> "The sideloading restriction is easily solved by installing GrapheneOS"
> "Unless they block ADB, I wouldn't say it's accurate to claim they're "blocking sideloading"".
Not to pick on these folks but it's like we on HN have forgotten that ordinary people use phones too. For some of us, it's not a limitation as long as we can solder a JTAG debugger to some test pads on the PCB and flash our own firmware, but for most users that's just about as possible as replacing the OS.
News to me. Edit: I misread parent comment.
Though Google Pay is also probably the least private of the major tech-company payment platforms (the others being Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, and Garmin Pay). It is, I think, the only one that actually requires an open network connection on the phone to work. The others all generate one-time codes that get sent through the payment machine's network for verification by Apple/Samsung/Garmin on the backend (i.e. you can tap an Apple Watch to pay with all its radios off, but you can't do that with Google Pay).
From what I gather, Garmin Pay can work with GrapheneOS if you have one of their smartwatches. And Privacy.com works, but not with tap-to-pay.
As an aside - I think the Paypal app in Germany offers HCE tap-to-pay, and In the UK/Europe 'Curve' is a Google pay replacement that runs fine on GrapheneOS (and they have first-party support for huawei phones that don't even ship Google play services anymore)