Looking for a Jerboa alternative that wont be affected by the non-anonymous Google dev bullshit. I cant hop over to graphene or any other OS for that matter for reasons I wont get into. Getting my shit up and running on Jerboa was a hassle so Id like to figure out which lemmy apps will be viable for the future on basic boy androidOS.
Edit: added the app alert this morning as an image
Your approach is wrong.
You change apps because the devs don’t want to bow to Google, while it’s the opposite that needs to be done.
Just set your phone to skip this “verification” bullshit, in this way Google can see from the telemetry that the 0.01% of users disagree with their policy
How do you do that
Google said that they’re going to push an automatic update that will install without the user consent (it’s ok. It’s their phone, not our phones) and hide the option somewhere in the menus in the next months. It will be buried behind three scary warnings then the user has to remember to come back after 24 hours to continue. But then it will be disabled on that specific device, it seems
Oh OK. I thought you had to wait 24 h every time you wanted to install something.
I moved off jerboa onto connect for Lemmy
Serves me well, although development slowed for a bit
I just switched off of Connect and miss it…but the bugs were too much to bear.
Off the top of my head:
-Inbox is empty despite getting a reply
-your profile doesn’t update. The reason I know this is because when I got replies, I had to go into my profile and find the comment someone replied to
-editing text freaks out sometimes and selects half the comment with no way to adjust one of the selection handles
Usually a complete uninstall/reinstall fixed it but…I’m not gonna do every time for a Lemmy app.
I switched to Voyager and there’s one missing feature that makes me want to find a new one: you have to go INTO a community to block it. So when c/dudesjackingoff shows up up on All, I have to click on the community and see more dudes jacking off in order to stop seeing dudes jacking off.
The connect dev actually added that feature when I requested it years ago so maybe the Voyager devs will, too
I noticed the profile refresh bug a while ago and raised it. It hasn’t been a problem for me for a while so I thought it was resolved. I know the dev disappeared for a few months but turned up again recently
Can’t say I noticed u/dudesjackingoff on /all though. To each their own I guess
Haha if you want a real example, I recently blocked a makeup fetish and a furry feet community.
Maybe I’ll check it out again. I switched while the dev was MIA.
Just update it from F-droid after that or uninstall it from the Google store download the F-Droid store and download jerboa from there.
The F-droid store had a banner on the other day. I am under the impression even F-droid managed apps will be impacted.
What really?
Any install will be affected, doesn’t matter how it is downloaded. Only way around is side loading for dev purposes, which is not really practical. So this will finally push me to install another OS.

Jerboa is not supporting Googles’s attack on Android? I might just install it.
I thought you could still install apps from other app stores if you just enabled the setting and wait a cooldown period like 1 day? Maybe they changed the policy though not sure
Voyager which has the added bonus of supporting piefed.
Still doesn’t work for me on piefed :(
Blorp dev here! We have
- Multi account support, better than any other client imo
- Login with Lemmy and PieFed
- Save post drafts, finish later
- Create piefed poll posts
- PieFed emoji reactions
- Some fun themes and easter eggs
- Great nsfw browsing, if that’s your thing
- And much more
iOS | FDroid | Google Play | Source Code
I like blorp
- Download the Platform-Tools for ADB and Fastboot.
https://developer.android.com/tools/releases/platform-tools
- Follow various guides on how to sideload APKs with ADB.
https://www.makeuseof.com/install-apps-via-adb-android/
-
???
-
Profit.
huh, what’s the matter with Jerboa? I’m using it, haven’t heard anything negative about it (yet).
Got this message this morning

I guess OP is looking for a jerboa alternative that can be installed through the playstore. Isn’t the Google shit this thing in which your phone will now not allow sideloading?
ahhh is that the issue, I hadn’t understood. Thanks for clarifying, glad it’s nothing bad with Jerboa itself.
I still use jerboa quite often but have been considering moving. It worked well for a couple years but the last month or two there are stupid things like, not being able to scroll back up through the comments where it’ll get stuck, or if I collapse a comment, and try to reopen it the content is blank so I have to exit the comment section and reopen to be able to the top of the comment section and start over. If it is a long comment thread you then have to scroll slow because if you miss the comment you collapsed by accident you can’t scroll back up to find it because the first problem. At that point I just give up on that and move on.
I made a post about it in the jerboa thread a month ago, it appears to be happening to more than just me, and across multiple devices, even someone on graphene said it was happening to them.
Trouble with Jerboa is that it’s developed by the same people developing Lemmy it’s self.
So their focus is split and jerboa is almost certainly the less important of the two
Personally, I am using Summit (installed with Obtainium, it is not available in F-Droid)
I find that it works quite well and has a very nice user interface! Pretty customisable too.
edit: Forgot to add, yes, Summit can be installed through the Google Play Store.
