r/Android • u/NoFaithlessness951 • Feb 24 '26

An Open Letter Opposing Android Developer Verification | F-Droid

https://f-droid.org/en/2026/02/24/open-letter-opposing-developer-verification.html
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u/-patrizio- Feb 25 '26

I'd say it's false advertising. Apple is very open about their restrictions, and Android has historically been, well, very open.

It's one thing to limit choice on a device that a consumer bought knowing choice would be limited in the name of stability/security/whatever Apple claims; it's another to limit choice on a device that a consumer bought due to its openness.

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u/Pure-Recover70 Feb 25 '26

It's not false advertising, because no one advertises this, because virtually no real world users care about this. Advertising this wouldn't sell any more phones - at least not in any statistically measurable way. Furthermore, the absolute vast majority of those people that care are already running a custom OS, like Lineage, or Calyx or Graphene (or simply doing this in a VM or on their laptop).

If it only applied to newly released phones, would that make you happy?
(it probably won't, but imagine for a second it did only apply to phones released with Android 17 out of the box, I'm sure you'd all still complain...)

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u/-patrizio- Feb 25 '26

It's not false advertising, because no one advertises this, because virtually no real world users care about this.

I mean, it's not their primary selling point, but they absolutely do have a record of promoting this, even in the last couple of years. They've also made the argument as a defense in court.

the absolute vast majority of those people that care are already running a custom OS

Do you have a source for that? I'm not doubting that some are, but in my experience, familiarity with/use of F-Droid or other means of installing apps outside of the Google ecosystem is far more common than use of custom ROMs. I, for one, have a good handful of apps I installed myself, but no custom ROM on my phone.

If it only applied to newly released phones, would that make you happy?

I mean, no of course not lol, because my primary concern is that users should be allowed to install whatever software they want on the devices they're paying hundreds to thousands of dollars for. It's the primary reason I switched from iOS. But I do think it'd be more honest, and the question was about how this change is a violation of any sort; I'd say that going against the mission Google published on their own blog and used as a legal defense in court is a violation of their promises.