RIP banking apps and Mc Donalds on GrapheneOS
The reason I felt forced to iOS. No more choice. No more GrapheneOS or CalyxOS for me. Or at least that would make my life very difficult. National ID authentication, banking apps had stopped working.
GG Google. Destroy what made Android.
Time to get downvoted to oblivion.
I see a lot of people questioning why Google would do this and the answer is pretty simple.
Google created a tool a long, long time ago which was meant to make sure traffic from a device was “legit”. This tool is 100% optional and app developers can use it if they would like. However, the tool was easy to bypass, so over the years Google has been making the tool harder and harder to bypass.
This article is just sharing news that Google is once again making this tool harder to bypass.
So why is Google doing this? They are doing this because they don’t want their tool to be bypassable. Their tool is worthless if it can be bypassed.
The tool in question here is the Play Integrity API (previously known as the SafetyNet Attestation API). This is a tool that is offered to app developers that app developers can take advantage of if they want. The selling point of the tool is if you have operation in your app that is critical, you can try to prevent some abuse by verifying that the app is running on a “trusted build of Android” and that the app itself has not been modified from the original. That’s all the tool does.
This isn’t a new API. This isn’t something Google is trying to force app developers to use. No. From Google’s point of view, they are just making sure their tool does it’s job properly.
As for why companies might choose to use this tool, a big reason is because Android is a huge target for fraud. Apple has locked all their stuff down so it is much harder to commit fraud on iOS (not impossible though). Although Apple offers something similar, there is generally less fraud coming from iOS devices vs Android. It’s the double-edged sword of having a more open platform.
Companies are obviously not going to be happy to be the target of fraud so they have to weigh their options. Either they block a small percentage of their users that are possibly legit by implementing Play Integrity API or they risk losing a % of their income to fraud.
Now you can disagree with the tool’s job, I’m not trying to argue whether the tool is good or bad. That is extremely subjective, but hopefully this answers why Google is making this change.
Yeah except that bot farms already use hardware that will pass the checks, unlike regular harmless users who will get hurt by this. Google comes after the good guys
This trend of being actively hostile toward your user base is so confusing to me.
They project that they’ll make more money by forcing people to accept surveillance so they can run their apps, even if they lose a few users and app developers by doing so.
I’ve always been of the opinion that apps are almost always useless because there is usually a way to do it through a web browser and if there isn’t I don’t need it. And its usually better because then I have more control (in firefox anyway).
For example the youtube app is entirely unuseable but if I open firefox and use ublock and no script then suddenly I can actually use the website.
uBlock + NoScript + SponsorSkip + DeArrow + Untrap
I hate that I have to use 5 extensions to make the site usable, but this is still better than the alternate front ends (specifically because they don’t have recommended videos)
i use firefox forks for mobile, op12r-
Is users stop using custom ROMs, Google loses nothing.
That´s standard enshittification. They know they´ve got users locked in without any alternative.
It would be confusing if everyone didn’t simply tolerate it.
One of the reasons to always cheer on (new) competitors and why we should give new companies a fair chance to establish something
The problem is that systems like this have strong network effects working in favor of the established options, nobody develops for platforms without users, nobody wants to use a platform without apps, development has more resources (existing libraries, tutorials, reference documentation,…) on existing platforms,…
Their user base is not who you think they are. The people you think are users are just assets, it’s okay to be hostile to your assets
Their goal is to ensure OEMs only bundle Google-approved Android for which Google charges licensing fees and which funnels users into Google services. If a phone won’t run your banking app, you probably won’t buy it.
I would totally buy a phone that doesn’t run my banking app. What do people even do in there ? The only thing I use it for is my balance and purchase history 😆
What do people even do in there ?
In France some banks illegally force users to use the banking application to approve online transactions as a security feature.
They could implement OTP as an alternative but they don’t because they are lazy.
Which ones? I’ve been on Boursorama, CA and SG, and they all provide SMS 2FA if you don’t want to use the app.
It depends which local branch. CA and the Caisse d’Epargne lied to me about it. BoursoBank is good though.
Mobile check deposit is a moderately important use case in the USA. It would be possible to do that via the web, but banks usually don’t.
Regardless, any apps refusing to run will annoy users, and they would likely blame the one brand of phone where that happens instead of the app developer or Google who actually deserve the blame.
they are an oligopoly. people doesn’t have much choice.
they attracted users by making a good product, now they are leveraging their dominant position.
It’s so confusing it only makes sense to business majors. /s
Google’s updated Play Integrity API
How can these people talk about “integrity” when they break real existing phones?
I call this the opposite of integrity.
Bit hyperbolic, don’t you think? Rooted/Custom ROM users are so tiny, and they typically use security vulnerabilities to obtain root access. It’s not exactly surprising that Google closes those vulnerabilities when it can.
Google can’t exactly make root access and custom ROMs easier to use in 2025. It isn’t 2010 anymore - as soon as rooting becomes easy again, and people are bypassing security measures you know the big orgs, copyright holders and children’s apps will complain to the media and suddenly Google has a shitstorm to deal with.
Just wait until they find another vulnerability, lol.
Many devices, including Google’s own Pixel devices have user-unlockable bootloaders. No security vulnerabilities are involved in the process of gaining root access or installing a third-party Android distribution on those devices.
