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This is really bad. I think that most people on HN will agree with that. The problem is that most normal people (HN is not normal - mostly for the better) don'

This is really bad. I think that most people on HN will agree with that. The problem is that most normal people (HN is not normal - mostly for the better) don't even understand what sideloading is - let alone actually care. How can we fix this? (aside from making people care - apathy enables so many political problems in the current age, but it's such a huge problem that this definitely isn't going to be the impetus to fix it)

nabogh 1y ago
We need another os in the market. A duopoly just isn't competitive enough. Too bad the cost of entry is so high.
- throw10920 1y ago
  I agree with you idealistically, but practically, creating an entirely new mobile OS with market share competitive with the existing two is an unbelievably massive challenge. It'd probably be just about as easy to get people to care about sideloading in the first place.
  - balder1991 1y ago
    The problem is moves like this will keep happening, since people don’t have much choice. Unless we bring up a societal trend of dumb phones.
    - runarberg 1y ago
      We used to have strong consumer protection advocates on both sides of the Atlantic, and those consumer protection advocates used to influence laws and regulation which forced corporations to stop doing anti-consumer stuff like this. Those days can return with enough organized labor and solidarity among the working classes.
      - calgoo 1y ago
        Yea, but you will need to organize offline because chat control will catch your terrorist messages and report you to the police. And make sure to leave the phone at home so they cant see all the phones meeting in one spot. But how do you go to the location then? Public transport uses the phone for payment, your car uses the phone as authentication / key. Its a very slippery slope that is very close to being implemented. In a way, we can hope that the current political climate somehow decimates the American corporations that control the systems, but it looks more like IBM during WW2 supplying counting machines to the Americans and to the Germans and everyone else. The phone platform is officially lost at this point, there is too much political pressure to control it. We are going to increasingly need to rely on sneaker nets, small mesh networks, and home made "illegal" communication devices. The internet will continue to exist, but it is going to fracture more and more with the political wars that are happening at the moment.
  - Charon77 1y ago
    Remember how Android used to be an open source project and how we had Google backing AOSP? I think it's time we we maintain the latest fork and just use that instead.
    - _heimdall 1y ago
      Is AOSP no longer a thing? I've been using GrapheneOS for a few years and admittedly lost track of AOSP, I just assumed it was still a thing despite Google generally wanting to control more and more.
      - ChocolateGod 1y ago
        Google now only drop through source code after a release, not during development. Also, much AOSP functionality has been moved to Googles Play Services which is closed source.
    - pishpash 1y ago
      That's not the problem. It's the bootloader locked hardware and the TPM anti-"tampering" security verification that more and more apps require. It's not just the OS makers. They're also responding to the demand of companies and governments to control their users through them. They will not say "no".
      - goku12 1y ago
        > It's not just the OS makers. They're also responding to the demand of companies and governments to control their users through them. They will not say "no". I don't believe that entirely. For example, how much safer is a banking app protected by play protect, running on an OEM ROM with tonnes of OEM/Google/Meta malware, compared to the same running on Graphene, Lineage or Calyx? I think it's the other way around. Google or their associates convince either the banking firms, or more likely the security audit companies that the play protect (safetynet or whichever latest flavor) is an absolute necessity for security on android. In the latter case, those security firms will give the developers a checklist to follow, which will include an item on enabling that API. It's unlikely that so many banks will choose them on their own accord like that, even if a bunch of them insist on Google providing it. I have even seen banks disabling the API in their apps through updates. And they also don't have any problems with their web applications that don't have anything similar to remote attestation. Besides if you look closely, it's in Google's interest, not the bank's interest to enable these APIs. Such apps will only run on the OEM ROMs, making the open source and custom ROMs somewhat untenable.
- staplers 1y ago
  A duopoly just isn't competitive enough. Too bad the cost of entry is so high. I've heard this one before.. given the apt political analogy , I wouldn't hold out hope.
- sterlind 1y ago
  use a fork. GrapheneOS is amazing. I feel like I own my phone, I trust my phone, and it obeys me, for the first time in a decade. unlock. flash. spread the word. use the fork, Luke.
  - notrealyme123 1y ago
    This is also no long term solution. GrapheneOS can't diverge from Google android to much, otherwise modern apps stop working. And Google will definitely go for alternative roms next.
    - asimovDev 1y ago
      I could've sworn GrapheneOS or LineageOS people were in talks with manufacturers to deliver devices that run one of those OSes out of the box. I wonder if there were any updates on that front
      - notrealyme123 1y ago
        That would be a great step in the right direction. More people using it means more options down the line. Its soon time for me to get a new phone, but buying a Google pixel to flash GrapheneOS seems like paying the bully.
      - fithisux 1y ago
        If they do it, I will switch ASAP.
  - green7ea 1y ago
