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Android's sideloading limits are its most anti-consumer move

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Re: Android's sideloading limits are its most anti-consumer move

#191

Post by floxy »

realusername wrote: post #136
Aachen wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What part of cheaper, better, and open source is shittier exactly?

Cheaper for sure, better maybe but open source certainly not, AOSP doesn't run on a single device on earth, not even the emulators.

I'm out of the loop on this. What is Graphene doing?

https://grapheneos.org/features

>GrapheneOS is a private and secure mobile operating system with great functionality and usability. It starts from the strong baseline of the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) and takes great care to avoid increasing attack surface or hurting the strong security model.

Re: Android's sideloading limits are its most anti-consumer move

#192

Post by koolala »

dangus wrote: post #187
GeekyBear wrote: post #179

If you focus on the fact that Google fraudulently marketed an operating system that allows users to run any software they like (until they successfully drove other open options out of the marketplace) you have all the legal justification you need to force Google to back down.

This is a massive stretch. What marketing campaign said that? And even if it did, it’s not like marketing campaigns make claims that last forever. Red Lobster doesn’t owe you anything because endless crab legs isn’t a thing anymore.

embrace, extend, extinguish

Re: Android's sideloading limits are its most anti-consumer move

#193

Post by isaacremuant »

GeekyBear wrote: post #179

If you focus on the fact that Google fraudulently marketed an operating system that allows users to run any software they like (until they successfully drove other open options out of the marketplace) you have all the legal justification you need to force Google to back down.

The EU doesn't need a legal justification. They can stop Google but they actually love this because it helps their total surveillance state ideas.

Re: Android's sideloading limits are its most anti-consumer move

#194

Post by constantcrying »

Aachen wrote: post #61
63stack wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same, I'm tempted to call android just a shittier iPhone now

What part of cheaper, better, and open source is shittier exactly?

Over the last years Android has gotten increasingly worse, which is something you just have to expect from a Google product.

It is still unbelievable to me that Google is shipping a product which takes 10 seconds to show anything when I search through my phones settings. What are they doing?

>open source

Sure. If you buy the right phone you get some open source components. Of course half the Android companies are trying to funnel you into their proprietary ecosystem as well. The rest just wants you to use Google's proprietary ecosystem.

Re: Android's sideloading limits are its most anti-consumer move

#195

Post by nubinetwork »

dinkleberg wrote: post #123
miclill wrote: post #114

My hope is that this lets some more people wake up and finally make Linux on the smartphone a reality.

If that ever does happen I really hope they just focus on making a proper phone, not trying to make it a hybrid phone and workstation. When they were working on Ubuntu touch (or whatever their phone version was called), they would show off how cool it was that you could just plug your monitor and input devices into it and boom you’ve got an all in one device. But who wants that? It’s cool. But I’d rather just have a…

You've been able to do this on android since the Motorola Atrix.

Re: Android's sideloading limits are its most anti-consumer move

#196

Post by koolala »

HiPhish wrote: post #4

We need to stop calling it "sideloading", we should call it freely installing software. The term "sideloading" makes it sound shady and hacky when in reality it is what we have been able to do on our computers since forever. These are not phones, they are computers shaped like phones, computer which we fully bought with our money, and I we shall install what we want on our own computers.

How badly screwed are we that the term "installing" doesn't work because it doesn't exclude the now default assumption that someone else controls everything you are allowed to install.

Re: Android's sideloading limits are its most anti-consumer move

#198

Post by getpokedagain »

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #99
omnimus wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah... no. This is normal with desktop computers. Let's stop handholding people. If I trust the source, I trust the domain... I want to be able to install app from its source. Googles/Apples argument would have been much stronger if their stores managed to not allow scams/malware/bad apps to their store but this is not the case. They want to have the full control without having the full responsibility. It's just pow…

And you are completely ignoring viruses, ransomware, keyloggers, the 50 toolbars etc that has been the staple of Windows and before that DOS for over 40 years. Scam apps are rife in the iOS App Store. But what they can’t do easily install viruses that affect anything out of its sandbox, keyloggers, etc

You are missing the part where the OS provider is the virus and keylogger. Unless of course you feel it reasonable that google and apple datamine everything you type via their software keyboard[0] or reading the contents of your notifications via play services[1].

0 - https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/16046-google-keyboard-w-net... 1 - https://discuss.privacyguides.net/t/sandboxed-google-play-pr...

Re: Android's sideloading limits are its most anti-consumer move

#199

Post by shkkmo »

marcprux wrote: post #125
glenstein wrote: post #124

Can anyone say exactly what this would mean for F-Droid? For instance, not that I want this to happen but if F-Droid really wanted, they could conceivably get verified developer status. And then they could offer apps, which (again I don't want this, just asking), could also be distributed if verified. F-Droid would have to be verified and would only be able to distribute apps from developers that are also verified. A…

We wrote about what it means for F-Droid at: https://f-droid.org/en/2025/09/29/google-developer-registrat... And it has been discussed in a couple of HN threads: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45409794 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45507173

> we cannot “take over” the application identifiers for the open-source apps we distribute, as that would effectively seize exclusive distribution rights to those applications.

Since these are open source apps, couldn't f-droid maintain their own fork of each app with a different application identifier?

It would give Google the ability to shutdown F-Droid at will by baning their account and thus far more power to control what F-Droid publishes and how it operates. However, it seems like anyone could fork an open source app and use their own account and setup their own unique identifier for their fork.

No question this increases Google's power but it doesn't seem like it technically makes it impossible to operate a store like F-Droid.

Re: Android's sideloading limits are its most anti-consumer move

#200

Post by ptrl600 »

JohnTHaller wrote: post #151
itg wrote: post #2

Installing any app I want outside the Play Store was the primary reason I decided to go with Android, despite most of the people I know using iPhones. If I can't do this anymore, I may as well switch and be able to use iMessage and FaceTime with them.

You can still side-load signed apps. It's a similar limitation to macOS which won't let you run apps that Apple hasn't signed without command line or control panel shenanigans. Compared to iOS, Android still has the advantage of installing your own full browser (like Firefox) with full-fat ad blocking (uBlock Origin, not Lite). iOS is Safari-only right now though, in theory, some alternative engines may be available…

With macOS you run "sudo spctl --master disable", and then you can run whatever you want without sending PII to Apple. Is that the case with the new Android stuff?
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