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Japan forces Apple and Google to open their mobile platforms • The Register (www.theregister.com)

submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Doesn't Google already let you do this?? My Android phone doesn't even have Google Play Services, I just only use 3rd party stores. If I want an app from Google Play I get it through Aurora.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Ah wait, I should've read the article lol:

The law allows local authorities to name "designated providers" of a certain scale – currently only achieved by Apple and Google – and require those providers to do three things:

Allow third-party app stores on their devices;

Allow application developers to use third-party billing services;

Enable users to change default settings with simple procedures, and offer choice screens for tools like browsers;

And it forbids them doing three more:

Engage in any form of preferential treatment of their services over those of competitors in the display of search results without justifiable reason;

Use acquired data about competing applications for their own applications;

Prevent application developers from using features controlled by the OS with the same level of performance as the one used by Designated Providers.

So Google already allows 3rd party app stores and lots of settings (although these are always hit and miss, even in the custom ROM scene - I can't get pocket detection right now and my phone keeps doing things in my pocket), but the 3rd party billing and choice screens applies to them.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

unrelated to the OP but a suggestion for your problem:

Waveup has a setting to lock the screen after X seconds with the proximity sensor covered, it's not very sophisticated and thus it can be a bit over-eager, but if the phone being interacted with by your leg while in the pocket is driving you up the wall then this should fix that.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Ty, but I think I'm just gonna switch from my dodgy Chinese Xiaomi phone to the refurbished Pixel 7 Pro I have. I mean, I've had it for like e months now, one of these days I will. Although, I really will miss my IR blaster, even though I hardly ever use it it's nice to be able to change the TV in the pub lol

Edit: lmfao I just changed the TV 10m away, had Tour de France on, but now it's basketball.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

How do you acces your bank account without an app that requieres Google Play Services running? All bank accounts in Europe require a smart phone app for 2FA even when you log-in on a browser. I can install bank apps via Aurora, but almost all of them won't run without Google's Software.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Run Magisk in Zygisk mode with the deny list hiding itself from banking apps.

However I would advise not using the banking app if you can help it, they're not clean. Hell, even accessing online banking via a website seems to require connections to google.com and gstatic.com to perform hidden captcha (you don't have to do the picture thing but it still does the server side tracking).

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

There's no way anyone in Europe can use a bank account without a banking app. As I said, even if you log-in on a browser on a laptop, authentication still requires you grab your phone and use the banking app to authorize the log-in from that laptop once in a while, or any transaction.

Unfortunately, the solution you propose is technically too advanced for most people, including me. Is using GrapheneOS with its sandbox feature good enough of a protection?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

I'm in Europe, and I don't use banking apps. For the most part anyway, one of my credit cards pissed me off by switching to app only, then eventually I relented with one bank because I wanted a 2nd account that required the app.

Banks either verify by SMS (lol) or provide a passkey fob.

GrapheneOS should provide some measure of protection. You can also perhaps disable some tracking features using something like Warden (requires root) - although this hasn't been updated in years and probably misses stuff now.