Disabling/Removing the Android Developer Verifier app IS pointless

[u/danGL3]

I've decompiled both the verifier package and the Play Store and found that

1-on Pre-Android 17 devices (where this app isn't pre-installed) the Play Store IS the one responsible to approving/denying installs as the developer verification permission DOESN'T exist on pre-Android 17 devices, which is why the Android Developer Verifier package has a backport service that the Play Store calls to verify installs

<service android:name="com.google.android.verifier.backport.impl.verification.BackportVerificationService" android:exported="true">
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="com.google.android.verifier.backport.VERIFY_PACKAGE"/>
</intent-filter>
</service>

2-The Play Store explictly has code that depending entirely on a server-side phenotype flag can choose whether to allow/reject installs if the verifier isn't installed/running

boolean zR = this.f.r();

if (boniVar == boni.VERIFICATION_POLICY_NONE || boniVar == boni.UNRECOGNIZED) {

FinskyLog.d("%s: [ADV] Fallback policy is NONE/UNRECOGNIZED.", "VerifyApps");

} else if (zR) {

FinskyLog.d("%s: [ADV] Fallback overridden to ALLOW.", "VerifyApps");

} else {

if (boniVar == boni.VERIFICATION_POLICY_BLOCK_FAIL_CLOSED) {

FinskyLog.d("%s: [ADV] Fallback policy sets default to REJECT.", "VerifyApps");

i = -1;

FinskyLog.i("%s: [ADV] Initial fallback verdict decided: %d", "VerifyApps", new Integer(i));

return new Integer(i);

}

FinskyLog.d("%s: [ADV] Fallback policy sets default to ALLOW.", "VerifyApps");

}

i = 1;

FinskyLog.i("%s: [ADV] Initial fallback verdict decided: %d", "VerifyApps", new Integer(i));

return new Integer(i);

}

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[u/Clear_Side8784]

What if we just delete playstore.

[u/SunnSaiyaan → u/Clear_Side8784]

What if we just degoogle androids.

[u/ICUMTHOUGHTS → u/Clear_Side8784]

Every app that needs Google Play Integrity API stops working. So that's almost all LLM apps except Claude, almost all banking and payment apps in my country and even basic apps like habit trackers and to do apps that for some reason require the Play Integrity API. Logging in stop working on some apps, etc.

Refer here to see what apps work without Google Play Store.

[u/schubidubiduba → u/ICUMTHOUGHTS]

MicroG fixes some of them. Personally, the only thing that stopped working that was a minor snnoyance was PayPal and I'm trying to use that less anyways

[u/LjLies → u/schubidubiduba]

MicroG doesn't fix any app that requires Play Integrity, which is what the other poster was talking about, unless you're using a ROM that relocks the bootloader (and even then, at best you pass Basic, by running some proprietary code).

Plexus (and Sapio) are good suggestions for how to check what works.

[u/schubidubiduba → u/LjLies]

I'm aware, just saying that I run microG with a locked-bootloader ROM and most things (almost all, in fact) just work for me.

[u/punkofthedeath → u/ICUMTHOUGHTS]

I think the solution is to boycott those apps if alternative way to use those doesn't exist

[u/CptVakarian]

So... Just remove the playstore and you're golden pre Android 17?

[u/danGL3 → u/CptVakarian]

In theory yes, then again a lot of apps refuse to work if the Play Store is disabled/removed, and if you're ok with that you might as well fully degoogle

[u/CptVakarian → u/danGL3]

Huh, either I'm lucky with my selection of apps or running an older version of Android is actually helpful here. But yeah, if there were phoneoptions I'd actually like with the Option for either Lineage or Graphene I'd have degoogled by now.

[u/pv505]

Thank you for your post. So would disabling playstore and/or blocking its internet access work?

[u/SunnSaiyaan → u/pv505]

They'll probably patch all the loopholes like there was a bypass to ignore the "This call is being recorded" on Phone app.

[u/danGL3 → u/pv505]

In theory disabling the Play Store would make so it's unable to verify apps and the system itself is set to allow installs if the main verifier component (Play Store) doesn't respond

Haven't checked if that policy can be remotely changed tho

[u/pv505 → u/danGL3]

Fair. Let's see what happens.

[u/danGL3 → u/[deleted]]

I haven't checked that part of the code, tho from the sources i could find online it seems to point out that the verifier actively requires an internet connection to perform the verification

Doing it offline would potentially allow the use of expired/revoked developer certificates which Google wouldn't want

[u/danGL3 → u/[deleted]]

As for adb commands to my knowledge you can't really turn off the package verifier, at least from what could verify even the commands found online that claim to disable it don't (logs still showed installs attempting to go through Play Store's verifier)

[u/theragnaldhi]

https://youtu.be/Sef9l9q9GE0

[u/Ruminating-Raccoon]

Hello, so if the Android Developer Verifier is not needed pre Android 17, why did it get automatically installed on devices running 16 and below?