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^{obsidian says this takes 3 minutes to read.}

When you install apps on your PC from outside the Microsoft Store, is that called sideloading, or installing programs? If the answer was “installing programs”, then why do we call installing apps from third sources “sideloading” on Android and iOS?

I been wondering how we ended up calling this as sideloading, but I think the culprit of “sideloading” becoming the new word for “installing apps from third party sources” is Apple. Apple uses the word “sideloading” to make it sound more dangerous then it actually is. Apple uses that word because it sounds very technical and scary. They use that word and associate it with malware, hackers, insecurity, spyware, and whatever fucking scary word term they can come up with. And Apple was so fucking stubborn about not allowing third party app installing up until the EU stepped in, and even so, they did it in the most fucking malicious compliance way possible.

And now Google is trying to do the same thing. They are using the word “sideload” and “sideloading” because it sounds scary. They claim that third party app sources are more dangerous compared to regular apps. But Android sets up barriers to avoid unintentional third party app installing. You need to allow the app (usually a browser, or an alternative app store client like F-Droid) manually so it can install apps. It warns you in clear language that the app can be dangerous when you allow an app to be able to install third party apps, and it is on the user to decide if the risk is worth it. Yet is this not enough? Now Google needs to step in to protect us from ourselves, to do whatever we want with the devices that we own and paid for? Like what fucking authority does Google have over whatever I decide to do with whatever I want to do with my phone?

Please do not call it sideloading. Every time you use that word, you are helping Google and all these fucking big tech companies by spreading their language and promoting their slow march towards total control over the devices that we own. Call it for what it actually is: installing apps. It is the same as installing apps from the Play Store, just from a different source. It is the same as hunting down exe files and installing them on Windows and not using the Microsoft Store.