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Google confirms 'high-friction' sideloading flow is coming to Android

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Re: Google confirms 'high-friction' sideloading flow is coming to Android

#411

Post by gruez »

archvile wrote: post #403
gruez wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Sideloading is a neologism to scare users and lawmakers, it just means "Installing software" and should be a basic right. No it's not. The term originated far before this debacle, and carries a meaningful distinction than just "installing". Specifically it means installing from a non-first party source. You might not agree the restriction should exist, or that even the concept of first party source at all, but for c…

So... installing software? >Specifically it means installing from a non-first party source. Just like 99% of software running on computers in the world today? How is it different from "installing software"?

>How is that different from "installing software"?

It's easy to see this play out if try to replace "sideloading" with "installing software". If you apply it to OP's headline of

>Google confirms 'high-friction' sideloading flow is coming to Android

You get

>Google confirms 'high-friction' installing software flow is coming to Android

which isn't at all accurate. You still need the distinct concept of "installing software not from first party sources", otherwise it sounds like google is making it a pain to install all apps, which isn't the case.

Re: Google confirms 'high-friction' sideloading flow is coming to Android

#413

Post by gruez »

fc417fc802 wrote: post #408
gruez wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is "the sandboxing feature" you're talking about? The standard app sandbox built into android allows apps to discover each other for various purposes, and grapheneos doesn't do anything to attempt to plug this.

Apologies. I was thinking of Android user profiles which are available from mainline and (AFAIK) prevent the linked workaround from revealing any apps not installed in the same profile. So it's an example of an unfixed leak in Android but not (as I had previously implied) something that Graphene corrects. Honestly the state of anti-fingerprinting (app, browser, and otherwise) is fairly abysmal but that's hardly limit…

>Apologies. I was thinking of Android user profiles which are available from mainline and (AFAIK) prevent the linked workaround from revealing any apps not installed in the same profile.

But there's no evidence that stock android leaks apps installed across profiles? The link you provided doesn't discuss profiles at all, and stock android also has private space and work profile just like grapheneos.

Re: Google confirms 'high-friction' sideloading flow is coming to Android

#414

Post by kazinator »

Side loading into a streaming box is an essential feature for me. I depend on a side-loaded app for Japanese TV.

But of course, I have that in a separate Android box, so I'm not forced to update to a new OS when replacing a TV (as I just did this week).

Re: Google confirms 'high-friction' sideloading flow is coming to Android

#415

Post by pbmonster »

sghiassy wrote: post #150
onli wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see any iOS advantage with the apps anymore. That was maybe true in the very beginning, during the gold rush time of the app store. But not since then. In which category are there better iOS apps? Browsers? No, strictly worse. Youtube app? No, worse. Texting? Worse or equal (Whatsapp). Podcast client? I assume worse, since there is no Antenna Pod. Social media apps? The iOS variants of those apps are afaik in…

The YouTube app on iOS is superior to the Android app for one

A YouTube client that can't AdBlock and SponsorBlock automatically is strictly worse.

Re: Google confirms 'high-friction' sideloading flow is coming to Android

#416

Post by kazinator »

AlotOfReading wrote: post #12

Google's long term strategy with Android is baffling to me. Apple has had better mobile hardware for years. Apple has higher consumer trust. Apple has better app selection (for most people). Apple has been increasingly implementing the core features that differentiate Android devices, like USB-C and RCS. Every Android user lost to the increasing iOS market share is another customer Google has to pay exorbitant fees t…

AnkiDroid, a fully self-contained version of Anki for Android, not requiring pairing with a desktop app and completely free, does not exist or iOS. Or did not, last time I checked. So that would be a deal breaker.

Maybe by now there is some Android emulation for iOS that can do it?

Re: Google confirms 'high-friction' sideloading flow is coming to Android

#417

Post by IshKebab »

lokar wrote: post #368
goldenarm wrote: post #182

Sideloading is a neologism to scare users and lawmakers, it just means "Installing software" and should be a basic right. Also software installation in Android has been high friction for a while. Installing an APK on my phone is at least 10 clicks.

I think what is missing here is the growing trend of scammers convincing people they are their bank (or whatever) and walking them through enabling side-loading and then installing malware (sometimes to address some urgent security issues with their account). This is meant to counter an actual issues that is affecting many many users.

What do they use the app to do?

Re: Google confirms 'high-friction' sideloading flow is coming to Android

#418

Post by petre »

AlotOfReading wrote: post #12

Google's long term strategy with Android is baffling to me. Apple has had better mobile hardware for years. Apple has higher consumer trust. Apple has better app selection (for most people). Apple has been increasingly implementing the core features that differentiate Android devices, like USB-C and RCS. Every Android user lost to the increasing iOS market share is another customer Google has to pay exorbitant fees t…

I gave an iPhone a shot fof like a week but had to return it because it didn't have alternatives to the apps I was using on Android. Apps like BitCalculator, Convertbee, Aegis, a decent calculator with sin/cos/log and the ability to write expressions like the default on Android, Wireguard and a decent browser with an ad blocker. No Safari doesn't qualify.

Re: Google confirms 'high-friction' sideloading flow is coming to Android

#419

Post by IshKebab »

ottah wrote: post #377
xandrius wrote: post #121

I take the opportunity to let people know that there are alternatives to Google/Apple duopoly on mobile. Link: https://www.ubuntu-touch.io/ Sure, GrapheneOS is often suggested but Ubuntu Touch is a really interesting alternative, their own store and ecosystem. The community is amazing and welcoming. If there are Android apps which you can't do without, they can be emulated and used anyway. Imagine switching to Linux…

I have struggled with getting anything functional on a Fairphone running Ubuntu Touch. The problem is you can't really run any Linux app, it has to be written to support their specific display manager. Running regular Linux apps is possible but not properly documented and I haven't gotten it to work. Android apps through Waydroid sort of works, but is unstable and not suitable for daily use. I really want Linux on mo…

It's never going to work. Any competitor that isn't Android won't have app support (e.g. you won't even be able to message people in 90% of the world where WhatsApp, Telegram, Line, etc. are the de facto communication method for almost the entire population).

So you need some way to run Android apps... which is totally possible, but at that point why not just use Android?

Re: Google confirms 'high-friction' sideloading flow is coming to Android

#420

Post by smi-nvidia »

shuckles wrote: post #353
mexicocitinluez wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because things like Safari ...work really well Are we living in the same universe? We manage a fleet of tablets (both Apple and Android) for a healthcare company whose EMR is web-based. And because of that Sarafi has made our lives miserable. So much so that we're migrating to Chromebooks. I've been developing for the web for 15 years. The first half was spent battling Internet Explorer. Now it's Safari.

The people complaining about Safari often are running enterprise crapware that requires some esoteric Chrome API or bug to operate correctly and should actually be an app on iOS but cannot be funded as such because its creators don’t care about its users.

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