    Sadly that's not always (or won't be soon) an option. I recently had to buy a new phone so that I could run the 'updated' banking app that requires attestation to run — I was running google free Lineage. Without attestation, banking apps stop working and without a banking app, you are locked out of modern life in many ways. This latest Google move makes it impossible to run an attested Android without the sideloading limitation. That means that you'll have to choose between GrapheneOS and using your banking app. I'm sad to say that I've already had to make that choice :-(. I feel that I was coerced into it.
- jeroenhd 1y ago
  Sailfish tried and failed. Various Linux distro also tried and failed even harder. Consumers at large just aren't interested in anything other than iOS and Android.
  - oneshtein 1y ago
    Users need a new feature or a new power to justify transition. Learning of new OS is not free. Someone should reuse Android UI, but upgrade the OS to full Linux.
    - goku12 1y ago
      Mimicking the Android UI and UX is very trivial. The hard part is getting the OS to run on the mobile device in the first place. On top a tonne of custom drivers, it also requires way to either get accepted by the OEM locks or a way to bypass it entirely. This is getting harder by the day even with Android custom ROMs.
  - konart 1y ago
    Consumers are interested in everything new. The problem is - linux (outside on server land and maybe SteamOS) is everything but (regular) user friendly. When people buy a new phone the expect a smooth experience without any major inconveniences and uniform UI. And apps. Lots of apps. Full of features and mature UI. Linux mostly have none of it.
    - deleted 1y ago
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    - jeroenhd 1y ago
      The Linux experience on a decently powerful mobile device (i.e. not those open-source phones that perform like a 2010 smartphone) is perfectly fine. I find the Plasma experience to be a little lacking, but the Ubuntu experience is good when you find a phone UBPorts works on. Phosh (GNOME) works better on mobile than it does on desktop for a lot of things (multitouch touchpads come close to mobile in terms of smoothness). Consumers didn't pick up Windows Phone or HarmonyOS enough to matter either. Access to the two common app stores is crucial for user adoption even when the UI is good.
- throwaway2037 1y ago
  I had to do some light research on Wiki, but it looks like Firefox OS was supposed to fill part of this void. Sadly, it was not successful, and the project lost funding and support from Mozilla. I think if Mozilla could not do it, it seems hard to imagine there is an open source org with more talent and money than Mozilla who can make it work.
  - choeger 1y ago
    It's not necessarily that Mozilla could not do it. Just look up Mozilla's revenue sources.
    - goku12 1y ago
      I'm not downvoting you. But the limiting factor probably wasn't the funding at all. It was the competence and marketing. At some level, they had to deal with the hardware stack - which IMO is a very hot mess right now. The only reason why it works for Android is because the OEMs are also in on the game - just like how it was (is?) for the Windows machines.
  - latexr 1y ago
    > I think if Mozilla could not do it, it seems hard to imagine there is an open source org with more talent and money than Mozilla who can make it work. I don’t believe that at all. Mozilla has been on a string of awful decisions for a long while. They start dumb projects no one asked for or wants all the time and abandon everything swiftly, even the good ones. Look at Rust and Servo. Firefox OS barely lasted two years between release and discontinuation. It never even stood a chance for most people to even have heard of it or tried it, let alone be successful.
- simianparrot 1y ago
  Valve has managed something similar with SteamOS as well as Proton built on Wine to make Windows games run on Linux, performing as good as or often better than an actual (modern) Windows install. SteamOS isn’t too far from a mobile OS.
  - chii 1y ago
    It's the mobile hardware drivers (such as for the modems and 5g etc) that likely roadblocks - these hardware manufacturers probably have some sort of OEM agreements, and so cannot opensource these drivers for all devices. I would wish that mobile devices' specs and hardware drivers are all available, so that i am not dependent on the manufacturer supplying a compatible OS.
  - pjmlp 1y ago
    That will only work as long as Microsoft feels like ignoring it, and they are already starting with something similar to how netbooks were killed in the end. Valve will learn the OS/2 lesson, by not fostering a proper native Linux ecosystem.
    - simianparrot 1y ago
      They are doing that with their own games and tooling, look at CS2. But Valve can’t force all other developers and publishers to do the same, they can only show the way, which they do.
- baq 1y ago
  It’s like uber, doordash or carvana, you can’t fund a huge project like this without free money. ZIRP is the moat.
- dismalaf 1y ago
  There's already open source OSes that run on phones that aren't based on Android. Off the top of my head there's a Debian based one, a Fedora based one, webOS, PostmarketOS, probably others. Wouldn't be that difficult but yeah, the cost of entry is still probably tens of millions.
earthicus 1y ago
This certainly won't solve the problem, but I would at least like to banish the term "side load", which is a kind of Orwellian word that takes something everyone used to do all the time and makes it sound obscure and a bit nefarious. Maybe we, the tech literate, can start calling sideloading a "free install" or something. When asked, we can clarify that the 'free' stands for both freedom, and not paying middlemen 30%.
- medhir 1y ago
  This is a great point. Not sure if it’s possible, would be great if there was some way to reclaim the notion of installing software as a general practice, regardless of whether a computer is “mobile” or “desktop”. Like people still download software packages from the web on Windows, MacOS, and Linux… right? Maybe hard to grasp for the kids that grew up with tablets with no notion of a file system, idk
