Google Pixel 10 series review

Google is really losing the plot lately, like worse than ever before. The changes to sideloading android apps is perhaps the biggest red flag they've ever thrown. But the new UI updates look largely silly and unhelpful, but maybe I'm being unfair.

If you are calling 'installing an app on your own phone without involvement of the vendor' 'sideloading' then you are complicit.

I like this point very much.

That the term "sideloading" has normalized treating this as a special case is a problem.

It's unlikely the terminology can be rolled back at this point, but occasionally reflecting on this is useful.

Semantic wars are unhelpful distractions. Focus on the issues.

No, he's right. The general public has no idea what "sideloading" even means, but they sure as shit would want to be able to load their own apps if they were asked about it. The terminology is meant to obfuscate the issue.

It sure can. I’m installing most of my stuff from F-Droid nowadays and I’m sure as hell confused why would anybody call this “sideloading”.

Maybe I'm just exhausted by the many times HN has told me I'm tilting at windmills refusing to call the Llamas of the world "open source".

Yes they are. Unhelpful distractions that are workshopped and focus grouped. Stop adopting the bizarre terminology of the enemy, and their goofy neologisms, and just talk about the issue in straightforward English.

We didn't need a different word for not being able to install an application on your phone without the permission of the company that made it. We needed a different word for the thing that was new, which is the company that makes the thing that you own refusing you permission to use it as you see fit.

He's not right at all. It is not "part of the problem" to use a term that a poster here doesn't think accurately captures the issue. The only part of the problem is the corporations who are trying to take our rights away.

Also, I think you'll be quite disappointed in what the general public does or does not care about. The iPhone has always been even more locked down than Android and it sells like hotcakes. Even on Android only a tiny minority of users make use of the option to install third-party apps. I think the general public should care about this topic, but all evidence is to the contrary.

Not OP, but to add to your sentiment: It was called installing when I was a child. I would download software—from CNET just casually browsing, or whatever from a warez forum—and open the package to reveal an installer (I was fond of InstallShield-based installers, I do not know why). I could customize the directory which the application would install to, stare endlessly at the verbose “advanced” or “custom” mode, and listen to my HDD spin a little faster.

perhaps because that's installing from a store, not sideloading? however poor (security-wise) the offering may be, you're still using the intended install flow

in this sense i do actually agree about the misuse of 'sideloading' - the planned change would not impact just sideloading, but also 'third party' stores

No, it's bikeshedding at it's worst. I almost think it's a deliberate psyop.

Most people don't know what sideloading is because most don't sideload and don't have a need for it.

If anything, the store download is the case where it’s not installing.

There’s nothing “installed” about something which can be yanked from your device or prevented from working at someone else’s whim.

Well, you side-loaded F-Droid in the first place.