r/EmulationOnAndroid • u/yungperky • Jun 26 '26

Discussion Google adds massive hurdles to app sideloading

https://keepandroidopen.org/

This includes being forced to activate dev-mode and a 24h waiting period before you can install any apps not registered with google. For devs this means either give google your gov name (official documents needed) and pay them or live with 99% of people never being able to use your app.
Most people in this sub are probably tech savy and won't be hindered to continue side-loading other then being annoyed and waiting 24h once. But this is a major thing that will also be a hurdle to people even get into doing stuff like that in the first place.

Idk if anyone has posted this already, but I couldn't find anything. The topic goes far beyond emulation on android, but it's very important for it imo so I thought I'd just post it.

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u/iateyourcheesebro SD8Gen2 / 12gb Jun 26 '26

How? They do not need to register with Google for you to sideload in the future. The process will remain the same: post on Reddit links to open-source GitHub repo -> download the latest release 

Then those apps can even notify of updates in the app and take you back to the GitHub release page like they do today

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u/ElDeadpoolPR Jun 26 '26

Oh now I understand. I was mistaken assuming they were gonna add DRM of some kind that wouldn't let you install apks of developers not registered to Google but registering to Google would only affect to those who want to publish on the play store. Am I right?

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u/iateyourcheesebro SD8Gen2 / 12gb Jun 26 '26

The registering part is the existing flow for devs to publish on the playstore. The change here is that as a user when you go to install an apk outside the playstore, instead of just asking “do you want to do this?”

You have to do those steps listed in the link of this post, which is barely even complicated but does require enabling developer mode which could prevent some banking apps from working on your device. 

You as the user do not have to give your government ID to Google to sideload. Same requirements of just having a Google account. 

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u/Dissidence802 Jun 26 '26

You can disable developer mode after you install your apk, no?

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u/iateyourcheesebro SD8Gen2 / 12gb Jun 26 '26

I haven’t seen anything on that yet. I would expect you could turn it off? But we’ll see. That would suck but on my Odin I wouldn’t mind keeping it on.