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Comments (492)

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  bane
  I'm struck with how long the history of Apple's earliest iPhone has shaped and produced long-term damage to the concept of digital ownership. Apple originally didn't allow anybody but Apple to create software for the 1st gen iPhone, and only later was forced "opening" it my market forces.People who realized they actually owned the thing they bought wanted to do what they wanted, which required circumventing Apple's control or "jailbreaking". This differentiator stimulated Google to "allow" installing on Android without "jailbreaking" the device aka "sideloading", giving the illusion of the kind of freedom that was never in question on normal computers.It is interesting though how this same conversation doesn't exist in the same way in other areas of computing like video game consoles or other embedded computing devices where the controls against arbitrary applications is even stronger.The fact that mobile phones aren't yet just a standard type of portable computer with an open-ish harware/driver ecosystem that anybody can just make an OS for (and hence allow anybody to just install what they want) is kind of wild IMHO. Why hasn't the kind of ferver that created Linux driven engineers to fix their phones? Is Android and iOS just good enough to keep us complacent and trapped forever? I can't help but think there might be some effect here that's locking us all in similar to how the U.S. healthcare system can't seem to shake for profit insurance.I'm sometimes surprised at the plethora of cheap handheld gaming systems coming out of China that support either Linux, Android, or sometimes both, and seem to be based on a handful of chipsets. If anybody ever slapped an LTE module and drivers onto one of those things we'd have criminally cheap and powerful, open phone ecosystem.
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  BrenBarn
  I think we could set the bar substantially higher. Don't even bother with discussion of sideloading. Talk about bounded transactions and device control.What is needed is: Once I have purchased a device, the transaction is over. I then have 100% control over that device and the hardware maker, the retailer, and the OS maker have a combined 0% control.
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  terminalshort
  I think this misses the forest for the trees here. The platforms behavior here is a symptom and not the core problem. I think the following are pretty clearly correct:1. It's your damn phone and you should be able to install whatever the hell you want on it2. Having an approved channel for verified app loading is a valuable security tool and greatly reduces the number of malicious apps installed on users devicesGiven that both of these things are obviously true, it seems like a pretty obvious solution is to just have a pop up that has a install at your own risk warning whenever you install something outside of the official app store. 99.9% of users would never see the warning either because almost all developers would register their apps through the official store.But there is a reason why Apple/Google won't do that, and it's because they take a vig on all transactions done through those apps (a step so bold for an OS that even MSFT never even dared try in its worst Windows monopoly days). In a normal market there would be no incentive to side load because legitimate app owners would have no incentive not to have users load apps outside of the secure channel of the official app store, and users would have no incentive to go outside of it. But with the platforms taxing everything inside the app, now every developer has every incentive to say "sideload the unofficial version and get 10% off everything in the app". So the platforms have to make it nearly impossible to keep everything in their controlled channel. Solve the platform tax, solve the side loading issue.
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  unsungNovelty
  Despite all the bad moves, one of the reasons why I use android and not iPhone is installing apps from places like fdroid.If this stops, it fundamentally disallows me to have the privacy that Apple app store can't provide. The amount of garbage apps in play store is horrible. I don't try out any new apps from there cos of this. So I will just switch to iPhone.Already degoogled for pretty much most things. This will be the last. And maybe switch my website from netlify which I think is using google cloud (need to check).
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  marcprux
  Author here. I admit I am rather startled by the tone of many comments here and the accusations of disingenuity. Splitting hairs about the origin of the term "sideload" does not change the fact that those who promote the term tend to do so in order to make it feel deviant and hacker-ish. You don't "sideload" software on your Linux, Windows, or macOS computer: you install it.You have the right to install whatever you want on your computer, regardless of whether that computer is on your desk or in your pocket. That's a hill I'll die on. I'm dismayed to see that this sentiment is not more widespread in this of all communities.
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  zouhair
  The fact that we don't have root access to our phones is insane. This "sideloading" part is just the cherry on top of the dystopia we live in.