- realusername 1y ago
  I call it "direct install" personally. It's how you are supposed to be able to install programs, directly from the source. If anything, it's the playstore and appstore which are side channels.
  - poly2it 1y ago
    This is a good term, as it avoids the libre/gratis confusion as well.
  - gblargg 1y ago
    I think of it as manual installation, since I also have to manually update it. The app stores automatically install and update it (they find the appropriate APK for my device, download it, run the installer, and do the equivalent each time a new version is released).
    - realusername 1y ago
      This is a software limitation of the device, technically there's nothing preventing the app to auto-update like on Windows. We could also imagine a mechanism to provide an update URL in the app metadata. The OS could query this URL periodically to check for updates. So it's still a direct install, it's just that direct install support is limited on phones.
altfredd 1y ago
> most normal people... don't even understand what sideloading is Actually, they understand it just fine. The concept is very simple too. Before this change you could install Android apps without registering your passport/driving license with Google. After this change you will have to tell Google your real name and home address to install anything on your Android device. This is all. It can take a convoluted form of registering Google account or a more direct form of sending Google your identity documents to confirm "developer privileges". But you will no longer be able to use non-hacked Android devices to install anything without doing those steps. P.S. I recall that some people still believe that they can create Google account without giving Google your personal details, phone etc. This is simply a self-delusion. If Google does not immediately demand you to cough up a phone numbers under pretense of "suspicious activity", that's because they already know who you are (you probably told them yourself by registering another account elsewhere). No, "burner SIM cards" aren't real. This is just another form of self-delusion, — this time architected by US security agencies. You don't become anonymous by using those, you become watched.
- jbstack 1y ago
  I don't see anywhere in the official announcement that you will be required to "tell Google your real name and home address to install anything on your Android device". The announcement is about developer verification, not user verification.
  - altfredd 1y ago
    You already can not install applications from Google Play without Google account. Google accounts are registered with personal phone number (the one you obtained from your carrier, presumably using your ID). All Google Play users are already "verified" one way or another. This change means that people who do not use Google Play or other sources, fully controlled by Google, will no longer be able to install applications on Android.
    - jbstack 1y ago
      This isn't how I've understood the change. My understanding is that developers will need to have their ID verified before they are authorised to allow their app to be sideloaded. So long as they have done that, why would the user need to have a google account to sideload the app? Wouldn't the whole thing be transparent to the end-user (for those vendors who pass the ID verification) and the only thing they'd notice is that they can no longer install the apps from vendors who haven't passed?
sterlind 1y ago
> How can we fix this? turn people onto sideloaded apps. show them Revanced and NewPipe, show them system-wide ad blockers and bloatware removal and every other thing Google doesn't want plebs to use. people don't care about "apk side-loading," they care about apps. hook them on forbidden apps, and they'll raise hell when they can't side-load them anymore.
- chii 1y ago
  This is the solution. It's like napster and torrenting. People dont care about the tech behind it - they care about the outcome. It's just that the majority of normies dont even know it is possible (and didnt think an alternative exists to sideload).
safety1st 1y ago
I agree that this is a horrible step in the wrong direction but in terms of the solution I have a different take. I don't think that making "normal" people "care" about sideloading is the answer, because a) it's impossible and b) political change doesn't happen through "normal" people anyway, all political and regulatory change is driven via smaller and motivated groups of people. The problem is fundamentally that there's a duopoly on mobile OSes that has tons of market power and if they want to dictate a change like "you can no longer install unapproved software," they can just do it. The solution is to walk away from that duopoly, to suck it up and just stop using their products. We fortunately are able to do this (for now) on desktop and running Linux in 2025 is better than it's ever been, and more people are doing it. To get Linux or some alternative on phones is a big task, and if you make the switch you're going to lose a lot. But most of what has no desktop equivalent is addictive social media garbage that you should get rid of anyway. The biggest thing I'm concerned about is the state of banking and OTP/2FA. I think we need to fight for universal electronic access to the financial system as a right without a need for gatekeepers like Apple or Google. In some countries it's already the case that at many businesses you must use your phone to make payments, cash is gone, cards are dying, and you must therefore agree to Apple or Google's rules to use your phone. This is truly how freedom and democracy will die if we allow it. This is way bigger for "normal" people than technical concepts like sideloading. People on the left should inherently understand the importance to liberty of having the right as an individual to buy and sell without some megacorp's permission. For people on the right, well, remember the Bible's "Mark of the beast..." Secondarily we need to fight for the enforcement of anti-trust laws, which half of HN doesn't seem to even know exist, or feels are in some way unfair, even though they are the cause of these problems. Government needs to reach in and rearrange markets that are dominated by one or two players, it needs to forcefully restructure those companies so that they lose their market power and can no longer force citizens to obey their will. We've done it before, such as ending company towns where you were forced to use the company's scrip at the company's shop to buy living essentials. It's worked, we need to do it again.
