Ugh. My plan for now is to carry a bank card. 😅

Those still touch payment networks. Debit cards are basically cards from Payment networks that are partnered with Banks/Credit Unions. PSP/DC Payments is an example of a payment network, Everlink, Interac, Exchange, Cirrus, etc. Seeing as Carney/Canada are ok selling off those payment networks to US Private Equity, you're going to always be somewhat dependent at this point on US services. Like I'd bet you that most of Interac, even though it's "Canadian", is running in US Cloud platforms like Azure and AWS, meaning it's 'realistically' fair game for US AI harvesting etc. Canadian businesses that try to pretend they're 'good' on this front will almost always cite privacy legislation compliance, to things like "Data residency" -- pretending as though just because a copy of the data is stored in Canada, that it isn't exposed/leveraged/dependent on US/foreign services.

I do this.

I just did this and now I have a timer, but the toggle is still off.

MVP here. Thank you for posting this.

I know there are scams that convince people to install malicious apps that steal crypto or whatever. So long as there's always a workaround, I guess I'm not super opposed to protecting people who are... easily scammed. I don't like the waiting period part though.

Gonna be pretty embarrassing when people still get scammed even with this feature in place. I've already heard stories of some old person buying like $2500 worth of gift cards and the cashier, who has been prepped for this exact scenario, is powerless to stop them.

"Is someone telling you to buy these gift cards to settle a payment?"

"....n. n. no I need them for Christmas gifts."

"It's common for scammers to tell people to lie about why they're buying the gift cards. If someone told you to say that to me, they're lying to you. No legitimate business or government agency will require you to settle a payment using gift cards."

*clearly nervous but also now getting angry*
"No I need these for my grandkids!"

*sighs. Starts scanning cards*

android 8.1 fur me >:3
this phone probably has at least 10 CVE's I'm sure of it

None of that matters since in the Netherlands many shops are card only. I need to pay somehow... I'd rather not have all payments be controlled by two companies (Apple and Google). Getting off of US hardware is a laudable goal, but not as important as breaking monopoly power.

Ok, that makes sense. I'm just surprised I didn't hear about the workaround. No one had mentioned it that I've seen. I really thought I had to switch to Graphene, and I was sad.

[Angry ISO-8601 noises]

That's Canada's standard.

GrapheneOS currently, I have decided this is the last I'll have though. Back to the landline when this one breaks/is locked out of the walled gardens

Don't wait, do it now

F-Droid and Obtanium are going away for normal android users.

Sure, and normal users haven't even heard of them, so nothing's lost.

It doesn't sound like that website's up to date.

this whole thing is absolutely about Google making more money.

F-Droid has like 4,000 apps on it. Let's say all 4k are made by different developers. The $100 registration fee would net them $400,000. That's a drop in their bucket. That's like 1 second worth of their ad revenue. They would not cause this much of a community uproar for $400k. This is absolutely about preventing scam apps.

What's really happening, I'm guessing, is Android gets a bad rap in other countries because of all the scams and people switch to iPhone. That does a lot more damage to their bottom line.

It's also way too easy for some dumb 70 y/o congressperson or business executive to install spyware on their phone, and they are putting a speed bump in front of that.

I hate Google, but come on. They're not trying to squeeze pennies out of open source developers. The fee is another speed bump to stop scammers from simply making another free developer account to spread they're malware after they get banned.

Ah, then your card payments may also be generally 'good' for all I know, I'm not too familiar with how outsourced many European countries are in this regard.

The package (com.google.android.verifier) will be introduced on devices running Android 8 or higher, granting Google the ability to block the installation of unverified apps.

I'm fairly happy with my Linux phone. Not too worried :P

Fdroid is a far more secure and reputable store than Play.

Google hosts and distributes more malware than anyone.

I would rather have a netbook with a cellular modem than a phone at this point. They are all 6" diagonal slabs of brain cancer.

