Google confirms 'high-friction' sideloading flow is coming to Android • Hacker News Board

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

#521

Post by curt15 » Sun, Jan 25, 2026, 6:53 PM UTC

gruez wrote: post #383

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.

>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…

> Specifically it means installing from a non-first party source

What "first-party" source? Apple invented out of thin air the notion of a "first-party" software source or that computer users can only install software approved by a central authority.

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

#522

Post by bigstrat2003 » Sun, Jan 25, 2026, 6:53 PM UTC

8note wrote: post #496

hoistbypetard wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about categories overall, but I'm attached to my iPad and won't switch to Android in part because Affinity is not available there, nor is there any near equivalent as far as I can tell. I still think Overcast is nicer to use than Antenna Pod. Microsoft Office apps work much better on iDevices, in my experience. (I know they exist for Android, but I've never had much luck editing there, where it actually…

how do you live without ublock on your browser though? firefox with adblock is the high quality youtube app

Brave on Android has ad blocking built in, I would assume it does in iOS too. No need for ublock in that case.

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

#523

Post by fph » Sun, Jan 25, 2026, 6:54 PM UTC

Liquix wrote: post #356

tazjin wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These weird anti-Graphene posts confuse me. I use GrapheneOS, fwiw, and I believe some things the project does (like its attacks on F-Droid) are misguided for orthogonal reasons. However, it all makes sense from the perspective of Graphene not attempting to be a general purpose OS like Lineage, but explicitly a security focused OS. Security is often in conflict with what the average consumer wants, and they can go us…

not much in the parent comment is anti-graphene. it's probably the best available option for a mobile OS right now. the sentiment is that the dev team - specifically one zealot - does not engage politely/rationally/transparently in any public forum, which undermines the image of the OS as a whole.

And unfortunately that one zealot is the project leader.

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

#524

Post by newsoftheday » Sun, Jan 25, 2026, 6:56 PM UTC

onli wrote: post #56

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 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…

> while the Play store is an equally ad-riddled

That made me realize how little I go to the Play store these days to just browse compared to the early days of Android.

I personally can't stand Apple products ... dbut with Google doing their crap and Samsung acting like Microsoft with all the crap they load in I have to disable just to make the phone usable; I've seriously thought about moving to iPhone the past couple of years.

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

#525

Post by kernal » Sun, Jan 25, 2026, 6:57 PM UTC

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…

Android gets a bad rap because of security and Apple has exploited this in their marketing campaigns to the max. So the moment Google does something to address this glaring hole in their security model the 1% vocal minority throws a fit. You’ll still be able to side load, but because it has extra friction they’ll threaten to switch to iOS. To which I say - go for it. Google doesn’t care about people who side load apps like an automatic reloading the chamber. You’re an insignificant percentage of their base.

Personally, I would rather see Android only run signed and sanctioned apps to prevent the technologically illiterate from getting pwned. If you want to be able to side load then sign up to be a developer and go to town on your device.

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

#526

Post by eikenberry » Sun, Jan 25, 2026, 6:58 PM UTC

MrDresden wrote: post #24

When this whole thing got announced, I purchased a new Pixel 9 and flashed it with GrapheneOS. I am hoping that in about 6-8 years (when I realistically need to update) the landscape might be a bit better. Or who knows, maybe I'll just continue using GrapheneOS. So far I have not had a single issues with it. Apps the rely on attestation do not work, but honestly it's only two applications out of hundreds so I can liv…

Which apps require attestation? People always mention banking apps but I'm curious what non-banking apps might pull this crap.

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

#527

Post by curt15 » Sun, Jan 25, 2026, 7:00 PM UTC

gruez wrote: post #479

glenstein wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 It's amazing how many confidently wrong people are springing up out of the wordwork to present revisionist history about the meaning of "install" like it's ancient wisdom. Pre-mobile computing treated "install" as neutral and primary and…

>Even now, that's not a term used in Windows or Linux. No, it's existed in windows 10 (and probably windows 8.1) for over a decade. https://www.ghacks.net/2015/06/13/how-to-enable-developer-mo... (note the date) >So it's staggering to see a specific term of art that deviates from historical precedent that only is used in an Android context and only relatively recently in the history of computing be referred to as if…

>but that doesn't mean no such distinction exists right now

A distinction only exists if people parrot the verbiage coined by corporations with a business interest in creating artificial moats. They have no obligation to, especially media outlets who have the right (and IMO responsibility) to use accurate vocabulary.

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

#528

Post by kakacik » Sun, Jan 25, 2026, 7:01 PM UTC

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…

Better mobile hardware is highly specific. Crappy batteries worse than literally all competition? Check for first what, 5 or 6 generations? For many people, battery life is single most important attribute of their phone.

Also USB-C ain't some differentiating feature of android, rather rest of the world and electronics. Fully apple's fault here, it could have been their standard as the one, but greed is greed.

Screens were always better on Samsungs flagships (apple buys screens there too) - mildly higher resolution, refresh rate and contrasts but these are rather unimportant. As an non-apple tech user, apple phone hardware has very few things that interest me or put them above the others.

Its better integration with software that did put them above, since it was optimized for a very narrow band of hardware so could get far even with subpar hardware (till M chips came but these days they are almost on par with Snapdragons). But that software has a list of issues much bigger than hardware above so no, thank you.

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

#529

Post by MiddleEndian » Sun, Jan 25, 2026, 7:03 PM UTC

nunez wrote: post #476

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…

Unfortunately, apps have always been the barrier to entry for competing options. If your platform doesn't have apps, then your platform won't have users, which won't attract developers and BigCo's to write apps for your platform. Rinse and repeat. This is how Windows Phone was wiped out, despite them spending *a lot* of money trying to attract companies and developers to write stuff for their OS.

Windows Phone was fantastic because it had no apps. Wish it managed to stake out and maintain a decent portion of the phone market. If 30% of the population could say "Oh sorry TicketMaster, I can't install your app, please just email me a pdf or text me a link to your tickets that I can just open in a web browser" the that would benefit everyone, even non-WP users.

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

#530

Post by kernal » Sun, Jan 25, 2026, 7:03 PM UTC

miki123211 wrote: post #470

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…

This isn't about pure revenue, it's about scams. Android has a reputation for being unsafe precisely because of sideloading (as well as low Google Play fees, looser app review, accessibility services and remote access). This policy is bad for us HNers, but objectively good for the 95+% of people who will never sideload a legitimate Android app, but are extremely likely to get caught by scammers. The heavy US skew of…

On the topic of looser app reviews on the Play store vs the App store. I can give you a long list of fake iOS apps where you enter a 4 digit code to watch free movies. People who think Apple is manually reviewing apps are delusional.