- pmontra 1y ago
  I can do banking and otp at home with a 100 Euro phone that I use only for that. FB, TikTok, Instagram, etc, neve ever installed them on my devices. The problem is that I want to make calls, SMSes, use WhatsApp and Telegram, Maps and OSMAnd, NewPipe, VLC, Syncthing and a few others on the phone I carry with me. And to make matters worse I don't want a huge, thick and heavy brick like every Linux phone I read about. I'm on a Samsung A40 now and it's not easy to find a replacement with similar size and weight.
otabdeveloper4 1y ago
Define "normal people". Due to Chinese phones and sanctions and other geopolitical bullshit a significant part of the world is forced to use alternative app stores already. Yes, these people are very aware of "sideloading". (Due to Google's own previous moronic foot-shooting policy.)
PeterStuer 1y ago
People install games from Steam or the Epic Store on their computers without Microsoft preventing that or taking a cut all the time (not for lack of trying. I know). But somehow, in the mobile world, we went with total lockdowns and platform extortion as the rule? The irony of that iconic Apple 1984 add .
- chii 1y ago
  > People install games from Steam or the Epic Store on their computers without Microsoft preventing that microsoft wishes they could have the level of platform control that google/apple on mobiles have. It's pure luck that the IBM-compatible PC was not locked down and restricted, because at the time IBM had not thought of it as being important. When it became clear that it was a lost profit opportunity, the cat was already out of the bag and so IBM had no choice. Microsoft repeated the same "mistake". But apple learnt, and google also from apple.
  - pjmlp 1y ago
    They tried with the PS/2 MCA architecture, but naturally everyone ignored them. Nowadays Microsoft could easily do it, they aren't fully into it, because they managed to botch themselves the whole WinRT/UWP and Windows 10X transition, had they made it in a way that most Windows developers would join the party, and the outcome would look much different. Windows 11 sandboxing already requires MSIX and store distribution to be fully enabled, they only have to slowly keep turning the knobs on Windows 12 in whatever form it shows up, eventually.
    - deleted 1y ago
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- fendy3002 1y ago
  Do you know that Proton is developed as a countermeasure against Microsoft's possibility of vendor locking? It is already anticipated that little or more Microsoft will want that cut. We're at late stage capitalism, where enshittification occurs at alarming rate.
raverbashing 1y ago
They don't understand sideloading, but you know what they understand? Weird apps that block your phone and show ads constantly (yes this exists) Typosquatting apps Apps that hold your phone for ransom if you don't pay a certain debt (yes this exists) https://www.welivesecurity.com/en/eset-research/beware-predatory-fintech-loan-sharks-use-android-apps-reach-new-depths/ https://www.welivesecurity.com/en/eset-research/beware-preda...
monegator 1y ago
> how can we fix this? Easy: tell them they won't be able to use cracked spotify anymore
jbm 1y ago
In my case, I've been working on fixing it by doing side work porting apps to offline-first Linux handhelds. With AI it is not hard nor time consuming. You can make personal versions of anything that adds personal value. The idea that you can hold the beggar bowl out and company mommy will have pity is not realistic. Creating your own ecosystem and cross-fertilising with other liked minded people that is tailored to your approach is far more feasible now than we realise.
trklausss 1y ago
In the EU, you would start a petition to the European Parliament in order to vote on that... Which is a tedious process but has seen some success in some fronts (like the Stop Killing/Destroying Games initiative). For other countries... Well you get what you vote I guess.
lucideer 1y ago
> This is really bad. I think that most people on HN will agree with that. I may prove to be wrong but I'm looking forward to seeing how this plays out & genuinely think it could be good, holistically. There's a number of possibilities: 1. This drives most people to Apple & Android dies. iOS is mostly a better product than Android, with the exception that Android is semi-open. This removes Android's only competitive advantage. 2. This drives most people to Apple which motivates Google to do a U-turn. 3. This drives people to Graphene in such large numbers that it gets financial support, & some banks are pressurised into dropping Play Protect requirements. I honestly don't know which of these 3 is most or least likely but all move us away from the current stagnant position of Google being the best reasonable option of a set of very bad options. A complete Apple monopoly would obviously be bad in the short term but would at least leave an opening for fresh competitors.
- phainopepla2 1y ago
  4. The majority of users don't know or care what sideloading is, so this has a marginal effect on userbase
  - lucideer 1y ago
    You're right of course, most users don't know or care. If they did, iOS wouldn't have a 61% share of the US market. But the % of the total market that do care is not an insignificant % of the total Android userbase. There's also a spectrum of concern - I'm a long time Android user turned iOS user: I care deeply about sideloading but ultimately the balance of pros & cons shifted for me, & I suspect will begin to for others.

