How on earth is Google allowed to lock android using FRP and force everyone to sign-up using their phone number. Where is the EU ?
How on earth is Google allowed to lock android using FRP and force everyone to sign-up using their phone number. Where is the EU ?
I was looking at buying a new android device with either android 12 or 13. and I wasn't ready to see how all phones shipping with these versions have forced sign-up using a mandatory phone number. the step cannot be skipped , and workarounds are very tedious and sometimes require a PC.
Where is the EU when you need them. how is it acceptable to force people to sign-up to your spying software when they want to acquire a smartphone?
Are there no laws in place to forbid this type of bundling between hardware and forced subscriptions ??
Are there any privacy non profit organization that can take them to court ?
As already pointed out, this is not correct, at least not yet. On stock Android 12, you can skip adding a Google account. Everything will work except Google Play. So first step is to sideload F-Droid from its website, and then you'll have the run of the FOSS catalog. I know all this because I did it recently.
On a new laptop, however, Windows is becoming like what you report: you are forced to cough up an email address or phone number just to get it running. There's no validation step, though, so fake addresses are fine for now at least. So even if all you want to do with Windows is download and burn a Linux ISO, Redmond is going to require your personal details first. This is a completely scandalous situation.
So I agree with you completely. These are unacceptable trends and we are going to need to get better organized politically if we want them stopped.
Windows is becoming like what you report: you are forced to cough up an email address or phone number just to get it running
You can actually install windows 11 without a Microsoft account, but it is not at all obvious how to do it. You have to be disconnected from WiFi, run some commands in CMD, and reboot the computer. Then, and only then, the windows 11 installer will allow you to bypass the Microsoft account setup.
Edit: I know because I recently did this
Yeah I did hear about this workaround. But really, I resent being made to jump thru hoops like this, and so do you. Besides, we all know the deal with obscure loopholes - they end up being closed as soon as few enough people are using them. So at what point are we going to refuse to play these games?
As an intermediate step, I'd say the best option right now is sabotage. Play Microsoft's game but give them a fake useless email. If and when the email validation step comes, then we should create and use fake useless email accounts. All while making sure to gum up their systems with as much fake useless data of other kinds whenever it is asked for, of course.
Other option: get organized and have a LInux boot USB ready before buying the computer. That solves the whole issue.
Definitely hate the forced online accounts, luckily you can work around it still by making the installation medium with Rufus or during setup with one of those "test" accounts that due to being overused enable you go to local account creation instead.
You'll have to run the FOSS catalog
You can still get Play Store apps through the Aurora Store if needed
Sure, there are workarounds. But workarounds are a sticking plaster. The trends are all wrong and one day we are going to have to fight all this rather than work around it.
You can still get Play Store apps through the Aurora Store if needed
Searching for apps in Aurora is currently broken, requiring yet more obscure workarounds in order to install anything that is not super popular.
And then a large bunch of Play apps don't work or only half work because of a Google Play Services dependency, often totally superfluous to the needs of the app. Seems to me the writing is on the wall for free computing on Android.
On desktop there is slightly more hope, if only because the hardware is less cutting-edge so it's easier for FOSS to keep up with change. And because of the web, and PWAs. IMO these should be the focus of campaigning and regulation.
When setting up, you can skip adding a Google account. It's not mandatory. Neither is a phone number unless you want to actually use the phone as a telephone.
Whats frp?
Factory Reset Protection. a mechanism used to tie up the phone to a users identity so when its lost, someone else can't easily wipeout and factory reset it.
Factory Reset Protection (FRP) only applies if you signed in a Google account and then did a factory reset via the recovery or a computer without logging out of the Google account. The purpose is that if someone steals your phone, it's a useless brick without the ability to log back into that same Google account.
Unless you buy a stolen device, as a user, you should never have to worry about that.
If you really want to, you can just skip the Google account on first setup, unlock bootloader and nuke the Google stuff entirely.