A lot of apk devs of nice little unique and often free apks are made by people who aren’t going to want to hand over there identification and private info to Google in order to be verified.
If I understand well, even if you were able to install F-droid through the store (which you can’t because Google doesn’t like it), you won’t be able to install apps with F-droid anyway if they implement this.
Google has to allow other app stores in Google Play Store in 2026, if Google likes it or not is not relevant.
And yes, the question remains if you can download from F-droid after installing through PlayStore, i agree with you there (because of the verification thing). It depents on what the court thinks ‘sideloading’ is, since we already know what Google think it means…
Does this undermine Googles plans to block side loading?
Well, if i can download a F-droid app via Playstore… then i’m basically not “sideloading” anything. This could be interesting!
But the whole (paid) ‘verification’ thing still is troubling tho. And we know Google; they are good at breaking things one way or another.
A lot of apk devs of nice little unique and often free apks are made by people who aren’t going to want to hand over there identification and private info to Google in order to be verified.
I mean, they can still send the code to F-Droid and F-Droid can sign it under their banner. F-Droid doesn’t have to do ID verification.
There is no “under f-droids banner”. Any apk under any store or no store at all gets its check through google.
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My thoughts exactly. That could be very comfy for us users, but many devs will be (and justifiably so) wary of verifying themselves.
If I understand well, even if you were able to install F-droid through the store (which you can’t because Google doesn’t like it), you won’t be able to install apps with F-droid anyway if they implement this.
that’s why they’re pushing to lock down the devices themselves… that’s outside the scope of the ruling.
Google has to allow other app stores in Google Play Store in 2026, if Google likes it or not is not relevant.
And yes, the question remains if you can download from F-droid after installing through PlayStore, i agree with you there (because of the verification thing). It depents on what the court thinks ‘sideloading’ is, since we already know what Google think it means…