nabogh 1y ago

We need another os in the market. A duopoly just isn't competitive enough. Too bad the cost of entry is so high.

throw10920 1y ago
I agree with you idealistically, but practically, creating an entirely new mobile OS with market share competitive with the existing two is an unbelievably massive challenge. It'd probably be just about as easy to get people to care about sideloading in the first place.
- balder1991 1y ago
  The problem is moves like this will keep happening, since people don’t have much choice. Unless we bring up a societal trend of dumb phones.
  - runarberg 1y ago
    We used to have strong consumer protection advocates on both sides of the Atlantic, and those consumer protection advocates used to influence laws and regulation which forced corporations to stop doing anti-consumer stuff like this. Those days can return with enough organized labor and solidarity among the working classes.
    - calgoo 1y ago
      Yea, but you will need to organize offline because chat control will catch your terrorist messages and report you to the police. And make sure to leave the phone at home so they cant see all the phones meeting in one spot. But how do you go to the location then? Public transport uses the phone for payment, your car uses the phone as authentication / key. Its a very slippery slope that is very close to being implemented. In a way, we can hope that the current political climate somehow decimates the American corporations that control the systems, but it looks more like IBM during WW2 supplying counting machines to the Americans and to the Germans and everyone else. The phone platform is officially lost at this point, there is too much political pressure to control it. We are going to increasingly need to rely on sneaker nets, small mesh networks, and home made "illegal" communication devices. The internet will continue to exist, but it is going to fracture more and more with the political wars that are happening at the moment.
- Charon77 1y ago
  Remember how Android used to be an open source project and how we had Google backing AOSP? I think it's time we we maintain the latest fork and just use that instead.
  - _heimdall 1y ago
    Is AOSP no longer a thing? I've been using GrapheneOS for a few years and admittedly lost track of AOSP, I just assumed it was still a thing despite Google generally wanting to control more and more.
    - ChocolateGod 1y ago
      Google now only drop through source code after a release, not during development. Also, much AOSP functionality has been moved to Googles Play Services which is closed source.
  - pishpash 1y ago
    That's not the problem. It's the bootloader locked hardware and the TPM anti-"tampering" security verification that more and more apps require. It's not just the OS makers. They're also responding to the demand of companies and governments to control their users through them. They will not say "no".
    - goku12 1y ago
      > It's not just the OS makers. They're also responding to the demand of companies and governments to control their users through them. They will not say "no". I don't believe that entirely. For example, how much safer is a banking app protected by play protect, running on an OEM ROM with tonnes of OEM/Google/Meta malware, compared to the same running on Graphene, Lineage or Calyx? I think it's the other way around. Google or their associates convince either the banking firms, or more likely the security audit companies that the play protect (safetynet or whichever latest flavor) is an absolute necessity for security on android. In the latter case, those security firms will give the developers a checklist to follow, which will include an item on enabling that API. It's unlikely that so many banks will choose them on their own accord like that, even if a bunch of them insist on Google providing it. I have even seen banks disabling the API in their apps through updates. And they also don't have any problems with their web applications that don't have anything similar to remote attestation. Besides if you look closely, it's in Google's interest, not the bank's interest to enable these APIs. Such apps will only run on the OEM ROMs, making the open source and custom ROMs somewhat untenable.
staplers 1y ago
A duopoly just isn't competitive enough. Too bad the cost of entry is so high. I've heard this one before.. given the apt political analogy , I wouldn't hold out hope.
sterlind 1y ago
use a fork. GrapheneOS is amazing. I feel like I own my phone, I trust my phone, and it obeys me, for the first time in a decade. unlock. flash. spread the word. use the fork, Luke.
- notrealyme123 1y ago
  This is also no long term solution. GrapheneOS can't diverge from Google android to much, otherwise modern apps stop working. And Google will definitely go for alternative roms next.
  - asimovDev 1y ago
    I could've sworn GrapheneOS or LineageOS people were in talks with manufacturers to deliver devices that run one of those OSes out of the box. I wonder if there were any updates on that front
    - notrealyme123 1y ago
      That would be a great step in the right direction. More people using it means more options down the line. Its soon time for me to get a new phone, but buying a Google pixel to flash GrapheneOS seems like paying the bully.
    - fithisux 1y ago
      If they do it, I will switch ASAP.
