From 2026/2027 onward, Google will require developer verification for all Android apps on certified devices, including those installed outside of the Play Store.
If you are an app developer, do not sign up for the early access program, perform identity verification, or accept an invitation to the Android Developer Console. Respond (politely) to any invitation with a list of your concerns and objections.
— It is only through developer acquiescence that their takeover plan can possibly succeed. —
Discourage fellow app developers and organizations from signing up to the program. Use community forums, social media, and blog posts to spread the message.
Ciao! I am Stypox:
- Passionate contributor to free software and board member of NewPipe e.V., enjoys writing code to replace apps and services that do not respect the user
- Member of MindsHub, a no-profit focused on education and team work around informatics, electronics and 3d printing
- Participates to competitive programming and cybersecurity competitions and is a tutor for younger students
- Studies Computer Science at ETH Zürich
- User of Manjaro Linux with KDE and owner of a Fairphone 3+ with /e/OS
I'm currently working on:
- Dicio: an Android voice assistant (available on F-Droid and Play Store)
- NewPipe: an Android YouTube frontend with many cool features the official YouTube app doesn't have (available on F-Droid)
- dicio-numbers: a Java library for multilanguage number parsing and formatting
- Tridenta: an app to view public transport information in Trentino (available on F-Droid and Play Store)
- Curricust: a Rust program that allows writing a CV in YAML and turning that into LaTeX and PDF
Other projects I'm proud of are:
- Crop detection: an AI model to detect crops in images, a building block of MindsHub's Cyberorto, an autonomous farmer
- Plotter: some scripts and algorithms to print G-code, text or images with a custom-made 2D plotter
- Quadermas: an Android app to access "Quaderno Elettronico Mastercom" (available on F-Droid)
- Olympiad exercises: the competitive programming code I've produced to train for the Italian Olympiad in Informatics
- Insigno: an app by MindsHub that gameifies reporting and collecting trash (available on F-Droid, Play Store and Apple Store)
