[notepad0x90]

> life is full of people doing harms and malicious actors, but we don't let Google or any other company gatekeep our lives

Yeah, you're certainly not speaking for malware victims here. android is not your life, so google gatekeeping android (actually only google approved builds) is not gatekeeping your life.

You certainly should be able to load an alternative OS. isn't that what lineage and other android distributions do already?

[monegator]

Not when google lobbies your government and banks to require "play integrity" in order to use government apps and bank apps

Not device integrity (locked bootloader, signed image, which can be done with alternative OS) but "play integrity" so approved by google. In other words, you can't run android without Google's services, google's builtin ads.

And the alternative is iOS.

[debazel]

Loading alternative OSes is not an option anymore because play store attestation is now mandatory to live a normal life in society.