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.
Other ROMs are usually very bad at security with many being late to secuity updates, not supporting bootloader relocking, and not using the secure element. I would not trust them in the hands of someone who isn’t tech savvy or is at high risk of hackers.
I suppose. Hey to each their own. I personally toy with the other ROMs a lot but I don’t yet have anything running a custom brew that accesses anything very secure etc.