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Google will block sideloading of unverified Android apps starting next year (arstechnica.com)
submitted 11 months ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] 4 points 11 months ago (2 children)

I honestly don't care about apps. I switched to GrapheneOS and opted to not use Google Play Services, so my app selection is very limited, especially for things like banking apps. It turns out I can just use the website for the vast majority of them, and I can fill in the gaps with FDroid apps.

The main things stopping me from using a Linux phone (eg PostmarketOS) are:

  • MMS compatibility - I use this a lot with family, and getting everyone on Signal or something isn't going to happen
  • battery efficiency - the best I've heard is 8 hours with light use, and there are still issues receiving notifications in standby mode
  • hardware quality issues and drivers - every phone supported by PostmarketOS either has a bunch of unsupported hardware (ie no camera support), or the hardware is poor (ie the PinePhone has crappy audio)

I don't need a flagship with top tier driver support, I just need basic phone things to work. I'm even okay with poor camera quality, provided I can take pictures of things and clearly read the text later. I don't need much in terms of app support, and I'm willing to help port things I need. But my phone needs to work as a phone, and it needs to do so all day without needing to charge until night.

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  • [–] 3 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    The only way to log into my bank on the website is to use the phone two factor authentication app, which only works with Google Play Services... 💩

    I'm considering getting a dedicated login device which can sit on my desk all day doing nothing else.

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago* (2 children)

    Which 2FA app is that? I use Aegis (replaces Google Authenticator, available on FDroid) and Symantec VIP (from Google Play, but via Aurora and runs w/o Google Play Services). Is it something different?

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  • [–] 3 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    Most of them don't support generic 2FA codes and sadly require some sort of proprietary app that talks to their servers. Setting them up usually also requires some sort of identification; think receiving a pin in the post. As far as I can tell, the only other option for me is to rent some sort of pin generation terminal from the bank which is, of course, ridiculously expensive.

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  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago

    That sucks.

    Unfortunately (or fortunately) banks here (US) generally only support SMS 2FA and occasionally support email, and a handful use the their app (but fall back to SMS).

    I actually switched to Fidelity (a brokerage) as a primary bank because they were the only one I could find that supported real MFA using the Symantec VIP app, which fortunately works fine without Google Play Services.

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  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    Yeah, I tried to use it as my daily driver a while back and what bugged me most was the terrible battery efficiency. Running the full desktop version of Firefox certainly didn't help. At that point the camera also didn't have any drivers. Since theres been some progress and we now have a work in progress driver for that model. Frankly it's amazing that this works at all and I'm incredibly grateful for anyone working on this.

    I've actually been rather lucky and managed to convince most of my friends to join me on Signal so we barely need to rely on SMS anymore. But last time I checked there weren't any real Signal clients availabe for Linux phones. Of course, one could always use the desktop version but that still requires a phone to be linked to. Someone has managed to get the Matrix/Signal bridge working and rely on Matrix for the final delivery but that seems like too much tinkering for me :D

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  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago

    Don't get me wrong, I think the work that's been done is amazing, my point is that it's still not daily driver ready. I want to help out, I just don't have the time anymore with a full-time job and kids. If it was daily drive-able, I could probably spare a few hours here and there to improve things (port apps, track down bugs, etc).

    I hope it gets there before I need a new phone. Last year I switched to a Pixel 8 for GrapheneOS and cut out most of my Google Play apps, so I should be good for a few years, but I'd very much like to ditch Android entirely next time.

    For now, I got my SO to use Signal, but that's it.

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