- Last year, Google announced that developers would have to register even when users are only sideloading their apps.
- Eventually, Google backed down and offered to give advanced users an option for manual installs from unknown sources.
- Ahead of that rolling out, we’re seeing Google Play begin to prepare for this system’s arrival.
Update: January 18, 2026 (11:18 PM ET): After publication, we heard from Marc Prud’hommeaux, the founder of the App Fair Project and an F-Droid board member, who pointed out that the warning strings we referenced are not entirely new to Android. Versions of this language have existed in Android’s system-level Package Installer since at least July 2025. This suggests that Google has been preparing the developer verification flow mentioned below for quite some time.
That said, our reporting focused on the fact that this language has now appeared inside the Google Play app itself, which is a new development. The move from system-level code to Google Play could signal that the company is actively preparing to surface this flow to users. Still, Google has yet to clearly explain how its promised “advanced” sideloading path will work in practice. Until the company offers more clarity, concerns raised by groups like F-Droid about the future of alternative app stores remain unresolved. However, replying to our original story, a Google exec confirmed that the new sideloading process will have a high-friction flow.