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this post was submitted on 03 Oct 2025
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Federated solutions which can't be stopped, self hosted, and available via Fdroid.
Only real answer.
Until Google revokes publishing privileges for side-loading applications. I think we'll have to go further and get used to making PWAs and regular websites.
You mean "installing normally." "Sideloading" is fucking anti-property-rights loaded language.
Good point. Wild how these ghouls have normalized their bullshit language.
Do you have a better, simple word for what they're banning?
installing?
downloading and installing programs.
But they're not banning downloading and installing programs. What are they blocking, specifically?
They're banning programs from being installed unless the installation has their consent
Isn’t there somebody you forgot to ask?
They're banning non google-drmed app installs
regular installs of apps by unverified or suspended developers
they can still be installed by
adbwhenever I point this out to the drama queens here, they get hissy
Yes. Just looking for a simple 1-3 word term that encapsulates this
It's not a suggestion for an alternative. Sideloading is not even blocked: unblocked apps remain sideloadable. Sideloading is not "fucking anti-property-rights loaded language" & the word existed a while before Android OS.
They're just being uninformed drama-queens as usual.
It is a fairly loaded word, implying it's an alternative method of loading data to the primary, more actively vendor-supported method. Those methods you previously mentioned are actively subverting the primary application install methods (Google Play) and are 1 minor software update from being completely axed. Name-calling an opposing "they" is not quite productive.
"They" is now a dirty word?
Sideload wasn't loaded language before Android OS and still isn't: it's a bogus, overreactive claim.
All of them are valid install methods. Developers will always need a way to load their experimental apps not yet suitable for release: they won't block the methods they need to do that.
Clear use cases for casual users exist for
"They" are drama-queens, because despite legitimate use cases to address actual problems posing high-cost risks to users (even as Google turns out to be a shitty authority) & clear documentation that power users can still install any package they want, they choose to catastrophize.
"They" is a pronoun. Hope that helps clear things up.
The term "sideload" was coined by i-drive, a bunk dot-com contributor who applied to trademark the term because they were corporate ghouls. Their version of sideloading involved giving them a link to a file on the internet, and they would store it for you, so you didn't have to download it yourself. The idea behind sideloading is just transferring a fucking file. It's loaded language, despite whatever freedom or restrictions an implementation provides. Call it what it is, a file transfer.
What about the clear use case for a FOSS developer who doesn't want to go through the Google authority for validation? What happens when Google thinks an app is dangerous when it shows no clear malicious behavior? What happens when Google enforces the idea that blocking ads is malicious?
In my opinion, what a massive understatement.
Edit: Put the documentation where your mouth is. Show me the "clear documentation that power users can still install any package they want," because F-Droid would like to have a word with you. While you're reading that, do take care to note that Google already has a service to protect against malicious applications. They don't need to limit application installs based on developer registration. They need to make a profit for their shareholders. They're corporate ghouls.
Not the question.
Nothing you wrote supports that. In the i-drive case, it draws a distinction between a (1) direct transfer between remote systems (without intermediary) and (2) a transfer between a local & remote system.
Other OSs have this concept. My first exposure to the concept came from administering Windows systems. Their definition draws an unopinionated distinction between official & unofficial distribution channels
& their distinct installation methods with similar caveats
That's the entire point of the term there: to express that the installation method & checks differ.
Sign it yourself or bypass verification as stated before.
It was linked above: try reading.
which is reactive & doesn't deter the installation of malicious apps via sideload like the new feature will.
Loading non-playstore apps?
What do you call installing an application on a computer?
I say "I
apt-getit""Ownership."
Allow vendors to completely control what apps run on your phone and banning websites and PWAs becomes trivial for them. Browsers are apps.
Google started using buzzwords of sideloading as to make a boogeyman security issue, to get people to side with them. its just installing, other than thier main store.
sideloading existed long before mobile OSs
I can't believe Steve Jobs was right all along.
Right? A well protected browser is about the best tool in this shi-nternet future.
Back before iOS had apps, webapp devs were clever AF. There was Beejive web for multi-IM and all sorts of clever stuff.
One can still put an icon for webapps on the home screen, and the OS even displays it as a full screen app. (Android has similar but not as elegant.)
Steve Jobs just didn't have the right foresight. PWA's were a solution when the web was supposed to be the future of applications distribution. If he knew native apps were still the future and in app advertising and microtransactions were going to be where all was at, he would never have pushed PWA's. Steve was a salesman first and foremost
He believed if he made quality products, that the stock price increases all the soulless capitalists demanded would follow. Which of course they did. Then Tim Apple took over, and quality went out the window in favor of stock buybacks. Kind of like Boeing.
They can only do that to phones running gapps
The issue with this is that like 95% of android devices run android with gapps and re-imaging your phone is becoming increasingly more difficult as manufacturers lock down their bootloaders. Normies who aren't technical are not gonna want to mess with that shit. I'm not saying this to instill hopelessness but highlighting that it's a challenge.
For censorship circumvention, mainstream tech is gonna continue to be increasingly useless. We need to educate people about these matters and also try to encourage people to lean heavily into decentralised comms like lora/meshtastic
All phones run gapps by default, other than those in Mainland China, that is.
Not just China, also common in south America. Huawei still has a large market share there and their phones don't have gapps since Trump banned American companies from doing business with Huawei
How about web apps or even regular sites with a mobile friendly UI?