Android could soon be a very different place.
    • @[email protected]English
      3•56 minutes ago

      You can’t really open a android store unless you make phone and ship with your own store. Like Samsung one, it’s listed in the play store contract, almost all forms of paying developer directly is not allowed. There are many conditions/steps and warnings if you tried to install apps off the play store, some of them waive your warranty. You also open the phones to potential scammer to have identical looking website and instruct users to install app that steal identity.

      • @[email protected]
        1•46 minutes ago

        Note, I am not a heavy phone user and didn’t buy one in years. So my view is limited and I have no idea how the current market is working. So don’t take my replies as “he knows better”, but more like “what he thinks”.

        Fdroid can’t be installed by any Android? Its a shop that is installed once like Android store and then it manages and updates all apps from that store. Google is in a similar position like Steam, where the monopoly is only about market share. But the platform is still open.

        You also open the phones to potential scammer to have identical looking website and instruct users to install app that steal identity.

        Yes, but that is not Googles fault or task. Every shop has to make sure its secure and is outside of Googles responsibility. So this point is completely irrelevant for the discussions about being a monopoly. It’s like saying Steam is responsible for virus and identity theft because someone installed an application on another launcher, just because Steam is seen as a monopoly (I don’t agree Steam being a monopoly, just tried to explain what I mean with context to Android).

    • @[email protected]
      10•2 hours ago

      Probably because 3rd party app stores can’t install apps like the play store can. you need a rooted phone or flash them as a system app to get the same functionality as Play Store. which isn’t something your average Joe will do.

      On a normal unmodified phone you have to manually confirm each app you want to install. so no auto-updates in the background etc.

    • @[email protected]English
      10•2 hours ago

      And computers have always allowed for you to write your own software. If you don’t know how to do that, though, it may as well not be an option.

      This is is making those alternative stores accessible to the average user:

      Google will have to distribute rival third-party app stores within Google Play

      Technology chauvinism is unbecoming, and unhelpful, both to others, and to your own understanding of the world around you.