The ability to install apps from outside the Play Store has always been one of Android’s most attractive features. It made it the platform of choice for enthusiasts, tinkerers, and anyone who wanted control over how they use their phone. Now, a new change in Google’s policies could put that at risk.
Google Plans to Limit What You Can Sideload
Sideloading—installing an app downloaded from any source, not just a central app store—is one of the biggest differences between Android and iOS. It signifies Android’s freedom versus Apple’s walled garden.
There are lots of legitimate uses for sideloading. It enables the creation of alternative app stores like the Epic Games Store that offers titles you won’t find on Google Play or the vibrant open-source community of F-Droid. It also enables the installation of apps that don’t conform to Google’s guidelines for one reason or another.
Now Google is changing its rules. According to a posting on the Android Developers Blog, the company isn’t blocking sideloading outright. But from 2026, developers will need to verify their identity with Google even if they aren’t distributing their software through the Play Store. Unverified developers will be blocked.
Verification costs $25 and requires a name, an email address, a physical address, and an active phone number, and developers will need to upload official ID to prove the information. Google says that students and hobbyists will get a different process, although details on that haven’t yet been announced.
These rules were introduced for apps offered through the Play Store in 2023 and are now being expanded to all apps installed on a Google-certified device. This means any Android device that runs Google apps and services, which is pretty much all of them outside of China. The change will happen in Brazil, Indonesia, Singapore, and Thailand in 2026, before rolling out globally in 2027.
Security Vs. Freedom
Google is introducing the new policy in the name of security. That might seem fair enough, since sideloading is a common way of spreading malware. Google claims that malware is 50 times more likely to appear in sideloaded apps than in apps from the Play Store.
Yet the Play Store itself isn’t exactly immune from harmful apps that rack up millions of downloads, and despite the verification plan, Google won’t be checking the actual content of sideloaded apps. In theory, these apps could still contain malicious code.
But is it even necessary? Sideloading is already blocked by default. You have to enable the permission to install “unknown apps” in every app that downloads them. Most users will never encounter the option because they only use the Play Store, and those who do will be making a conscious decision. It’s hard to do by accident.
If the existing protections aren’t deemed to be enough, the new policy could have simply expanded on them: allow verified apps after the initial check, then require an extra step for unverified developers. Letting users make their own choices is surely what Android has always been about, after all.
Even Apple allows this—on a Mac, at least. macOS blocks apps from unidentified developers, but you can head into the security settings to bypass the option if you really want to.
Mainstream developers will complete the verification process, so the change is unlikely to impact the most popular apps. But the enthusiast community might not find the process so simple. A lot of open-source devs actively avoid Google and might find it too intrusive to have to sign up and hand over ID documents simply to distribute their software.
The change also hits older apps that are no longer supported and might not even be available on the Play Store anymore. Sometimes sideloading is the only option, but these apps won’t work in the future. And then there are the kinds of apps that exist in a more ethical and legal gray area, like some of the repackaged YouTube apps that Google is in a constant battle with. As so often seems the case, a move to increase security has wider consequences.
Can You Avoid the Impact?
It’s not yet clear if there will be any workarounds for this, or how broad those unannounced “hobbyist” terms will be. Since the change only impacts devices certified by Google, installing a non-Google ROM would be one way around it. But that’s a pretty niche option and brings issues of its own, and Google’s clamping down on it anyway.
To be clear, the new policy on sideloading won’t affect everyone. If, like most people, you only ever install apps from the Play Store, you won’t even be aware of it. But for those of us who do sideload apps, it looks like yet another restriction on how we can use our Android phones and maybe even another step towards Apple-style control.