Here's your most detailed look yet at how Android 17 OS verification will work

As of last week, Android 17 has finally hit stable, and Pixel users everywhere are upgrading to Google’s latest platform release. But just because Android 17 itself has arrived doesn’t mean that all of its features are rolling out, all at once. Last month, Google told us to look forward to a new OS verification utiltiy, helping users ensure that they’re running software they can trust. And while that still isn’t quite ready for prime time, we’ve got a new preview to share with you of how this tool is going to work.

We got our first look at OS verification in action in late May, checking out some text strings related to the feature and a little bit of documentation Google had prepared. Now with Android 17 QPR1 Beta 5, we’re able to bring you a much more detailed preview of what to expect when you attempt to verify a device.

As you might remember, this process involves the use of two devices: the Android unit you’re attempting to verify, and a secondary device you already trust. The only real requirement there is that it has to be able to get online to access a webpage. Once you hit that “I’m ready” button to get started, you’ll be presented with a QR code you can scan on your secondary device — or you can always just visit https://verify.android/ manually in your browser.

On that page, you’ll find this big QR code you see on the left. Then you’re going to go back to the Android handset you’re trying to verify, and use it to scan the QR code.

At this point, Google has all the information it needs to perform its verification checks. On the Android you’re analyzing, you’ll see the screen on the left, summarizing your device details.

On your secondary trusted device, meanwhile, you’ll see a more detailed breakdown of Google’s analysis. This includes things like the status of the Android device’s bootloader — and in our trial, all this appears to be accurate. Running stable Android, we presumably wouldn’t see any warning message at all next to the build number, but that “not widely used” message here makes sense, considering we were testing this with QPR1 Beta 5.

Finally, you can scroll down and directly compare that boot hash against what your phone reports. If everything matches up, you can keep using your Android phone with high confidence that it’s running a legit, unmodified copy of Android.

Admittedly, the need to juggle two devices here might feel a little goofy, but when you’re trying to figure out if one of them can be trusted, that’s just a small, necessary evil. Based on what we were able to try out here, the tool looks relatively complete, and now we’re just waiting to see when Google ultimately launches it. The company has already said that OS verification will initially debut for Pixel devices, before presumably spreading to other Android hardware.