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Google is making it mandatory to have Play Services for its next-generation reCAPTCHA system on Android.
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Your phone will need to be running Play Services version 25.41.30 or greater when the system asks you to scan a QR code for verification.
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This hurdle means that de-Googled phones will fail the verification test by default.
If you’re a web dev, and you implement this, just know you won’t receive my web traffic. Ill go live with the other robots and we will start our own internet with blackjack and hookers.
how do you do, fellow human
I too, enjoy the company of blackjack and to play hookers
I’m getting close to just giving up on the internet.
Lemmy know when you do and how it is in a cabin in the woods in Northern Canada because, as a Canadian, thats what im doing if I drop the web
Eta: we can use meshtastic to communicate
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That means if Google’s verification system gets widely adopted, browsing the web could become a headache.
Using a phone to scan a QR code in order to access a website on my desktop is a headache even if it has no dependencies in particular.
Unless it was the website I needed inorder to receive an organ donation, I would just close it.
I could claim that’s an act of righteous protest, but really I just know that absent my needing a new liver, there’s no website I would ever care enough about to get me to scan a QR code just to keep browsing.
This is awesome news for scammers:
- Fake page will say “you need to scan this qr code to verify you’re human”
- Users normally dismisses this shit, but it has become normal nowadays, take out the phone to scan it
- Qr code opens a page on totallynotascam.com that say “you need to install this totally safe APK on your device for verification 😉”
- APK passes the new useless developer “verification” as the scammer either used a hacked dev account or just paid $25 with a stolen id + stolen credit card
- User see the message “APK verified by Google play protect” and would totally believe the bullshit, giving all the possible permissions to the app
Ignoring the de-Googled phones for a sec: I assume if you’re using a desktop, then the QR shows up and you have to drag out your phone to scan it in the camera app that then prompts to open the google play store. Dumb, but possible for people who have a phone with Android. What about those that don’t? Would you need a google account?
Now if it’s all on phone (using Chrome or Firefox or whatever) and pops up a QR code, you can’t scan it… but the browser would have to open the play store directly and thats a huge security no-no. The browser shouldn’t even know I have the Play Store.
I have a feeling the hundreds of us that are de-Googled ad just going to stop using these sites all together.
Yeah, so the hundreds of us won’t be able to use the internet anymore if this passes
Awesome
…and what about iPhone owners?
https://support.google.com/recaptcha/answer/16609652
According to this support page only older iOS versions would need additional app. So I can assume Apple and Google collaborate on that and Apple added the “feature” in newer iOS already.
A lot of Android bot devices simulate (or even ARE) a full phone with a legit Play Store and other Google services.
This requirement is enforced vendor lock in. Nothing more.
The real use case for redroid lol
Wtf
Once this is implemented, Google will have finally succeeded in closing the entire fucking internet. That is, assuming this will become anywhere successful and smaller websites will be using it as well.
This requirement will kick in the moment the system suspects suspicious activity. At that point, reCAPTCHA will forgo the old image puzzles and require you to scan a QR code with your smartphone to prove you’re human.
How is this going to work if you’re browsing the internet on your phone??
the surgically implanted chip is required to be scanned
Drink verification can to continue
How is this going to work if you’re browsing the internet on your phone??
Easy, they force you to install an app, just click the link and agree to all the permissions and cookies and stuff. It might be malware, it might be legit, who knows?

Google copying UI workflows from literal malware developers…
such terrible user experience. tech is so over
You can screen grab to get it using the stupid Gemini shit
LOL
Then I’ll just not use the services that use it, very stupid, as this shouldn’t be necessary
There is a fucking huge market for non Google non iPhone come on somebody get the fuck on it
And de-enshittified analog cars. They need to hurry tf up.
I really hate the idea that any car I buy in the future is going to come stuffed with fucky software that I don’t want. Software defined car my fucking brown asshole.
I don’t want some old jalopy with a carburetor and crank windows, but there’s so little benefit to the individual for all the shit that I can’t imagine wanting it.
I do my own repairs and I hate that half the time I need to get my laptop out to reset a thing, clear a code, re-initiate some shit. Pulling the battery cable off used to work for most things, but not anymore and for a long time.
I bought the car, but they own the software? So if I want do change or repair something, I have to pay them, but if the software shits the bed, I have to pay them? Everything ends with me paying them for something I already paid for.
Fuck that.
Sailfish is awesome. It just doesn’t work on any phones that work in north America anymore.
Sailfish is closed-source, isn’t it? I want to be excited about it, but I am hesitant about another closed-source OS.
Big market, but also huge barrier to entry to get a phone ecosystem off the ground. MS, Amazon, Facebook, Mozilla and many others have tried and failed. Apple and Google have huge moats
I would never scan a qr code to verify that I’m not a bot. I’d simply close the page
We’ll talk about that again when all banks, online reservation, government websites all require the new captcha.
Oh, but you can still join us by phone to talk to an AI agent or wait forr 240mins of average waiting time for a human operator.
Banks love to reinvent the wheel and definitely can’t trust Google to be part of their workflow, as Google will 100% change UI or steps or rename the app or discontinue the app while replacing it with an identical one but with a different name but less features with no advance notice. Relying on Google for banking workflow means that one day the bank user support will be overwhelmed by requests like “the button disappeared, where is it now”
For the rest of stuff, this system IMHO has too much friction, the bounce rate will be too high. Businesses won’t like to pay for a bot detection system (it costs $1 per 1000 verifications) that will push humans away while bots pass it without problems (either by using the accessibility workaround or by using those smartphone farms in southeast Asia)
Even worst there is a huge privacy concern here. Google would associate who’s browsing anonymously in desktop with their phones which Google has more access on your information. It is already a privacy concern before but at that time they go in a roundabout way, today we just give them the platter.
Monopoly, anybody?
Naaaahhh, this is just good old fashioned American freedoms
This is evil. Fuck it. I want nothing to do with these cunts anymore. I’m degoogling this year.
I’ve scanned 4 QR codes in my life. 2 were not what I was told they would be.
I will never scan a QR code again.
Better use the self-checkout while you still can!
https://www.gs1us.org/industries-and-insights/by-topic/sunrise-2027
oh god this can get fuuuuuuucked
Then I will de-whatever else uses their shit