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  rcarmo
  As an iOS user who's been frustrated with Apple's approach to "self-loading" (i.e., running your own code on your own devices) and who's actually gone out and gotten Android devices to write PoC/PoV apps on instead, I really don't like Google's stance on this--even if I would not, at this time, choose to daily drive an Android device, I do rely on F-Droid for getting software on six or seven different devices _right now_ and they would be useless to me if I couldn't do it.
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  ainiriand
  The existing comments here somehow display a big amount of discomfort with the semantics of the article, not so much with the points argued...
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  999900000999
  You know, this would be a fantastic time for Google to get their sandbox in order. If we need to do it like this, go ahead and create a secondary user, call it sandbox and let me install all my wild and unapproved apps there. SecureNet can automatically fail in Sandbox.But I don't think they're going to do that, ultimately users who actually care about this are an absolute tiny percentage of the market.And weirdos like us can always just import a Chinese phone that doesn't have mandatory Google verification crap.
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  klawed
  It makes me a little sad that there’s no mention of Raymond Carver in this thread. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_We_Talk_About_When_We_Tal... The current state of dominant mobile OS’s is about as bleak as the bleakest Carver story. Since I’m on a tangent I’ll also highly recommend the movie Shortcuts.
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  endgame
  Australian users of alternative app stores should make a complaint to the ACCC: https://www.accc.gov.au/about-us/contact-us-or-report-an-iss...In the past, they forced Steam to implement proper refund policies, and they are currently suing Microsoft about the way subscribers were duped into paying more for "AI features" they didn't want.
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  ef2k
  On MacOS it warns you when you're about to open an app you've downloaded and installed yourself. "Foo has been downloaded from the internet, are you sure you want to open it?". It doesn't stop you from installing it. Why should doing so on your phone be any different?
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  pr337h4m
  Why are OEMs like Samsung just letting this happen? A lot of power users who buy flagships will leave for iPhones if Android ceases to be an open platform. (This segment is what is preventing the “green bubbles = poor” narrative from taking over.)
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  tetris11
  > https://keepandroidopen.org/The UK petition link appears to be broken:https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/744446
• anticensor
  Why wouldn't F-Droid build their own playless Android fork where this is a non-issue?
• Fokamul
  Easy ownership test. Try flash custom firmware on your phone. ;-)You can't? THEN YOU DON'T OWN YOUR PHONE.Simple as that.
• glenstein
  >Regardless, the term “sideload” was coined to insinuate that there is something dark and sinister about the process, as if the user were making an end-run around safeguards that are designed to keep you protected and secure.I also recall a time in the nascent era of web file hosts, like Rapidshare.de and Mega upload, and some others that came and went so quick that I don't even remember their names, some services offered the option to "sideload" (as opposed to download) straight to their file server.
• nashashmi
  The entire App Store system is broken. It should have always been sideloadable apps by default. And app stores for verified app makers. Instead we have Google withholding play store. And now withholding sideloading.
• lovelearning
  I have coded some apps that are customized for my mother's usage and accessibility. I plan on coding some more. I need to install them on just 2 phones - my own for testing and my mother's.As of now, I can create APKs of my apps and install them on my mother's phone by unchecking the "prevent apps from other sources" option.Even after going through so many articles, I still don't know unambiguously whether I can continue this workflow in future, or I'll need Google's approval to install on just our own 2 family phones.There's a failure in communications here from both sides.Ambiguity suits Google perfectly fine.But it's counterproductive to its opponents because every dev who's confused will remain a fence-sitter rather than an ally, even if only motivated by personal inconvenience rather than any principled stand.I doubt I'm the only Android dev who's confused. I hope at least f-droid communicates more clearly the consequences of this policy to all types of developers and deployment scenarios.
