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Android's sideloading limits are its most anti-consumer move
401–410 of 564 posts
Re: Android's sideloading limits are its most anti-consumer move
#402Earlier quoted context omitted.
Check UbuntuTouch, it's really a nice third option. The OS is refreshing and the dev community active. We do not have to choose the lesser of two evils this time.
Yeah... Does it support WhatsApp? If not that's a deal-breaker in most of the world.
Using Waydroid, you can run many/most Android apps unmodified.
So, yes, it's possible :)
Re: Android's sideloading limits are its most anti-consumer move
#403Earlier quoted context omitted.
Check UbuntuTouch, it's really a nice third option. The OS is refreshing and the dev community active. We do not have to choose the lesser of two evils this time.
I glanced at Ubuntu Touch, but its device compatibility looked severely lacking ( https://devices.ubuntu-touch.io/ ).... I have old Pixel phones I could potentially try it out on, but the last Pixel phone that is officially supported is the 3a. So that is a bummer.
Device compatibility is not a feature occurred naturally, it's the result of people wanting and then working to get it supported.
So, if you're interested in adding more devices, join the community and see what you can do!
Re: Android's sideloading limits are its most anti-consumer move
#404Earlier quoted context omitted.
Check UbuntuTouch, it's really a nice third option. The OS is refreshing and the dev community active. We do not have to choose the lesser of two evils this time.
"Refreshing" is an interesting adjective to use. I don't want a refreshing OS. I want a rock stable OS that sips battery.
There are so many ways one can go about telling people that Android and iOS are not the only viable options for a mobile OS.
If an adjective is sufficient to make you fall back to the mean then there wasn't much one can do to convince you, I'm afraid.
Re: Android's sideloading limits are its most anti-consumer move
#405Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes and for you to think that is a valid argument for a consumer product is why most open source products suck for consumers and end up being about as bad as the “homermobile”.
You do realize macOS has used sandboxing by default for over a decade, right? ChromeOS/ChromiumOS uses heavy sandboxing. Android currently uses sandboxing transparently, despite plans to iOS-ify the platform. Hell, Windows uses app isolation sandboxing these days. All four consumer platforms let you run the software you want to and they provide sandboxing at the same time. They also let you configure sandboxes, too.…
Mac apps outside of the Mac App Store really doesn’t have any sandboxing.
And Android’s sandboxing is so bad, you always hear about the malware of the week especially outside of the Play Store.
ChromeOS also isn’t open source. And expecting end users to “configure sandboxes” you might as well not have one.
Firefox is s browser, and didn’t they tighten what third party extensions can run?
Android - or at least the version that most people use - is not “open source” by any stretch of the imagination.
Re: Android's sideloading limits are its most anti-consumer move
#406Earlier quoted context omitted.
I mean, we have mandatory Play Store services, so the experience on android is not significantly less locked-in.
LineageOS without gapps (no microg even) works fine. Very few apps require play services. I think everything from F-Droid works.
> LineageOS
This frog is being boiled
Re: Android's sideloading limits are its most anti-consumer move
#407The Play Store should be taken away from Google and setup as a non profit to facilitate serving copies of software people upload.
Re: Android's sideloading limits are its most anti-consumer move
#408Earlier quoted context omitted.
Android is losing a unique selling point. This will have an impact on what a techie may recommend to a non-techie in the future, because everything is beige now. I have the feeling Google has given up on using nerds as beachheads. The market is saturated enough and they don't need us anymore to do grass roots spreading of their products. It's the same with Youtube. As long as there were enough people who were unencum…
This is unacceptable. Google needs to be broken up. Apple too. The lack of antitrust enforcement is a clown show. We have no choice in the most important computing category in the world. It's a duopoly and they have everyone in straightjackets - consumers, companies, competitors, governments, ... A huge percentage of the world's thoughts and economy flow through mobile. And two companies own it. Ma Bell was nothing c…
Breaking up Google will not help in this particular case. The problem is entirely within the Android unit; and would still be present even if Android were to be split off into it's own company.
It certainly seems like there is problematic behavior in the restrictions Google puts on OEMs that want to use Android (or, more specifically, play services) on their devices. However, I think it would take a different enforcement mechanism to address that.
Re: Android's sideloading limits are its most anti-consumer move
#409Earlier quoted context omitted.
> if you compile from source and deploy via adb nothing changes That's not how I understand it. Do you have a source? "Starting in September 2026, Android will require all apps to be registered by verified developers in order to be installed on certified Android devices." https://developer.android.com/developer-verification
https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2025/09/lets-talk-... > Android Studio is unaffected because deployments performed with adb, which Android Studio uses behind the scenes to push builds to devices, is unaffected.
Thanks.
So, simply sending a download link for an APK to a friend is not enough anymore - I now have to teach them how to install and use adb.
EDIT
> we are also introducing a free developer account type that will allow teachers, students, and hobbyists to distribute apps to a limited number of devices without needing to provide a government ID.
Depending on how they implement that, this would at least partially improve the situation. Sounds like no ID is required, but I assume the whole ordeal with registering each app is still mandatory.
Re: Android's sideloading limits are its most anti-consumer move
#410If you can't install software on your own device, you don't own it.
You are renting a completely government and corporate controlled piece of hardware.