- green7ea 1y ago
  Sadly that's not always (or won't be soon) an option. I recently had to buy a new phone so that I could run the 'updated' banking app that requires attestation to run — I was running google free Lineage. Without attestation, banking apps stop working and without a banking app, you are locked out of modern life in many ways. This latest Google move makes it impossible to run an attested Android without the sideloading limitation. That means that you'll have to choose between GrapheneOS and using your banking app. I'm sad to say that I've already had to make that choice :-(. I feel that I was coerced into it.
jeroenhd 1y ago
Sailfish tried and failed. Various Linux distro also tried and failed even harder. Consumers at large just aren't interested in anything other than iOS and Android.
- oneshtein 1y ago
  Users need a new feature or a new power to justify transition. Learning of new OS is not free. Someone should reuse Android UI, but upgrade the OS to full Linux.
  - goku12 1y ago
    Mimicking the Android UI and UX is very trivial. The hard part is getting the OS to run on the mobile device in the first place. On top a tonne of custom drivers, it also requires way to either get accepted by the OEM locks or a way to bypass it entirely. This is getting harder by the day even with Android custom ROMs.
- konart 1y ago
  Consumers are interested in everything new. The problem is - linux (outside on server land and maybe SteamOS) is everything but (regular) user friendly. When people buy a new phone the expect a smooth experience without any major inconveniences and uniform UI. And apps. Lots of apps. Full of features and mature UI. Linux mostly have none of it.
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  - jeroenhd 1y ago
    The Linux experience on a decently powerful mobile device (i.e. not those open-source phones that perform like a 2010 smartphone) is perfectly fine. I find the Plasma experience to be a little lacking, but the Ubuntu experience is good when you find a phone UBPorts works on. Phosh (GNOME) works better on mobile than it does on desktop for a lot of things (multitouch touchpads come close to mobile in terms of smoothness). Consumers didn't pick up Windows Phone or HarmonyOS enough to matter either. Access to the two common app stores is crucial for user adoption even when the UI is good.
throwaway2037 1y ago
I had to do some light research on Wiki, but it looks like Firefox OS was supposed to fill part of this void. Sadly, it was not successful, and the project lost funding and support from Mozilla. I think if Mozilla could not do it, it seems hard to imagine there is an open source org with more talent and money than Mozilla who can make it work.
- choeger 1y ago
  It's not necessarily that Mozilla could not do it. Just look up Mozilla's revenue sources.
  - goku12 1y ago
    I'm not downvoting you. But the limiting factor probably wasn't the funding at all. It was the competence and marketing. At some level, they had to deal with the hardware stack - which IMO is a very hot mess right now. The only reason why it works for Android is because the OEMs are also in on the game - just like how it was (is?) for the Windows machines.
- latexr 1y ago
  > I think if Mozilla could not do it, it seems hard to imagine there is an open source org with more talent and money than Mozilla who can make it work. I don’t believe that at all. Mozilla has been on a string of awful decisions for a long while. They start dumb projects no one asked for or wants all the time and abandon everything swiftly, even the good ones. Look at Rust and Servo. Firefox OS barely lasted two years between release and discontinuation. It never even stood a chance for most people to even have heard of it or tried it, let alone be successful.
simianparrot 1y ago
Valve has managed something similar with SteamOS as well as Proton built on Wine to make Windows games run on Linux, performing as good as or often better than an actual (modern) Windows install. SteamOS isn’t too far from a mobile OS.
- chii 1y ago
  It's the mobile hardware drivers (such as for the modems and 5g etc) that likely roadblocks - these hardware manufacturers probably have some sort of OEM agreements, and so cannot opensource these drivers for all devices. I would wish that mobile devices' specs and hardware drivers are all available, so that i am not dependent on the manufacturer supplying a compatible OS.
- pjmlp 1y ago
  That will only work as long as Microsoft feels like ignoring it, and they are already starting with something similar to how netbooks were killed in the end. Valve will learn the OS/2 lesson, by not fostering a proper native Linux ecosystem.
  - simianparrot 1y ago
    They are doing that with their own games and tooling, look at CS2. But Valve can’t force all other developers and publishers to do the same, they can only show the way, which they do.
baq 1y ago
It’s like uber, doordash or carvana, you can’t fund a huge project like this without free money. ZIRP is the moat.
dismalaf 1y ago
There's already open source OSes that run on phones that aren't based on Android. Off the top of my head there's a Debian based one, a Fedora based one, webOS, PostmarketOS, probably others. Wouldn't be that difficult but yeah, the cost of entry is still probably tens of millions.