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  blackcatsec
  I think one thing the internet community, particularly the likes of folks here who dominate the HN readership, is to stop listening to Google or using Google-derived services. The problem is everyone goggles Google's googleys every time they put something out: Chrome, Android, Kubernetes, QUIC, BBR, Analytics, Gmail, GCP, Go. And y'all continue to fucking do it.I can't even go into my workplace and get the company to not install Google Chrome and use Microsoft Edge on Windows (mind you, Edge is now based on Chromium) because everyone is so far up Google's ass that they must run CHROME and not another CHROMIUM browser because MICROSOFT. It's fucking insanity. It's taken as a default.Stop using their products. Stop giving Google so much power over the fucking internet. Meanwhile I go on internet forums, IRC, and places like HN and people still fucking cry about Microsoft as if somehow we're in the 1990s. Like literally Gen Z wasn't even born in the 1990s and they decry Microsoft because us Millennials and Gen X continue to think Microsoft is the absolutely worst evil ever and Google is like the patron saint of the internet.Apologies for the little bit of pro Microsoft rant here, but the point I'm trying to make is we should evaluate both Google and Apple through the same lens that we all give Microsoft shit for.DeGooglify your brain, and then the rest of the world will begin to follow. Stop changing everything in your fucking services to kubernetes and istio. Don't switch your projects over to Go. Stop letting them run everything.Like every time Google releases a new piece of technology the entire industry jumps on their tallywhacker. And that just continues to cement their legacy in all of these stacks.
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  1970-01-01
  You cannot beat them at their own game without some other Goliath like the EU getting involved. The complain and watch strategy doesn't make a difference.
• hakube
  It's not "sideloading". It's called installing software on your own device!
• ge96
  Tangent about open source developmentAs a person that tried the Pine64 ecosystem and not being able to will drivers/C++ apps into existence (like I can with web/cross platform), I did not contribute much other than buying the device/doing some videos on YT. (I bought: PP, PPP, PineBook, PineNote, PineTab)It depended on few people working on it eg. through Discord communitiesAnyway point is I saw Expensify I think they have these GitHub PRs which have $ values on them, would be interesting to take that approach, just pay for it literally eg. a GoFundMe for a feature.ex. https://github.com/Expensify/App/issues/73681
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  ekjhgkejhgk
  What is to be done?Install LineageOS or GrapheneOS?I feel that the root problem is that there aren't enough highly skilled low level developers willing to spend their time writing free software for mobile phones. Why do we have Linux and things around it? Because a lot of very skilled developers decided to work on it and offer it to the world.
• bagol
  Installing software via Google play store is the actual side loading. You don't install it yourself, Google install it for you.
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  kazinator
  They wanted to call it freeloading, but showed a bit of self-restraint.Whenever you side load anything, you are robbing someone's app store of income. You are not visiting their portal to be exposed to ads, you are not seeing ads in the middle of an application, you are not paying for anything.Or at least, not paying to them. The only streaming service I pay for in my household is Japanese TV, which uses a side-loaded application. I'm freeloading on the Android TV platform because I only paid for the hardware, and for a streaming service not related any Google revenue funnels whatsoever.That's what it's about.It's either a derogatory term for "software loading" or an euphemism for "freeloading", or both.
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  vezycash
  Everyone developer who worked hard to make windows phone die. Hope you're happy.
• ptrl600
  Will I be allowed to add keys to verify developers over ADB?
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  funOtter
  After Google implements this, will I still be able to "side-load" (install any software) on Android-derivative OSes like GrapheneOS?
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  nashashmi
  Is this seeking Google’s approval for the app? Or is the condition app be signed by a verified user? The latter means side loading is still viable for apps from known developers. This way anyone who is known who may create malware and will not be free from prosecution
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  zb3
  Note that the Android permission system is designed so that you are not in control by design, some permissions are "not for you" and only for "system apps" which you can't control. This gives Google and device manufacturers advantage over third party software developers in the name of security...I think we should focus on defending the slowly-vanishing ability to unlock the bootloader and fight for the core parts of Android to stay open source.. without these two, installing an APK will mean less and less until it might eventually become synonymous with installing a PWA.
