Links to TMDB, Trakt, others return for US users, but Google plans more control

Announcements
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Good news! Links to TMDB, Trakt and other external websites will again be displayed for users in the United States.

This is thanks to a United States court ordered injunction in the Google Play Antitrust case (PDF) coming into effect. The folks at Google have published an announcement and sent out emails about it.

In response, I have prepared updates to SeriesGuide (version 2025.2.13 available to all, 2025.3.1 on the beta program) that will again display external links if your device region is set to “United States”.

(Note that links remain displayed for devices set to a region in the European Economic Area. For all other regions they will remain hidden, as Google Play Payments policy - at least as interpreted by the Google folks reviewing SeriesGuide - continues to disallow them. You can read my previous comments for details.)

:warning: On a side note: folks at Google are planning to require their approval also when installing apps not downloaded from Google Play onto your device. This will make it harder or impossible for many people to install apps from other stores (Epic Games, F-Droid) or downloaded directly from the developer. For those interested, I think the following article gives a nice overview: 'Keep Android Open' movement fights Google dev requirement • The Register

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Good to hear, but I do hate the side note thing, especially as someone who makes apps for my own personal use.

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You should be fine as current plans exclude installing via adb (for others: developer tool to install apps from a computer with a direct connection).

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