[scrollop]

Will F-droid continue when Google bring in their changes, soon?

[microtonal]

Even with Google's changes, F-Droid will continue to work with Android phones that do not use Google GMS.

If you care about your actually owning your device, install something else than stock OS. I would recommend GrapheneOS, since the security of some/most other alternatives is pretty bad.

[miroljub]

GrapheneOS works only with Pixel devices, which doesn't make it much useful for the vast majority of Android users.

[scrollop]

Would love to ditch google and use grapheneOS, however have so many banking and (stupid) outlook for work.

[jona-f]

AFAIK every popular Android phone uses a qualcomm modem chip with a separate OS that has complete access to ram. NSA most certainly has a backdoor there and such complete access to any Android phone. This was common knowledge after the Snowden stuff. I don't think this has changed at all since. Only few niche phones (pinephone) separate these systems or have a hardware switch to disable the cellular system.

[echelon]

This piddly open source effort pales in comparison to what we should really be doing:

Horizontally splitting Google into multiple companies.

Not division via department splits, but equal partitioning across the company into multiple horizontal businesses that compete on the same offerings.

The EU and next DOJ/FTC need to force this.

[duskdozer]

As of now, Google isn't destroying non-Google android installs, so F-droid will still work there (correct me if wrong). So until Google takes android fully closed or succeeds in getting popular/necessary apps to blacklist non-Google-verified devices, F-droid still has a role

[asacrowflies]

I still think they are planning on coming down side loading and app dev registration with newer phones

[asacrowflies]

https://keepandroidopen.org/

[izacus]

Is there a KDE/GNOME/kernel-like group forming to take over Android AOSP development and provide free alternative yet?

[riedel]

I hope so. The changes can mean two things: people can only use it easily in custom roms (I guess there is an overlap there) or they actually would play with Google: i guess technically they could as well register and sign the stuff with a Google key as the software is all FOSS and would allow defining another responsible developer (otherwise Google would have to through out all FOSS without CLA from their playstore). I guess quitting would be an option, but IMHO the outrage outside the bubble would probably be hardly noticable, so what would be the point?