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  Boogie_Man
  Is the title an intentional mirror of Carver's short story collection "What we talk about when we talk about love"? If so, can someone smarter than me explain what the author means by this connection?
• nhumrich
  As a power user, and software creator, I absolutely hate this decision. Side loading and power features are a main reason I use android.That being said, as a grandchild, I also completely understand where google is coming from. A surprisingly high percentage of users do need protecting from themselves. They are so technology illiterate that someone random tells them to install something, "it will say it's not safe, but it's actually okay, just click approve" and they will. This is why HSTS exists, to prevent uneducated users from getting pwned, by preventing them from disabling safeguards.So, having some system of "no really, I am a power user" makes sense, even if I hate it.
• aussieguy1234
  I've switched my main phone to GrapheneOS, specifically because of what Google is doing here. I'm sure alot of others will do the same.
• atoav
  "Sideloading"? It is called installing where I come from and if you can't install your own software on it you don't own the hardware. The fact alone that they managed to establish "sideloading" as a term tells you 90% of what you need to know in this discourse.
• kazinator
  Sideloading is just a deliberately pejorative term which replaces "software installation".When you install Git Bash, Vim or GIMP on Microsoft Windows, you are side loading.
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  NoImmatureAdHom
  Where do I send my money to fight this?https://keepandroidopen.org/ is about sending messages, which I have done and will continue to do. But I want to open my wallet.
• nidiebeie
  Goli chalao to rukne vandan ke Lage
• widikidiw
  main di jo777 seru banget sihhh, gapercaya ?? cobain aja langsung!!
• vzaliva
  I want to make a report to to US Department of Justice Antitrust Report Online and US Federal Trade Commission: Antitrust Complaint as suggested but I will appreciate some guidance on the wording. Could anyone share a sample?
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  jorisboris
  > As a reminder, this applies not just to devices that exclusively use the Google Play Store: this is for every Android Certified device everywhere in the world, which encompasses over 95% of all Android devices outside of China.So what happens in China? Should we buy Chinese Android phones?
• kentelhowze
  Hackers it’s time to get money and get a life run away for good. Get more.and run away to get money
• j45
  “Sideloading “ is the original app installing by sync or copying.You used a wire, or Bluetooth that transferred the app file.Then it ran.This is how it was.iPhone 1 was vehemently against third party apps of any kind.The use of iTunes to have a “store” helped transfer and install apps digitally, and I believe using a wire too.You either own your device or you don’t.At a software level mobile has been a challenge to keep secure and locking it all down might not secure it either as there might be side doors still instead of side loading.It has been 15-17 years since we got this batch of mobile operating systems, maybe we’re due for a new one since there’s a critical mass of users already on smartphones, unlike when Android/iOS began.
• not4uffin
  I've stopped trusting Google and it's products entirely.They say one thing, then do another.
• Verlyn139
  Didn't know this community have so many corporate bootlickers
• lutusp
  You're all missing the point! This is not about whether an app can be installed on an Android device, it's about whether the device's owner has any say in the matter. It's about freedom of choice.Over the decades, from the Apple II to the present, I've owned every imaginable kind of computer. And yes -- I owned all of them -- I had the right to use them as I saw fit. They were extensions of my intellectual creativity. I've written dozens of Android apps, including TankCalc, used in industries across the world to measure and control storage containers. TankCalc is useful, it's free, and it's about to die.I tried meeting Google's demands, but over the years I realized that wasn't possible, because Google refused to take "yes" for an answer. This is true for all my Android apps -- all would require constant maintenance to meet Google's endless compliance demands.We're witnessing an extinction of personal expression, of defending the rights of individuals, and the sideloading issue is a symptom of a deadly disease, one that shifts control away from individuals to giant corporations.Sideloading is just an example. Samsung has updated its already-sold refrigerators to begin showing ads to powerless consumers. Car makers Mercedes-Benz and BMW have starting charging monthly subscription fees for access to features already present in people's cars. Farmers can no longer repair their John Deere tractors.It's an unprecedented historical shift. Instead of being crushed by an army that invades and takes over, we pay for things that own us, body and soul.
