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Absolutely capital dogshit move, a direct slice at the jugular for user freedoms, for letting people do computing in their terms. The presence of bad actors ke
by rektide 5y ago
Absolutely capital dogshit move, a direct slice at the jugular for user freedoms, for letting people do computing in their terms.
The presence of bad actors keeps being used as ammunition to destory possibility, to end softness, to make computing hard & inflexible, and it's the same genetic makeup as the constant cowtowing to fear that let's 'think of the children' be the deciding & only opinion policy gets passed with.
Loathsome detestable & massive setback, colossal unwinding of Android's spiritual advantage versus The Loyal Opposition Apple. If both platforms collapse into anti-choice, what happens to Apple's defense that it's users can go elsewhere? These shackles we permit to be set upon us, this prohibition of sideloading, the anti-generalization of computing can only be defended against by principled stances. For eroding possibility is forever to the megacorporate bottom line's profit. What a degrading trashfire move, Google, responding to the bad at such vast setback & penalty for the very very very good. Unlocking & exposing applications in new & amazing fashions is one of the highest & most virtuous goods, one of the best things we can do- reenable some unknown, go further- and this move speaks of a desire to embrace old stasist ossifying & cold death, to make us all rot forever with whatver is or was.
- ars 5y agoNice rant. But the headline leaves out a lot of detail that is in the article, which negates your rant.
- wtallis 5y ago"The feature still exists, behind a dark pattern of undiscoverability" really isn't as good of an excuse as you seem to think it is.
- selfhoster11 5y agoThey didn't remove the feature. It's simply been moved to the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying "Beware of the Leopard".
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- selfhoster11 5y agoI disagree. The very presence of these headlines indicates exactly what both the parent and myself are afraid of: that Android is losing uselessness for power users. The rant is far from being untrue.
- selfhoster11 5y agoThat comment was one rollercoaster of a ride. Very poetic, in a good way. Android was my favourite smartphone OS since it championed user freedom. Now that this freedom is reduced, there isn't much holding me there vs, for example, iOS.
- josephcsible 5y agoAs bad as moves like this are for freedom, even if Google did 20 more like it, Android would still be much freer than iOS.
- selfhoster11 5y agoI'm not so sure. Rooting a phone or flashing a custom firmware breaks Safety net, which means a good portion of apps that I find important will not run on my phone. An unrooted/unmodded device can be really annoying to use depending on what the manufacturer put in the ROM. I can't really think of a single thing beyond "sideloading" (what a repulsive word) apps and maybe filesystem/SD card access that Android has as an advantage over iOS, while the list of disadvantages keeps getting longer.
- josephcsible 5y agoI agree that's a big problem, but it's still less bad than iOS where you just can't flash a custom firmware. And sideloading is a really, really big thing.
- selfhoster11 5y agoWhile I can flash it, it's very unlikely that I actually will due to the invalidation of the SafetyNet status that I mentioned. If I can't make use of this feature without losing apps I care about, then I might as well treat the phone as if it never came with that feature in the first place. As for lack of sideloading, we'll see. I heavily rely on NewPipe, but maybe there's another way to scratch that itch.