Sucks to see Google going forward with this.
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It’s a notice for that mythical user that cares enough about their privacy to use Obtanium, but not quite enough to use a third-party OS like GOS.
There are many degooglers who use Obtainium but refuse to buy a Pixel.
Posts here frequently discuss Pixels as either a financial burden or hard to obtain in certain parts of the world.
Many people who care about their privacy either can’t unlock the bootloader or feel that installing a different OS is too technical.
So, I don’t see why it would be hard to imagine someone using Obtainium but not GOS or another third-party OS. It seems that the developers don’t see it either.
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Unfortunate that Google plans to move forward with this. Though, I imagine something like Obtanium will continue to operate as it is primarily used by GOS users. The bigger impact will likely be felt with F-Droid.
Good for Obtainium … don’t kyc yourself to Google.
The link in the initial notification: https://keepandroidopen.org/
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There are also apps that are not in the playstore, but needed to be installed in a normal google phone.
For example my grandmother bought a Samsung A phone, sadly I wasn’t able to convience here to go to a Google Pixel 7a with setup GOS (Every app, even banking, would work and I do the setup).
I need Rustdesk on her phone, to help her solve some problem, if I can’t physically come to her.
Which works pretty good, however Rustdesk is not on the Play Store or Galaxy store. The only option to get the APK is from the offical GitHub page.
It is a bit of a hazzle, but I was able to still install RustDesk on her phone with Obtanium.
a few months ago I got an S25 FE thinking that this apk stuff wouldn’t go through due to all the backlash. Cant even unlock the bootloader on this thing.
Wouldn’t be surprised if multiple modded and FOSS apps stopped working on regular androids due to this measure.
iOS is starting to look real good ngl, might switch to iPhone.
If only Apple kept the 6.1 inch form factor or even had the same dimensions as an S25
Also didn’t Google say after the backslash that they would put an advanced flow? Which they still did not specify what that advanced flow it is, it doesn’t seem outright prevention but the unclear nature does tell me it may not sound good. Hopefully it isn’t too complicated to get to.
Oh well at least there’s GitHub - sam1am/anyapk: Install any apk on the device you own. and to my understanding, the FOSS App Manager (one from F-Droid/Github) is implementing or has implemented one too to my understanding so there’s that. I would wait for further news honestly and check out the keep Android open site to make your words heard so the EU, Japan, US and more go after Google for this.
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Google will provide an easy way to still install it. This is just Privacy Sandbox 2.0, they will fail. I would not be too concerned.
off topic (choice and Android)
Samsung was terrible before this change too, I do not think bootloader unlocking was a flagship feature of theirs ever like it was on Pixels.
I will just say that I see this sentiment a lot and it weirds me out a bit. People complain about Proton Mail being bad in XYZ way, then say they will switch to fairmail/* insert mail provider* which is unencrypted and not even the same product.
Similar sentiments plague “I dislike what Android (an open ecosystem you do not need a Google account to use and can get by with foss apps) in a minor way, so I will switch to iOS (walled garden that attaches your identity to every action you take, is hostile to FOSS apps and reproducibility, etc )”. Interesting revealed preferences. Is it because a lot of people wish to use Apple and are limited by budgets or ideology, and blaming the options for lacking specific things makes it easier to rationalize the purchase?
Regardless, if you are ever interested in exchanging the Samsung, Pixels have decent stock experiences, and GrapheneOS is unparalleled in my experience.
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google will not still provide an easy way, we dont even know what advanced flow still means, they didn’t even clarify what they meant by it. If they wanted to keep it easy, dont change the flow
Offtopic
and the last one essentially means with the direction google is going with Android, iOS is basically a similar thing now, either option wouldn’t have mattered in that sense. With things like on device processing being better on apple front, google nor samsung even exactly bothers providing doing many things on device. But thats just one of many outside of EMTE, Lockdown Mode, ADP, how it handles Apple Pay, Homekit and more things that do tend to respect privacy of their users as a whole contrary to controversies (now of course this excludes things like Apple App store ads and stuff like that apple does which is bad). Apple is not necessarily the worst option at all and GrapheneOS recommends it as the second best (with Lockdown mode as second best), with first basically still being Pixel with GrapheneOS
The blog post by Google has clearly said there will be two ways to bypass installs:
- Developer/Student accounts (Which is the easy flow, with a separate account)
- Advanced flow with anti-coercion measures (which is what you are referring to)
This might be the confusion here. Google made similar noises about Privacy Sandbox in chrome, this is a similar measure.