• mt42or
  Fuck google
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  aboringusername
  The only reason Google has decided to lock-down Android is because of apps like ICEblock and the ability for anonymous individuals to mass distribute information that governments do not like. Now, they'll be able to hunt you down by requesting Google hand over every ID document that they process. This sets a chilling precedent for free speech. It enables governments to go after those who dare 'speak out' by using platforms to their advantage. You can no longer 'hide in the shadows' and will need to put your entire identity on the line for your morals and convictions.Of course, if they could do this with Windows, Linux et al they absolutely would. And general purpose computing will, eventually, be closed and locked down, much like what we are seeing with the internet and ID laws. People would have, and did, think such ideas would be unthinkable 10-15 years ago. Yet little-by-little the screws are being ever tightened. The government wishes to tightly control the information flow and decide what is 'best for you' to see. Preferably their chosen propaganda.Work-arounds that exist today will likely be closed and forbidden in the future. VPNs to bypass age laws, ADB to bypass install-blocks will all be obsolete. You will be required to identify yourself at all times. I half-expect Google to deprecate and remove the concept of VPN's/ADB on Android entirely and laws will be passed to that affect (restricting the apps themselves, or access to the APIs to verified Android devices/Google accounts). If you don't believe me, you only need to see [1] for the direction of travel.There is little interest from the regulators to stop this. Perhaps the useless CMA will 'investigate' in 5 years time, decide Google perhaps abused its monopoly and then do absolutely nothing because they have no real re-course over an American company. It's likely governments support this position and will not do anything to influence a change of direction.Eventually, Linux itself will go the same way, people are just waiting for Torvalds to retire from the project to make their moves, but make no mistake, open general-purpose computing is under threat and there is going to be little we can do to reverse the current trends towards closely monitored and controlled computing.[1]: https://developer.android.com/google/play/age-signals/overvi...This will most likely be expanded in the future to limit access to certain 'dangerous' APIs like ADB/VPN's etc. This can also be used 'in app' and across the entire OS to shape your experience of what you can see and do. I wouldn't be surprised if 'unlocking bootloader' required an 18+ verified device.
• alanhou0220
  [dead]
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  gjsman-1000
  > Regardless, the term “sideload” was coined to insinuate that there is something dark and sinister about the process, as if the user were making an end-run around safeguards that are designed to keep you protected and secure.This is a conspiracy theory; as there is no evidence that it was deliberately invented to be malicious (it started as a trademark from a company called i-drive). The term almost certainly became popular after the name of the Android Debug Bridge command, `adb sideload`. The adb command naming makes sense considering the phone is plugged into a computer, for installing content externally when the phone could not otherwise "load" the content.
• user3939382
  We should just call it loading. Loading from an app store we can call simply, mortgaging our cognitive liberty and liquidating the middle class for comfort or MOCLALTMCFC.
