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Android's new developer verification rollout begins, sideloading changes are next
(www.androidauthority.com)
this post was submitted on 31 Mar 2026
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Yes that's what I'm saying, it's "installing" regardless of where you get the app, so if an article wants to talk about something concerning installing apps from outside the Play Store, they can't just say "installing". That would be incorrect if the things they talk about don't concern installing from the Play Store.
So you need a different description than just "installing".
E.g. in this example the article title couldn't be "installing changes are next", it would need to be something else.
"Installing" is not a drop-in replacement for "sideloading" without changing the meaning of what you say.
I've had the play store install, remove, and modify installed applications without so much as a hint they were doing it, the "Play Store" does what would be considered "sideloading" applications (i. e. a third party app managing your applications from a location other than the package manager), feeding an apk to a package manager would just be "installing" an application like it always has been.
By co-opting the term to be something bad, they are trying to make it seem like they are the only safe source for applications (even though the Google-managed stores have just as much malware as WinMX did 20+ years ago).
Correct, but what do you propose? In your terminology installing from the Play Store is "sideloading" and installing directly is "installing". But surely you agree that if an article was titled "Google makes installing apps on Android harder, but sideloading will be as smooth as before", everyone would understand the opposite of that.
I would personally like to just go back to calling it installing, but I doubt that is even less likely than getting back "-lications" to my programs (just a dumb joke about how applications slowly became apps).
Its all good though, I'm just an old man bitching on the internet.
Installing from other app stores. Installing, but not from the Play Store. Installing from not-Google-controlled stores.
It's installing. Context can be given using this wonderful semantic device called "subordinate clauses".
Yeah exactly, and we reached all the way back to my original comment: you can't just replace "sideloading" with "installing", without adding additional clarification.
You never wrote "without additional clarification", as far as I can read in the parent comments to this one.
I said in my first comment it would have to be "installing from outside the Play store", otherwise it wouldn't have clear meaning.