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What we talk about when we talk about sideloading

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Re: What we talk about when we talk about sideloading

#351

Post by echelon »

evanmoran wrote: post #339
marcprux wrote: post #27

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…

The correct term was always “download”. We should be allowed to download and run anything we want on our own phones.

The fact that Apple and Google have taken away digital freedom on the most important device of our time is shameful and gross.

That they've convinced everyone that this is okay, and that they've maintained regulatory capture to keep doing it, is absurd.

We need web downloads and installs on Apple and Android immediately. With no "scare walls" or deeply nested and hidden menu settings to enable it.

We need the ability to run any kind of tech, including JIT runtimes. Apple and Google shouldn't be able to tell consumers or the industry what type of computing is permissible.

Smartphones are the most important device category in the world. They're how people bank, work, navigate, shop, order, communicate, date, order food at restaurants, take photos, -- life without them is impossible.

It would be nice to see as much competition as we do with the automotive industry, but the next best thing would be to rid Apple and Google of their draconian overlording of the platforms.

Consumers do not have the expertise to articulate this or really understand what is happening to them. This requires regulators and industry professionals to push forward.

Re: What we talk about when we talk about sideloading

#352

Post by echelon »

o1o1o1 wrote: post #347
marcprux wrote: post #27

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…

This is mostly a framing war. Calling it "sideloading" makes it sound risky or unusual, but if we called it "installing software on your own device", Apple's and Google's restrictions would seem absurd - like telling homeowners what kind of light bulbs they're allowed to use.

Or what kind of store you can drive to.

Imagine if your car was locked to certain manufacturer-permitted destinations.

That's what our smartphones have done.

Re: What we talk about when we talk about sideloading

#353

Post by dmbche »

archargelod wrote: post #335
the_pwner224 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A lot of power users who buy flagships will leave for iPhones if Android ceases to be an open platform. 99.9% of people who use Android have never, and never will, install apps outside the Play Store, and aren't even aware that they can do so.

Did you consider piracy? I'd guesstimate that close to 50% of Android users know how to install an apk.

You think 50% of the 3.6 billions of android users know that?

Re: What we talk about when we talk about sideloading

#354

Post by unscaled »

gruez wrote: post #149
shakna wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apt has supported multiple sources since inception. Debian is not the only supplier.

Right, but those would hardly be considered first party. Just because it goes through apt, doesn't mean it's first party.

It only goes through "apt the program", but apt is just serving as a method of installing a package, which is hosted on one of the configured apt sources.

Calling all software installed through apt "first party" is a wild stretch, since you can apply the same logic to git, wget, or a web browser. For instance, it would probably be correct to say that most Windows software is downloaded and installed through Chrome, but nobody in their right mind would claim Google owns the largest first party store for Windows.

Re: What we talk about when we talk about sideloading

#356

Post by unscaled »

wkat4242 wrote: post #220
fyrn_ wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forcing ADB may as well be a ban, if you don't see that, you're pretty out of touch with consumers. Sideloading is already hard enough for many, forcing the use of an extra computer, a dev tool in the CLI, and dev mode is way way outside what people will do

You could make a glossy PC client around it. On the meta quest there's an app called SideQuest that does just that because meta doesn't permit apps to install other apps. It's still a fairly big thing there.

I'm happy about the adb loophole, but I'm worried this would be just the start of the slippery slope, and Google would find a way to lock down adb next, citing the risk of malware sideloaded by fancy tools wrapping adb, once they start popping up.

Re: What we talk about when we talk about sideloading

#357

Post by tomhow »

citizenpaul wrote: post #299
marcprux wrote: post #27

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…

[flagged]

> In general HN skews towards an incredibly privileged and spoiled crowd

> This poem sums up most of HN's politics on control structures.

Please let's not have these sweeping generalisations about the HN community or this grandiose "first they came" rhetoric. The HN community is a bell curve like any other large group of people. All the evidence I see from looking at the discussions for hours each day is that it skews left-libertarian - i.e., supports individual freedoms and opposes government and corporate authoritarianism. This is what you would expect from a cohort of people dominated by technology employees and freelancers, of whom most are deeply supportive of the principles of open-source software and the freedom to do what you please with your devices. It also includes huge numbers of people from different places around the world who are not at all "privileged" and "spoiled". Of course there will always be exceptions in a large group of people – or really, the other end of the bell curve. But this broad-strokes characterisation of the HN community as a whole makes no sense at all.

The guidelines ask us to do better than this, in all these different ways:

Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.

Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.

Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community.

Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents. Omit internet tropes.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: What we talk about when we talk about sideloading

#358

Post by LambdaComplex »

dmbche wrote: post #353
archargelod wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you consider piracy? I'd guesstimate that close to 50% of Android users know how to install an apk.

You think 50% of the 3.6 billions of android users know that?

https://xkcd.com/2501/

Re: What we talk about when we talk about sideloading

#359

Post by sergeykish »

vezycash wrote: post #10

Everyone developer who worked hard to make windows phone die. Hope you're happy.

Windows RT "sideloading" denied for ordinary users, costly for Line-of-Business apps (2012).

Microsoft UWP only Microsoft Store. Microsoft backtracked their walled garden Windows plans for a while as result of Windows Phone fiasco.

Yes, we are.

Re: What we talk about when we talk about sideloading

#360

Post by GuB-42 »

kragen wrote: post #146
noitpmeder wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but you'd probably also agree it should be up to the device owner (end user) which parties are to be considered 'trusted'

Yes, I think the end user is in a better position than Google to decide who to trust. Some end users will make bad decisions, but Google's interests are systematically misaligned with theirs.

Not really. Google has maybe the best security researchers in the world, most end users have no idea, Hacker News is not representative of the general population.

I am not saying it justifies locking down devices, but that's the kind of situation where I think a bit of friction is a good thing. For example having to connect your phone to a computer and run some command line tool (like for unlocking a bootloader). You still have your freedom, but it is also something you are less likely to do by accident. In the sideloading situation, it looks like you could make yourself a developer account and repack apps under your own identity, which is one of these high friction workarounds.

For F-Droid specifically, maybe they should negotiate with Google before going to the offensive. Maybe they did and it didn't work, but I think a good compromise would be to let F-Droid has a key to sign the apps they compile, making F-Droid accountable for the apps they distribute.

And by the way, Firefox is in a similar situation for extensions. Over the years, they made it really hard to install anything from outside the official Mozilla repository, citing security concerns. It is not just Google.

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