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  blueg3
  I realize F-droid has an understandably strong opinion here, but this writing is disingenuous.From the post:> Regardless, the term “sideload” was coined to insinuate that there is something dark and sinister about the process, as if the user were making an end-run around safeguards that are designed to keep you protected and secure. But if we reluctantly accept that “sideloading” is a term that has wriggled its way into common parlance, then we should at least use a consistent definition for it. Wikipedia’s summary definition is:> the transfer of apps from web sources that are not vendor-approvedThe opening two sentences of the linked-to Wikipedia page on sideloading:> Sideloading is the process of transferring files between two local devices, in particular between a personal computer and a mobile device such as a mobile phone, smartphone, PDA, tablet, portable media player or e-reader.> Sideloading typically refers to media file transfer to a mobile device via USB, Bluetooth, WiFi or by writing to a memory card for insertion into the mobile device, but also applies to the transfer of apps from web sources that are not vendor-approved.The phrase after the "but" in the second sentence isn't the "summary definition". It's the part of the definition that best supports your argument. Cutting the Wikipedia definition down to that part is deceptive.Also in the post:> Regardless, the term “sideload” was coined to insinuate that there is something dark and sinister about the process, as if the user were making an end-run around safeguards that are designed to keep you protected and secure.Immediately later in the same Wikipedia page is a paragraph that is literally about how the word was coined:> The term "sideload" was coined in the late 1990s by online storage service i-drive as an alternative means of transferring and storing computer files virtually instead of physically. In 2000, i-drive applied for a trademark on the term. Rather than initiating a traditional file "download" from a website or FTP site to their computer, a user could perform a "sideload" and have the file transferred directly into their personal storage area on the service.That's funny. The history of how the word was coined and the post's claim about how it was coined aren't similar at all. Weird.
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  xondono
  I’m honestly very tired of this argument, everything about it is bad.Features aren’t rights, if you want a phone that let’s you run whatever you want, buy one or make it yourself.What you’re trying is to use the force of the state to make mandatory a feature that not only 99% users won’t use, it vastly increases the attack surface for most of them, specially the most vulnerable.If anyone were trying to create a word that gives a “deviant” feel, they wouldn’t use “sideload”, and most people haven’t even heard the term. There’s a world of difference between words like “pirate”, “crack”, “hack” and “sideload”.If anything I’d say it’s too nice of a term, since it easily hides for normies the fact that what you’re doing is loading untrusted code, and it’s your responsibility to audit it’s origin or contents (something even lot’s of devs don’t do).If you want to reverse engineer your devices, all the power to you, but you don’t get to decide how others people’s devices work.
• p0w3n3d
  Actually sideloading is not a made-up term. It's an existing term, that was (20yrs ago) used regarding to cracks and trainers software. Sideloaders loaded (mainly in DOS but Atari had it too) the main executable along with additional program, a routine or interrupt that would allow disabling of copy protection, cheat on the amount of lives, energy in games (trainers) or simply do something more like play demo music before the game's proper launching. One example - prehistorik game that was distributed by pirates with a "pretrain.com" which allowed to select unlimited lives and sideloaded this routine along with the main program, that would periodically check the counters and keep them up.-- edit --Apparently after checking this term in the internet, I am not so sure that this process had been called this way. Maybe I'll leave it here to provoke a correct answer according to the internet rule #1 - to learn what is the correct answer, just post an incorrect answer in the internet and wait
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  gmueckl
  I know that this is a controversial take here, but this sideloading crackdown is just fallout from the inevitable disaster that is mixing general purpose computing with high security and reliability requirements.There's just no way at this time in which a single computing device can run software with high reliability expectations (emergency calls), high security expectations (controlled calling/texting, banking, money transactions) at the same time as random crap from the internet and keep the user safe and secure.The HN community is far to fixated on their own use cases to properly understand this issue and its implications which can potentially upset a person's entire existence.
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  fngjdflmdflg
  `abd install` will still work as per[0] so to me sideloading is still possible, so the statement 'Google’s message that “Sideloading is Not Going Away” is clear, concise, and false' is not correct.I think users should be able to install whatever software they want, without any charge or other external permissions, but at the same time device and OS makers should be able to make it difficult to do so, within reason. Apparently scam apps are more common in some countries than others and is actually a problem in some countries, although I'm not sure.[1] Google did cite that as the reason for the change.[2] However, combined with the way Google has been locking down Android APIs more and more, (eg. the file system, but other APIs as well) it is concerning. At the same time those changes were also about security. I think every phone should be able to have full root permissions if you go through enough hoops without having to install another ROM. That seems to solve most of the issues here.[0] https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2025/09/lets-talk-...[1] see eg. https://techcrunch.com/2024/02/07/google-starts-blocking-use... at the end of the article for some examples[2] https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2025/08/elevating-...