Hacker News: runting

New comment by runting in "Answering questions about Android developer verification"

runting — Sun, 05 Oct 2025 10:26:25 +0000

Not a troll, just someone who read the article to see what these developer verification changes actually entail.

New comment by runting in "Answering questions about Android developer verification"

runting — Sun, 05 Oct 2025 10:22:39 +0000

What fraction of users do you think have a legitimate need to sideload apps on Android? I would imagine it's much less than 0.5%. Developers and technically-minded power users must be a tiny minority amongst Android users given that it has an install base in the billions.

New comment by runting in "Answering questions about Android developer verification"

runting — Sun, 05 Oct 2025 10:06:42 +0000

Google have full control to do this on their Pixel devices by rolling out new firmware with further restrictions - though there is no evidence they plan to do so.

However other vendors that build upon AOSP, such as Samsung, can make their own decisions on this.

New comment by runting in "Answering questions about Android developer verification"

runting — Sun, 05 Oct 2025 09:59:10 +0000

That is speculation. Is there any evidence?

New comment by runting in "Answering questions about Android developer verification"

runting — Sat, 04 Oct 2025 07:43:14 +0000

This might open up a market opportunity for an "F-Droid box" that one would plug into an Android phone over USB, to install and update F-Droid apps over adb. Or the equivalent software for a laptop.

New comment by runting in "Answering questions about Android developer verification"

runting — Sat, 04 Oct 2025 07:39:08 +0000

On Android you can both install and run apps over adb. The linked article explains:

> Participating in developer verification will not affect your experience in Android Studio, the official IDE for Android app development. You will continue to be able to build and run an app even if your identity is not verified. Android Studio is unaffected because deployments performed with adb, which Android Studio uses behind the scenes to push builds to devices, is unaffected. You can continue to develop, debug, and test your app locally by deploying to both emulators and physical devices, just as you do now.

New comment by runting in "Answering questions about Android developer verification"

runting — Sat, 04 Oct 2025 07:35:18 +0000

Is there any evidence that Google plan to do this?

New comment by runting in "Answering questions about Android developer verification"

runting — Sat, 04 Oct 2025 07:33:35 +0000

Not really though, as you can still install apps over adb without developer verification, same as always.

New comment by runting in "Answering questions about Android developer verification"

runting — Sat, 04 Oct 2025 07:27:33 +0000

This isn't so bad. Unlike other mobile OSes (namely iOS and HarmonyOS), you will still be able to install whatever you like on Android over a USB debugging connection (adb) without any developer verification.

It doesn't take much effort to enable Developer Options, plug into a laptop and run "adb install whatever.apk". It's kind of like the floppy disk era again, having to physically insert things into one's computer to install software. Not a big deal.