The alternative ROMS will be affected by this because many applications will require a Google account to function. There will be workarounds, but overall this effectively changes how the phone I spent my money on works: they are altering the terms of the deal.
many applications will require a Google account to function
Yeah, it might be a good time to stop using those apps. That’s privileged statement I know since I started using Lineage as part of my smartphone-purge, but when it comes to many every day tasks, I haven’t ran into any problems.
Note every day tasks don’t involve:
Using Whatsapp*
Taking Uber
Going to any professional sports game
* I did find a way to bridge Whatsapp to Matrix-Synapse through an old iPhone and a docker container which is neat.
I don’t have a Google account. I’ve had issues. The app for my CO2 sensor has the CHECK_LICENSE permission activated, which asks your phone for a Google account. I can’t use it with the new version of the apps. I’ve complained and the company responded that I should have a Google account so there is no issue. We shouldn’t need to make workarounds and bridges to use the gadgets we buy.
According to the blog post, LOS simply won’t include the AndroidDeveloperVerification package. If that’s really all (for now), people with custom ROMs who also mainly use F-droid don’t have much to worry about. It might actually bring a few more people around to degoogled Android.
How about LineageOS?
The alternative ROMS will be affected by this because many applications will require a Google account to function. There will be workarounds, but overall this effectively changes how the phone I spent my money on works: they are altering the terms of the deal.
Yeah, it might be a good time to stop using those apps. That’s privileged statement I know since I started using Lineage as part of my smartphone-purge, but when it comes to many every day tasks, I haven’t ran into any problems.
Note every day tasks don’t involve:
* I did find a way to bridge Whatsapp to Matrix-Synapse through an old iPhone and a docker container which is neat.
I don’t have a Google account. I’ve had issues. The app for my CO2 sensor has the CHECK_LICENSE permission activated, which asks your phone for a Google account. I can’t use it with the new version of the apps. I’ve complained and the company responded that I should have a Google account so there is no issue. We shouldn’t need to make workarounds and bridges to use the gadgets we buy.
Just cracked the spine of Cory Doctorow’s Enshittification. I’m right there with you.
— Lineage OS blog, Developer Verification: What it is, and how it affects you
So it looks like there’s just a small hurdle to get it working.
According to the blog post, LOS simply won’t include the AndroidDeveloperVerification package. If that’s really all (for now), people with custom ROMs who also mainly use F-droid don’t have much to worry about. It might actually bring a few more people around to degoogled Android.