Epic Games just wrapped up its legal battle with Samsung after months of courtroom drama. Company president Tim Sweeney took to X and announced the settlement news to his followers. The gaming giant decided to drop its antitrust lawsuit against the tech company after both sides had productive talks. Samsung agreed to address Epic's main complaints about their phone security settings. The whole mess started when Samsung changed how people could download apps on their devices.
Samsung had rolled out something called Auto Blocker back in October 2023 as an optional feature. Users could turn it on if they wanted extra protection when downloading apps. The feature blocked app installations from anywhere except Samsung's Galaxy Store and Google's Play Store. Everything changed in July 2024 when Samsung made Auto Blocker turn on automatically for all users. Epic Games fired back and said this move created way more barriers for consumers.
The company claimed Samsung forced people through 21 difficult steps just to download apps from other sources. Epic argued this process included scary warning screens that discouraged users from trying alternative app stores. They said Samsung had never before made it harder for people to download apps from outside the main stores. Epic believed this move went against their major court victory over Google from December 2023.
That earlier lawsuit against Google changed everything for mobile app stores. A judge ruled Google had broken antitrust laws and forced them to allow competing app stores on Android devices. Epic launched their own app store on Android and iOS platforms in August 2024.
Samsung had rolled out something called Auto Blocker back in October 2023 as an optional feature. Users could turn it on if they wanted extra protection when downloading apps. The feature blocked app installations from anywhere except Samsung's Galaxy Store and Google's Play Store. Everything changed in July 2024 when Samsung made Auto Blocker turn on automatically for all users. Epic Games fired back and said this move created way more barriers for consumers.
The company claimed Samsung forced people through 21 difficult steps just to download apps from other sources. Epic argued this process included scary warning screens that discouraged users from trying alternative app stores. They said Samsung had never before made it harder for people to download apps from outside the main stores. Epic believed this move went against their major court victory over Google from December 2023.
That earlier lawsuit against Google changed everything for mobile app stores. A judge ruled Google had broken antitrust laws and forced them to allow competing app stores on Android devices. Epic launched their own app store on Android and iOS platforms in August 2024.
