog) no longer closes when unknown sources are disabled even if you then choose to enable them.

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You’re missing the point, you are still having a “rootkit” installed in the end, that’s not opensource and that’s controlling your device.

How about this neat feature: https://www.xda-developers.com/google-device-lock-controller-banks-payments/ ? Lovely…

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I appreciate its not ideal, but its a relatively easy way to improve things. Not sure of another good way for tracking, downloading and installing mainline component security updates.

Having Play Store only in a secondary user, and uninstalled for the main user, means that it can’t run until you start the secondary user. Which is a bonus

Google has root on your device, how would you even know what they do or don’t behind your back? Hehe

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