What’s going on here isn’t patching a vulnerability, but tightening remote attestation, a means by which a device can prove to a third party app that it is not modified. They’re selling it as “integrity” or proof that a device is “genuine”, but I see it as an invasion of user privacy.
Google can’t exactly make root access and custom ROMs easier to use in 2025.
Sure they can. They’re in a much stronger position to dictate terms to app developers than they were in 2010 when it was not yet clear there would be an Android/iOS duopoly.
They don’t want to though, because their remote attestation scheme means they can force OEMs to only bundle Google-approved Android builds that steer people to use Google services that make money for Google, and charge those OEMs licensing fees. A phone that doesn’t pass attestation isn’t commercially viable because enough important apps (often banking apps) use it.
Unlocked bootloader ≠ Root access.
Correct, but it is necessary to unlock the bootloader to gain root access without exploits.
Many people use LineageOS and GraphineOS for security, privacy, and features that base Android simply doesn’t ship.
Or is it rather your definition of security or vulnerability that is questionable.
The fuck did you just call me? Ill have you know im actually HUGE
EU Antitrust when?
Nothing anti-trust about genuine un-rooted and un-modified devices having secure access to the play store.
It’s when you lock out phones that come from Huawei/Oppo etc. because they are Chinese, that you might be able to make a point.Google using market power to push “trust” technology bound to their Play Services (which is one of the requirements for their “Android” certificate).
It is when the play store is not the only store allowed on devices. Their play services, with this change, are again acting as a monopoly, and again will be again be sued by the eu for violating anti trust laws.
It absolutely is, forcing people to use one OS on their device is insane. Fuck Google, they can take my GraphineOS Pixel 9 from my cold dead hands.
If I don’t have Play Integrity spoofed, my iPhone friends get an error when they try to RCS message me. This pretty much breaks communication for me.
I have zero problems with this on Lineage. ?? No spoofing either, just Lineage.
This is the future of the Big Tech Internet if we’re not careful. Attestation to be able to use communications and other websites.
It doesn’t make it “tricky”, it makes it impossible.
Troja has been impossible to conquer. Until.
This better not break GrapheneOS right when I was planning to switch to Android, or I swear I’m buying a dumb phone and Google can kiss my business goodbye forever.
If you don’t need any Google malware, you aren’t at risk.
GrapheneOS comes without them by default.
Seriously, what is wrong with Google?
Too big and entrenched
Google is doing this because they have incentives to do so. They want to block malicious actors like attack their platforms.
Other companies want to lock down their own apps because they don’t think users should be permitted to do anything other than use their apps exactly as they want.
I don’t like it as a user, but I also see the reason why companies want this by being on the security side of software.
Okay? Like, ive been rawdogging this no Google GrapheneOS thing for 2 Years now, and Ive Bad not a single Problem until now
Same. The vast majority of my apps are from F-Droid or directly from the dev, and only a handful are from Google Play, and those are all on a separate profile. There’s only 2 or 3 I actually need, and I can probably work around those.
Screw you Google, my next phone will probably be a Linux phone so I don’t need to deal with this crap anymore.
Fuck Google Play
on devices running Android 13 or later.
Sounds easy then: stay on the latest Lineage that does not incorporate A13.
While I wouldn’t say Google is actively hostile towards these power users,
Author is obviously sold out. Are they even trustable?
I ain’t clicking on an android authority article. Does anyone know if/how this would effect Graphene?
Already does. Some apps just don’t work. It’ll notif. And say Google api failed to validate login to your Google account. Example app EBay.
Interesting. If I just don’t use any apps from the play store and only use stuff from fdroid with no play services I should see no issues though yeah?
There’s always a chance any app, even from fdroid, will require play services, but that’s still highly unlikely. You should be fine with fdroid alone, yes.
can confirm, I’m running GrapheneOS right now with F-Droid and some extra repos as my only app store, it works fine for me. but I don’t use banking apps (web browsers do fine for that), and I’m using a de-Firebase-d version of Signal (Molly F-Droid) so no issues so far with no GMS and no SafetyNet.
edit: I should add that a new GrapheneOS update just released, this is in the release notes:
- disable anti-competitive code being injected by the Play Store into apps choosing to enable “App integrity > Automatic protection” when there’s a valid Play Store source stamp signature (proving that it’s an unmodified app from the Play Store, so we aren’t disabling an integrity check) since it prevents using the apps on GrapheneOS when apps also choose to enable “App integrity > Store listing visibility” with either the “Device integrity checks” or “Strong integrity checks” values enforcing having a device licensing Google Mobile Services and running the stock OS (circumventing this is protected by the DMCA exemption for jailbreaking)
so it looks like the devs are actively working around this issue and making changes to allow those checks to pass even without the ROM licensing GMS.
The guys over at GrapheneOS removedslap Google regularly, and I love it.
Long as you beware that F droid apps could be malware or some other kind of bad actors. It’s a free range marketplace just be smart. Just because something is FOSS or open source doesn’t mean it’s free of bad stuff.
TF does eBay need the device to be verified for ?
No idea but that is one I know about. Apparently the list keeps growing of these API calls being denied or flagged.
Wasn’t this on Pixels already?