earthicus 1y ago

This certainly won't solve the problem, but I would at least like to banish the term "side load", which is a kind of Orwellian word that takes something everyone used to do all the time and makes it sound obscure and a bit nefarious. Maybe we, the tech literate, can start calling sideloading a "free install" or something. When asked, we can clarify that the 'free' stands for both freedom, and not paying middlemen 30%.

medhir 1y ago
This is a great point. Not sure if it’s possible, would be great if there was some way to reclaim the notion of installing software as a general practice, regardless of whether a computer is “mobile” or “desktop”. Like people still download software packages from the web on Windows, MacOS, and Linux… right? Maybe hard to grasp for the kids that grew up with tablets with no notion of a file system, idk
realusername 1y ago
I call it "direct install" personally. It's how you are supposed to be able to install programs, directly from the source. If anything, it's the playstore and appstore which are side channels.
- poly2it 1y ago
  This is a good term, as it avoids the libre/gratis confusion as well.
- gblargg 1y ago
  I think of it as manual installation, since I also have to manually update it. The app stores automatically install and update it (they find the appropriate APK for my device, download it, run the installer, and do the equivalent each time a new version is released).
  - realusername 1y ago
    This is a software limitation of the device, technically there's nothing preventing the app to auto-update like on Windows. We could also imagine a mechanism to provide an update URL in the app metadata. The OS could query this URL periodically to check for updates. So it's still a direct install, it's just that direct install support is limited on phones.

altfredd 1y ago

> most normal people... don't even understand what sideloading is Actually, they understand it just fine. The concept is very simple too. Before this change you could install Android apps without registering your passport/driving license with Google. After this change you will have to tell Google your real name and home address to install anything on your Android device. This is all. It can take a convoluted form of registering Google account or a more direct form of sending Google your identity documents to confirm "developer privileges". But you will no longer be able to use non-hacked Android devices to install anything without doing those steps. P.S. I recall that some people still believe that they can create Google account without giving Google your personal details, phone etc. This is simply a self-delusion. If Google does not immediately demand you to cough up a phone numbers under pretense of "suspicious activity", that's because they already know who you are (you probably told them yourself by registering another account elsewhere). No, "burner SIM cards" aren't real. This is just another form of self-delusion, — this time architected by US security agencies. You don't become anonymous by using those, you become watched.

jbstack 1y ago
I don't see anywhere in the official announcement that you will be required to "tell Google your real name and home address to install anything on your Android device". The announcement is about developer verification, not user verification.
- altfredd 1y ago
  You already can not install applications from Google Play without Google account. Google accounts are registered with personal phone number (the one you obtained from your carrier, presumably using your ID). All Google Play users are already "verified" one way or another. This change means that people who do not use Google Play or other sources, fully controlled by Google, will no longer be able to install applications on Android.
  - jbstack 1y ago
    This isn't how I've understood the change. My understanding is that developers will need to have their ID verified before they are authorised to allow their app to be sideloaded. So long as they have done that, why would the user need to have a google account to sideload the app? Wouldn't the whole thing be transparent to the end-user (for those vendors who pass the ID verification) and the only thing they'd notice is that they can no longer install the apps from vendors who haven't passed?

sterlind 1y ago

> How can we fix this? turn people onto sideloaded apps. show them Revanced and NewPipe, show them system-wide ad blockers and bloatware removal and every other thing Google doesn't want plebs to use. people don't care about "apk side-loading," they care about apps. hook them on forbidden apps, and they'll raise hell when they can't side-load them anymore.

chii 1y ago
This is the solution. It's like napster and torrenting. People dont care about the tech behind it - they care about the outcome. It's just that the majority of normies dont even know it is possible (and didnt think an alternative exists to sideload).

safety1st 1y ago

I agree that this is a horrible step in the wrong direction but in terms of the solution I have a different take. I don't think that making "normal" people "care" about sideloading is the answer, because a) it's impossible and b) political change doesn't happen through "normal" people anyway, all political and regulatory change is driven via smaller and motivated groups of people. The problem is fundamentally that there's a duopoly on mobile OSes that has tons of market power and if they want to dictate a change like "you can no longer install unapproved software," they can just do it. The solution is to walk away from that duopoly, to suck it up and just stop using their products. We fortunately are able to do this (for now) on desktop and running Linux in 2025 is better than it's ever been, and more people are doing it. To get Linux or some alternative on phones is a big task, and if you make the switch you're going to lose a lot. But most of what has no desktop equivalent is addictive social media garbage that you should get rid of anyway. The biggest thing I'm concerned about is the state of banking and OTP/2FA. I think we need to fight for universal electronic access to the financial system as a right without a need for gatekeepers like Apple or Google. In some countries it's already the case that at many businesses you must use your phone to make payments, cash is gone, cards are dying, and you must therefore agree to Apple or Google's rules to use your phone. This is truly how freedom and democracy will die if we allow it. This is way bigger for "normal" people than technical concepts like sideloading. People on the left should inherently understand the importance to liberty of having the right as an individual to buy and sell without some megacorp's permission. For people on the right, well, remember the Bible's "Mark of the beast..." Secondarily we need to fight for the enforcement of anti-trust laws, which half of HN doesn't seem to even know exist, or feels are in some way unfair, even though they are the cause of these problems. Government needs to reach in and rearrange markets that are dominated by one or two players, it needs to forcefully restructure those companies so that they lose their market power and can no longer force citizens to obey their will. We've done it before, such as ending company towns where you were forced to use the company's scrip at the company's shop to buy living essentials. It's worked, we need to do it again.