I mean, yeah, but OP is specifically asking because Jerboa is not on Playstore and may not be installable if Google really follows through not allowing to install anything outside Playstore.
Which maybe still is possible but we will only know when we are there.
Summit can be installed through the Google Play Store as well. Forgot to add that, sorry!
Oh! I actually didn’t know, thanks for pointing it out. I am also getting it via Obtainium.
because Jerboa is not on Playstore
Jerboa is on the Play Store though.
Summit is the GOAT, and that is no easy feat as most of the Lemmy apps are great.
Any reason why you can’t just use one of the many, many web-based apps and “install” it? Photon, Alexandrite, Tesseract, Voyager, and many more all let you “install” them to your home screen. They run in your phone’s web browser but don’t have the address bar and work full screen and basically look/act like native apps.
shout-out to Voyager! installed as a PWA and it’s solid as hell
Blorp dev here. We got great support for web and iOS/Android. Though admittedly, the PWA install could use a little improvement. But the more Android becomes an issue, the more I’ll work on improving the PWA.
Nice. Only omitted that one because I hadn’t heard of it. I like to switch apps every so often so will check it out.
Thunder for lemmy is nearly perfect in my experience
I use Eternity. It hasn’t been getting a lot of development, but it doesn’t really need anything that I’m aware of.
If I were picking one that’s getting a lot of development, I’d probably look at Interstellar. It’s less mature — it’s not a port of a Reddit app — but it works with all of Mbin/Lemmy/Piefed. I use it when I want to talk to a Piefed server from an Android device.
Eternity has not gotten any update for almost 2 years now, it is dead. I wouldn’t trust the app, but consider it an security risk. I feel very sorry as I have been a huge Infinity fan in the good old times, but I’d recommend you to switch. Voyager is a fine replacement for Eternity.
I might be wrong, but as far as I heard, any APK installed will have to go through Google’s dev verification.
Not anymore. After public outcry, Google established 2 alternatives:
- Through developer mode, you will be able to “forego security” (according to Google) and do a lengthy and obnoxious procedure to unlock your phone for installing any app.
- They’re defining a way for official (sanctioned by Google) 3rd party app stores to work, and you will be able to install apps verified by them, instead of Google.
Correct. It’ll be a new bunch of new steps, and would be forced to wait 24 hours to do the actual install, but otherwise sideloading unverified apps will still be possible through the advanced flow steps. So Jerboa and/or other apps from unverified accounts can still be installed. I do wonder how that affects the other app repos like F-Droid, like I guess F-Droid would need to be aware that the new advanced flow steps are active when attempting to do app installs.
From https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2026/03/android-developer-verification.html
- Enable developer mode in system settings: Activating this is simple. This prevents accidental triggers or “one-tap” bypasses often used in high-pressure scams.
- Confirm you aren’t being coached: There is a quick check to make sure that no one is talking you into turning off your security. While power users know how to vet apps, scammers often pressure victims into disabling protections.
- Restart your phone and reauthenticate: This cuts off any remote access or active phone calls a scammer might be using to watch what you’re doing.
- Come back after the protective waiting period and verify: There is a one-time, one-day wait and then you can confirm that this is really you who’s making this change with our biometric authentication (fingerprint or face unlock) or device PIN. Scammers rely on manufactured urgency, so this breaks their spell and gives you time to think.
- Install apps: Once you confirm you understand the risks, you’re all set to install apps from unverified developers, with the option of enabling for 7 days or indefinitely. For safety, you’ll still see a warning that the app is from an unverified developer, but you can just tap “Install Anyway.”
But I guess if you’re in a rush and don’t want to go through all that then you could probably still install apps via ADB.
Is it 24 hours for each install? Or 24 hours to enable the ability to install as many as you like?
Edit, I reread your comment. It’s a one time 24 hour wait to enable the ability.
That sucks but at least they allow it, and I guess you could argue this helps fight against scammers? Sort of?
To put that into context, I’m an iPhone guy who uses Android on the side. My old S10 will never have that issue (it doesn’t get updated anymore), but for my next Android phone, that’s one of the first things I’m doing. Enabling developer settings. Turning off the animation speed entirely. And that. So for 24 hours I won’t be able to sideload. After that: it’s open season forever.
Not sure how it’ll go for existing Android users. I imagine you’ll get an update and your sideloaded apps will be disabled, then you’ll enable sideloading, and after the 24 hours, they’ll be enabled again.
I would recommend you buy a Pixel phone and install GrapheneOS on it, if you want to continue to be able to do what you want with your phone.
It’s in Googles best interest to lock this down even further, so we should try to just not rely on their software anymore















