this post was submitted on 07 Oct 2024
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But third party stores are already allowed and supported on Android?
"Allowed and supported" is something different then "its possible". The article mentions some points that seemingly haven't been "supported" in the past:
Thanks Mr. Epic Judge
This is all about the Play Store though, it has literally nothing to do with competing stores. I use F-Droid today and there are no restrictions from Google about what apps I can install through that store, whether I can pay for apps through that store (some apps have donation buttons inside), etc. There's nothing stopping Epic from distributing their own app store like F-Droid does even before this decision.
So I really don't understand what "cracking open Android" means here. All that seems to be happening is that Google is restricted from certain actions within its own store, which is absolutely fine by me (I don't use the Play Store), but I don't see any actual changes to Android or third-party app stores.
The closest is this one:
But Samsung already has its own app store, no? So is there any actual evidence that this was ever a thing?
They should place these restrictions on Apple, not Google, because Apple is the one doing all of this nonsense. Yeah, Google should be reigned in a bit, but they're really not the problem here.
Doesn't FDroid still not allow automatic updates due to restrictions in Android?
Meanwhile yes the Samsung galaxy store has extra power over other store alternatives because they are a powerful OEM and can modify Android as they like.
Other OEMs (ones that are often not able to use Play Services) also have their own 1st party app store. Amazon is one, but many others exist in China.
Fdroid has automatic updates since this year.
Not sure, but I generally disable them in any store I use anyway, because I like to be in control. So I'm not sure if it's a technical limitation or a technical choice.
So it's quite possible Google Play has elevated permissions to apply automatic updates. That said, I use GrapheneOS (on a Google Pixel device), so the Play store doesn't have those elevated permissions (I only use it for a couple apps on a separate profile), so I think it's not allowed to do automatic updates on my device as well.