Stop Google From Deciding Which Apps You Can Install
Android is open source, and anyone has always been free to write software for it and install it. Google now wants every developer to register with it and prove who they are first, even for apps that never go near the Play Store. Enforcement started in four countries on September 30, 2026. In 2027 Google plans to block apps from unregistered developers on every certified Android phone in the world, wherever the app comes from.
Take ActionAndroid is open source. Google has no business deciding what you can install on it.
What Google Is Doing
Android's code has been open source since 2008, and that openness is how it won. Phone makers could use it for free, developers could build for it without asking anyone, and it became the most widely used phone operating system in the world. Now that Google dominates, it wants to lock the doors, and the freedom to install software becomes something Google grants one developer at a time.
Your own phone asks Google before it lets you install software.
If you use F-Droid, or install apps straight from a developer's website, this will reach your phone. From 2027 Google plans to block those apps unless their developers register with Google, or you first sit through Google's day-long waiting process.
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Google calls it Android developer verification. Anyone who wants their app to install on a certified Android phone has to sign up with Google and give their legal name, address, email and phone number. Individuals upload government-issued ID, organizations hand over a D-U-N-S business number, and a full account costs $25. They also have to register each app's package name and the certificate it is signed with, so Google knows exactly which apps belong to which person.
The first phase, running in Brazil, Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand since September 30, 2026, covers apps from a set of "participating" app stores. From 2027 Google plans to cover every app, including apps that have nothing to do with Google. That means apps from F-Droid, the open-source app store, apps downloaded straight from a developer's website, and apps passed between friends. If the developer has not registered, the phone will refuse to install the app.
The open-source code itself is not changing. The block arrives through Google's own software on "certified" phones, the ones that ship with Google's apps and services. Google is using its hold over that software to put itself between an open platform and the people who build for it.
Google carved out "limited distribution" accounts for "students, hobbyists, and learners," which can share an app with up to 20 devices without ID or a fee. Go past 20 and full verification applies.
Why This Is About Control
Google says "malicious actors hide behind anonymity to harm users." What it builds is a register of every developer, held by one company.
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Google has brushed off the privacy concerns. Anonymity protects the people who build tools governments dislike. A developer writing an encrypted messenger or a censorship workaround in a country that jails people for that work will have to put their name and ID on file with Google before anyone can install it.
A register also gives governments one place to apply pressure. When a government wants an app gone, it no longer needs to find the developer. It only needs to lean on Google. This is already how app stores work. This fall Apple pulled the BitChat messaging app from its India store after a government takedown demand. Developer verification extends that kind of control to every Android app, wherever it comes from.
F-Droid warned that the rules will "end the F-Droid project and other free/open-source app distribution sources as we know them today." Independent app stores compete with Google Play. Under these rules, every app they offer depends on Google's approval of its developer.
The "Advanced Flow"
Google kept a way to install unverified apps, and made it as tedious as it could.
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Google first floated this escape route in November 2025, after the backlash. To install an app from an unregistered developer, you have to switch on developer mode, confirm nobody is talking you into it, restart the phone, wait a full day, and then confirm with your fingerprint, face or PIN. After that you can allow unverified apps for 7 days or indefinitely.
Google describes this as "a one-time process for power users." Keep Android Open sums it up as "Nine steps. A mandatory 24-hour cooling-off period. For installing software on a device you own."
Most people will never get through it, and a process like this is designed for exactly that. And because it exists at Google's discretion, a future update can tighten it or remove it.
How We Got Here
How to Argue Back
A quick reference for conversations and letters to regulators.
When they say: "It's about stopping malware."
Registration checks who a developer is. It does not check what their code does. Google Play itself has hosted malware again and again. Android already isolates apps from each other, asks before granting permissions and scans apps with Play Protect.
When they say: "It's Google's platform, so it's Google's call."
Android is open source. Phone makers and millions of developers built on it because anyone was free to. Google maintains the code, and that gives it no right to decide which software runs on phones other people bought.
When they say: "Honest developers have nothing to hide."
Plenty of honest developers have good reason to stay anonymous, starting with anyone building privacy or protest tools under a government that punishes it. A list of names and ID documents is exactly what such governments would ask Google for.
When they say: "You can still install anything with the advanced flow."
A day-long wait, developer mode and a forced restart are built to make people give up. Developers can still load apps from a computer over a cable, which is no answer for ordinary users. Both routes exist only as long as Google allows them, and one update can change them.
When they say: "It's only four countries."
That is only the start. Google's own timeline says verification goes global in 2027 and covers all apps on every certified Android device, wherever they come from.
Take Action
Keep Android Open, a coalition backed by more than 70 organizations, is fighting Google's registration rules before they reach the rest of the world. Here is how to help.
More Ways to Help
- Install F-Droid and get your apps from independent developers.
- Read and share the open letter signed by 71 organizations.
- Complain to competition regulators. Keep Android Open lists contacts for the US FTC and Justice Department, the EU's Digital Markets Act team, the UK's CMA and many more countries on its action page.
- If you build Android apps, the campaign asks developers not to sign up for Google's verification program.
- Find private alternatives to Google's apps in our Recommended Tools.