off topic, but no further
No it is not. This proposition is exactly what Apple wants people to think, and signs of someone who falls in the “rationalize a negative purchase” defeatist mindset. I wish to end this discussion here to prevent polluting the thread further.
No, if you read them carefully, they always recommend them for security, but not wholesale recommend them. Apple is good at reasonable security, I agree. The features you highlight are not unique or special to Apple though, and again shows how well Apple fools folks who wish to rationalize a switch. This is exactly the issue I highlighted.
But I do not think this discussion will be be productive, since I have noticed your posts tend to have a mix of rudeness, exaggeration, and misinformation from where I am seeing (you might of course be entirely correct and I could be incredibly wrong, but alas, my mind uses what I think as anchor). I hope you respect this and do not engage personally with my posts. I will try to do the same 
the developer/student account isnt something google is going to be giving nilly willy, even then to publish an application that still goes back to the android developer verification problem so no
Once again with no clarification on what the advanced flow is, We cannot say for sure this is helpful to the situation. Basically it should never be treated as factual that it will be easy or hard to the user until we get the clarification and make a conclusion based on that.
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Or users in countries where it’s extremely expensive if not almost impossible to procure a Pixel. Or users that wait for their phones to die before buying a new one, since it’s both environmentally and financially wasteful to buy a new pocket computer if your old one still works fine. Or users that have an android based retro console that would prefer not to mess with it, but would still like a central location for app updates.
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off-topic
for me its exactly the opposite, I have a very poor eyesight and big displays are kinda a necessity for me.
Haven’t used “normal" sized phones in a while tho, maybe 6.3 inches from the base iPhone 17 isn’t as small as I think it is.
since they stopped the Plus lineup, now there’s no way of getting a “budget" big iPhone 
Because I’m not too deep into the “privacy rabbithole". I’m a young guy, deleting my social media would ruin my social life.
Similar thing with Google kinda, GMaps and the YT algorithm are way too good, can’t live without them unfortunately. That’s why I don’t really care about fully degoogling
I could be wrong, but I see iPhones (and the apple ecosystem to an extent) as good privacy friendly options without sacrificing convenience.
I like Pixels (and Graphene) tho, the only reason I got this Samsung instead it’s because I got a very good student discount.
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koocmit did say not to continue further with the apple topic, you’re not exactly wrong, but I would read this:
Pixel + GOS doesn’t matter. There are other third party Android OSes in town, but they all won’t be Google-certified and thus won’t be affected. I’ve never heard of degooglers using stock Android.
So installing a new OS is too technical, but installing a third party app and pointing it at git repos to install apps is totally cool?
I’d expect those users to use f-droid which is much simpler to use and does have RustDesk, but your case is the legitimate exception where your gradma might be affected by Google’s chances.
I am not sure why you are resisting just acknowledging the fact that there are indeed people using Obtainium on “certified” Android devices that still care about privacy.
I understand that, anecdotally, that has not been your experience. The mere presence of the notice alone should be evidence, that contrary to your experience, those people exist.
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Because I’ve read too much about GOS and Android and Google. If you’re on certified stock Android, you have an advertising multi-trillion dollar mega corp that’s running admin apps in some privileged sudo mode on your phone. At that point using Obtanium for the sake of privacy is just privacy theater.
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To me it just seems like you are making a lot of assumptions about people based on a small amount of factors.
The reality is there are all sorts of reasons people
1 - use obtainium
2 - are stuck using a “certified” device
3 - care about privacy
none of these things are mutually exclusive. All these things can be true at the same time.
If you feel those people are just deceiving themselves into privacy theater, fine. That doesn’t make them some sort of “mythical” combination of person though.
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