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Google's plan to restrict sideloading on Android has a potential escape hatch for users
(www.androidauthority.com)
this post was submitted on 06 Sep 2025
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It is, because it's actually the term that defines the process of transferring files not from an external networked device - downloading - or to an external networked device - uploading - but between two local devices - sideloading.
It's over two decades old, you downloaded an mp3 from kazaa, and then sideloaded it to your player.
For android apps, I believe the term originates from the method of using ADB to directly write the app to the phone memory, the command of which is "adb sideload filename"
And companies ofted do it. Thay recoined jaywalking to put the blaim of the accidents to pedestrians and take away the road from them. They change what littering means in attrmpt to delute the responsibility for polution... We are better than that this time, right?
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Like "Jaywalking", suddenly, walking is no longer the norm, but the car is preferred. The victims are seen as perpetrators.
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Call sideloading what it is, installing apps.
Found the Rossman subrsciber. 📎
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Since Google’s goal is to improve security
Is it though? Really?
The security of their bank balance.
No.
This publication is always repeating Google's nonsense.
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Since Google’s goal is to improve security
This is an obvious lie.
tl;dr you can still "sideload" via adb.
This is so incredibly inconvenient as to be meaningless.
It's not completely meaningless because if it's truly the only option I'm going to be using it until I eventually replace my current phone with one with an unlocked bootloader.
I'm afraid that won't help. There will be even fewer people developing apps specifically for the 0.01% of us using custom ROMs.
They're already developing the apps for the 1% of us not just using proprietary apps from the play store. I don't think this just kills open source app development.
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It will be stupid, but I presume there will be a rise in desktop apps or webapps that require you to only plug the phone in and it will handle the rest.
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I'm not sure why google is over engineering this, proper mainline distros have this solved since forever. Let the community setup trusted repos with gpg keys, then let me trust the repos. If Fdroid trusts the package and I trust Fdroid, who should care?
Probably because they want to target software that cracks theirs to avoid ads, like ReVanced.
Ding ding ding ding ding. It's so obvious, it's because Google wants to be in control and block apps it would rather not exist. Newpipe, FreeTube, Revanced and the like.
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Because it was never actually about security to begin with. That's obviously BS. Google just wants control.
If Google wanted to add developer verification without being evil, it could use SSL certificates connected to domain names. I think the whole concept is ill-conceived, though I'll admit to a modest bias against protecting people from themselves.
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This is actually worse than integration in Play Protect which can be disabled very easily. Now you can only install unsigned apps via ADB which means just developers can do it.
And very annoying too since some government apps don't like it when you have developer mode on.
Not only government. I can't see my daughter's insulin pump status if I don't disable developer mode.
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We hope that Google keeps its word and preserves ADB installation
lol, adb is the first loophole that will be closed.
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why can google not just code something like this into android:
allow apps from:
( ) All sources (how it is now; allow each app to install apps from external sources)
( ) Just Google Play
( ) Apps which have been verified by Google Developer Program
Because they want to stop people from using ad blockers.
Option 1 is a potential cause of "lost" revenue.
Late stage capitalism absolutely forbids anything that could cause that, even if the cost of implementation outweighs any potential gain.
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