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.
I agree with most of everything you wrote.
But banking apps and government apps is not a convenience, is a requirement, especially because, well, by law, they are required to provide an app and there is no choice around it. At least here.
I could indeed go back to bicycle everywhere I want to go and take in the train, but that is not convenience, that is life, so I need a car.
My point is that Google controls Android, whether they graciously allow us to have our foss Android and recompile it from sources is nice, but we still depend on Google and this is not good.
This is what needs to change, and there is no way around it.