Sounds a bit like trying to transfer my own money to myself at the bank. I.e. it seems designed to prevent old people getting scammed.
Sounds a bit like trying to transfer my own money to myself at the bank. I.e. it seems designed to prevent old people getting scammed.
That's exactly what this is: Google is trying to prevent tech illiterate users from installing malware.
(Or at least, that's their take on this. You can choose to read between the lines, or not, as to whether they have other motivations also.)
Define malware.
The scams this directly targets are well known and common. Someone gets a phishing message, they have someone install some sort of malware on the device, then their bank accounts are drained into some offshore account never to be seen again.
That's why there's a requirement for restarting the phone and waiting 24 hours.
The restart ends the connection for any remote-access software or phone call that might be driving the operation -- and the 24 hour wait period breaks the "urgency" part of the scam that prevents other people who know better from stopping the vicim from continuing.
Malware is whatever Google says it is.
Of course they have other motivations
But for 1 person wanting to run their own software there are hundreds of people with the potential to install malware/crapware/etc
Had to read that sentence twice. You really think that there's more people getting scammed via "please tap the build number seven times and then go to extra settings and enable untrusted installs and then go to this website that I will dictate the URL of and you should ignore that install warning" etc etc etc. to install an apk to run software that can barely access more than a simple webpage could, than there are people (like HN'ers) who install apk files from github and f-droid?!
(Also note that "crapware" describes basically every app you find in google's store. I try on occasion, when nobody made an open source this-or-that, and it's such a minefield. If that's the thing you're trying to avoid, I don't know how you could possibly feel positive about a requirement to only use the Play Store for the tech-illiterate)
> You really think that there's more people getting scammed via "please tap the build number seven times
Yes, because this whole procedure is new
> Also note that "crapware" describes basically every app you find in google's store
Go back to emacs then I guess
Yes! That is because banking malware is specifically what is being targeted here: https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2026/03/android-de...