Google on Thursday announced a new "advanced flow" for Android sideloading that requires a mandatory 24-hour wait period to install apps from unverified developers in an attempt to balance openness with safety.
The new changes come against the backdrop of a developer verification mandate the tech giant announced last year that requires all Android apps to be registered by verified developers to
The move, it added, was done to flag bad actors faster and prevent them from distributing malware.
This also includes potential scenarios where cybercriminals trick unsuspecting users who sideload such apps into granting them elevated privileges that make it possible to turn off Play Protect, the anti-malware feature built into all Google-certified Android devices.
However, the mandatory registration requirements have been met with criticism from over 50 app developers and marketplaces, including F-Droid, Brave, The Electronic Frontier Foundation, Proton, The Tor Project, Vivaldi, who say they risk creating friction and barriers to entry, and raise privacy and surveillance concerns in the absence of clarity about what personal information developers must provide, how this data will be stored, secured, and used, and if it could be subject to government requests or legal processes.