If you haven’t seen this yet, Google is planning to require mandatory developer identity verification for all Android apps, including apps distributed outside the Play Store, taking effect September 2026. This affects every independent and open source Android developer directly.
This is not just about the Play Store. After September 2026, on any certified Android device, applications from unverified developers will be blocked by default. The only proposed bypass, the “advanced flow”, exists only as a blog post and has not appeared in any beta, dev preview, or canary release. No one outside Google has seen it.
The community has been fighting back at keepandroidopen.org:
- Read the full breakdown of what this means
- Sign the open letter (organisations only)
- Contact your national regulators — contacts listed by country on the site
- Add the countdown banner to your project
September 2026 is closer than it looks. The time to push back is now.
google can eat shit.
the moment I see a viable linux phone, I’m out.
But they did this knowing that at this point there is not a viable alternative. It’s both monopoly, vendor lock, eee and enshittification all at once…
by 2027 there will be a linux phone. consumers won’t put up with this shit and vendors aren’t so blind to see an opportunity.
2127…
2227…
2327…
2427…
Surely 2527 will be the year of the Linux phone…
There was already a Linux phone and even a Firefox phone, but with no wide app support it’s going to be a failure, just like it happened with Windows Phone.
And I’m saying this as a person who would love for a true Linux phone alternative to succeed.