pmontra 1y ago
I can do banking and otp at home with a 100 Euro phone that I use only for that. FB, TikTok, Instagram, etc, neve ever installed them on my devices. The problem is that I want to make calls, SMSes, use WhatsApp and Telegram, Maps and OSMAnd, NewPipe, VLC, Syncthing and a few others on the phone I carry with me. And to make matters worse I don't want a huge, thick and heavy brick like every Linux phone I read about. I'm on a Samsung A40 now and it's not easy to find a replacement with similar size and weight.

otabdeveloper4 1y ago

Define "normal people". Due to Chinese phones and sanctions and other geopolitical bullshit a significant part of the world is forced to use alternative app stores already. Yes, these people are very aware of "sideloading". (Due to Google's own previous moronic foot-shooting policy.)

PeterStuer 1y ago

People install games from Steam or the Epic Store on their computers without Microsoft preventing that or taking a cut all the time (not for lack of trying. I know). But somehow, in the mobile world, we went with total lockdowns and platform extortion as the rule? The irony of that iconic Apple 1984 add .

chii 1y ago
> People install games from Steam or the Epic Store on their computers without Microsoft preventing that microsoft wishes they could have the level of platform control that google/apple on mobiles have. It's pure luck that the IBM-compatible PC was not locked down and restricted, because at the time IBM had not thought of it as being important. When it became clear that it was a lost profit opportunity, the cat was already out of the bag and so IBM had no choice. Microsoft repeated the same "mistake". But apple learnt, and google also from apple.
- pjmlp 1y ago
  They tried with the PS/2 MCA architecture, but naturally everyone ignored them. Nowadays Microsoft could easily do it, they aren't fully into it, because they managed to botch themselves the whole WinRT/UWP and Windows 10X transition, had they made it in a way that most Windows developers would join the party, and the outcome would look much different. Windows 11 sandboxing already requires MSIX and store distribution to be fully enabled, they only have to slowly keep turning the knobs on Windows 12 in whatever form it shows up, eventually.
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fendy3002 1y ago
Do you know that Proton is developed as a countermeasure against Microsoft's possibility of vendor locking? It is already anticipated that little or more Microsoft will want that cut. We're at late stage capitalism, where enshittification occurs at alarming rate.

raverbashing 1y ago

They don't understand sideloading, but you know what they understand? Weird apps that block your phone and show ads constantly (yes this exists) Typosquatting apps Apps that hold your phone for ransom if you don't pay a certain debt (yes this exists) https://www.welivesecurity.com/en/eset-research/beware-predatory-fintech-loan-sharks-use-android-apps-reach-new-depths/ https://www.welivesecurity.com/en/eset-research/beware-preda...

monegator 1y ago

> how can we fix this? Easy: tell them they won't be able to use cracked spotify anymore

jbm 1y ago

In my case, I've been working on fixing it by doing side work porting apps to offline-first Linux handhelds. With AI it is not hard nor time consuming. You can make personal versions of anything that adds personal value. The idea that you can hold the beggar bowl out and company mommy will have pity is not realistic. Creating your own ecosystem and cross-fertilising with other liked minded people that is tailored to your approach is far more feasible now than we realise.

trklausss 1y ago

In the EU, you would start a petition to the European Parliament in order to vote on that... Which is a tedious process but has seen some success in some fronts (like the Stop Killing/Destroying Games initiative). For other countries... Well you get what you vote I guess.

lucideer 1y ago

> This is really bad. I think that most people on HN will agree with that. I may prove to be wrong but I'm looking forward to seeing how this plays out & genuinely think it could be good, holistically. There's a number of possibilities: 1. This drives most people to Apple & Android dies. iOS is mostly a better product than Android, with the exception that Android is semi-open. This removes Android's only competitive advantage. 2. This drives most people to Apple which motivates Google to do a U-turn. 3. This drives people to Graphene in such large numbers that it gets financial support, & some banks are pressurised into dropping Play Protect requirements. I honestly don't know which of these 3 is most or least likely but all move us away from the current stagnant position of Google being the best reasonable option of a set of very bad options. A complete Apple monopoly would obviously be bad in the short term but would at least leave an opening for fresh competitors.

phainopepla2 1y ago
4. The majority of users don't know or care what sideloading is, so this has a marginal effect on userbase
- lucideer 1y ago
  You're right of course, most users don't know or care. If they did, iOS wouldn't have a 61% share of the US market. But the % of the total market that do care is not an insignificant % of the total Android userbase. There's also a spectrum of concern - I'm a long time Android user turned iOS user: I care deeply about sideloading but ultimately the balance of pros & cons shifted for me, & I suspect will begin to for others.