• lichtmetzger@discuss.tchncs.de
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    2 months ago

    Google has been been cracking down on installing .apk’s on your phone for years and they’re getting more and more aggressive about it. It’s not a question of if they’ll disallow it completely, but when.

    It’s already extremely tedious. Back in the Android 2.3 days (oh, good old Gingerbread) you could just get an APK and install it, but those times are long gone.

    Years ago they threated the developer of Total Commander to remove his app from the PlayStore unless he patched out an APK install feature, so he was forced to do that.

    Now another example: Try to install eBay on a phone that is not passing device integrity. You can grab an APK and install it, but recent versions of the app will just complain about missing Google services and close themselves.

    It’s one method at a time, slowly but surely, until Google fully controls the ecosystem. The intention behind that is pretty clear: They don’t want people to have AdAway and Revanced, they want money and user data.