Landlines are all VOIP now unfortunately

So, I just checked and the button is back. Looks like the fuckers actually made it two days to wiggle out from under their entrapment-like gimmick. Now I have to wait another 24 hours.

It doesn't sound like that website's up to date.

That site is absolutely up to date.

Google absolutely aren't trying to make money from developer registrations, that's just removing administrative burden.

They're trying to make money from closing the platform. Google have been gradually working over the last few years to close Android, and this is just another step. It definitely won't be the last. They have made it much more difficult to get up to date source of AOSP security fixes. Commit history is squashed. Play Integrity API changes are a ruse to secure the platform, that just happens to lock apps out of GrapheneOS, the most secure Android variant.

Google realise that there is a real threat from an open Android platforms giving users a choice and that will eat their profit margins.

I think this will be the first and last time I got a flagship model. I'm going back to upper-middle range Samsungs, that still have the headphone jack. My 10+ years old ThinkPad is much better to use than my S23 Ultra, the only thing that is locked down is the WLAN card slot (really need to do that hack, I already bought the necessary tools for it).

Probably find something else to pursue that doesn't require dystopian technology. I can't imagine that I would just sit there and despair over it.

Continue to not own a mobile phone as I have done since the 80s

Never bought an Android and never will because I saw this exact shit coming

Yup, just checked and it's the same here. Button is back and I was able to turn on the countdown.

I moved to GrapheneOS a few years back and dumped their services for an Immich server and proton mail

My wife picked up a blister pack of gum recently, the package has 10 spots for gum but they now give you 9 and have modified the vaccuum forming machine to close out one of the 10. Lol. Just a blantant FU consumer.

Tell us what you come up with? If apple and android are out, it's gonna be sailfish or graphene on a thinning hw profile, right?

What's the hardware? Pixel?

So with apple locking hard way before android, now what are you proudly signall-uh, running, with neither of them as options?

Only because it's the global standard. This isn't our flag to wave, we're just in the sane majority here.

I have a furilabs phone i got in anticipation of this... turns out no service provider supports it in my neck of the woods. Kinda fucked

Stuck with Samsung phone so it looks like I'm fucked

Cross that road when it happens. Likely, next phone purchase will be a lot more annoying.

I'm assuming, then, though, that you do have a computer, in order to receive emails and such. Too much in society is attached to having other stuff: mailing address, email, phone number, two factor authentication, running privacy violating software on Windows, etc...

If you've been doing it since the 80s, have there been eras that have really challenged your desire or whatever to not have a mobile phone?

Do you think life would be much easier if you did have a mobile phone?

Why do you not have a mobile phone?

Do you think other or younger people should follow your lead?

I'm so curious about your story. I've thought about it many times, and as much as I think the technology is super cool and amazing, I also really wish it wasn't all but legally required to participate in so many aspects of society. It makes me wonder where you're from and where you live and if you're American or not.

I've been on Ubuntu Touch for a couple of months now! I'm enjoying it so far

Took too long for this comment to show up. It seems that too few people know this, which suits Google just fine, I assume.

I own a Fairphone, so switching to graphene would be trivial. However, I think I will stick with the convoluted workaround they will implement. At least until I get tired of it.

Yep started with a 7, now I'm on the 9. It has been great

I own, and love, my samsung Fold7, so afraid im kinda screwed.

if they kept 24 hour cooling off period, but it was just in general options, it would be theoretical defensible... but hiding it under developer settings is malicous.

I too have been Graphene'd up for years. I'm slowly working on ditching the last few bits of Google, just about the only thing left is an old gmail that's tied to a bunch of accounts, which I might keep around as a forwarding thing for a little while yet.

Waiting for Motorola linux phone.

Organic Maps

Is that better than OsmAnd?

Switches to Graphene OS earlier this year when my old phone kicked the bucket. Super happy with the change!

Kinda looking forward to the response on that

The majority of people will stick on whatever the companies give us. But at least Linux is having a nice run on desktop and laptop infrastructure thanks to steam being neat and Windows being garbage