Comment on Google's plan to restrict sideloading on Android has a potential escape hatch for users
ideonek@piefed.social 2 days ago
It’s the technical term that defines the process of transferring files not from an external networked device - downloading - or to an external networked device - uploading - but between two local devices - sideloading.
It’s over two decades old, you downloaded an mp3 from napster, and then sideloaded it to your player.
And companies ofted do it. Thay recoined jaywalking to put the blaim of the accidents to pedestrians and take away the road from them. They change what littering means in attrmpt to delute the responsibility for polution... We are better than that this time, right?
Thay recoined jaywalking to put the blaim of the accidents to pedestrians and take away the road from them.
How do you suppose that works, exactly?
I assume you’re unaware of the concerted advertising campaigns by auto manufacturers to take public streets away from pedestrians, including things like
The industry hired actors dressed in old-fashioned clothing to illegally cross streets, making the behavior seem outdated
missedhistory.com/…/lobbying-trick-blamed-pedestr…
“Jay” had started as a word for drivers driving on the wrong side of the road
jaywalker was pre-dated by jay-driver – a driver of a horse-drawn carriage or automobile that refused to abide by the traffic laws by driving on the wrong side of the road
Don’t forget “side effects”, when really, medications only have “effects”. Whether the effects are intended or not doesn’t change the fact that they happen.
Cough medicine can induce drowsiness, but you probably shouldn’t be taking it as a sleep aid. The distinction between intended vs unintended effects is an important distinction to make, in my opinion, to prevent drugs from being unintentionally misused.
While that is true, it does not invalidate the poster’s point. All of the effects of drugs are just “effects”. They could just as easily market cough syrup as a sleep aid with the “side effect” that it suppresses coughing.
The difference in definition in this context is simply that “drug uses” is the list of its effects that they were going for, and “side effects” are a list of effects that they were not. Its entirely a man made distinction. Extend that reasoning to the “installing” vs. “side loading” discussion to see the poster’s point.
I believe him to be suggesting that “side loading” is a very different word for “installing” that can be loaded by PR people to shift public opinion against the practice. Whether or not they are doing that I can’t say myself, but that appears to be the point being made.
They could just as easily have coined it “direct installing” or “USB installing”, but they didn’t even though those terms are more descriptive. Draw from that whatever you will.
Wait, so now I have to talk to a doctor before installing from F-Droid? Well, shit.
You are the master of your body, the person who decides ultimately what goes in and out of your body, No doctor can force you to take anything. That’s what I mean, The play store aka the doctor wants to become the master that decides what apps go in or out of your phone, instead of the user. My comment doesn’t invalidate the premise of the use of the term sideloading, because I don’t agree with the term to begin with.
Whether the effect is ideal or not does not change what is chemically happening in the body. The body can’t tell apart side effects from the main ones, so this distinction exists because humans deemed it so, just like the distinction between play store sanctioned apps, and everything else. It’s a distinction that Google is now abusing for it’s own monetary benefit.
It’s a bad comparison because some people do take the medicine to get the side effects. For example taking benadryl to fall asleep.
you shouldnt be taking medication not for his intended purpose, it has many warnings.
Talking to the wrong guy here, I’ve taken many a medications against their intended purpose: I am a curious guy.
But that sounds like saying, in the context of Google’s intention of disabling app sideloading, that warning users that it poses a security risk because it’s their intended purpose for android, is fine because the authority on android is Google.
Don’t just take the word of authority at face value, when they prioritize profit and mindshare over personal freedom.
What would you call it?
“installing” as in “installing software”
Okay but it’s specifically software from outside the Play Store?
The point is, there shouldn’t be a distinction. To make one is to support prejudice against installing software from elsewhere.
If you use “installing” for stuff from the Google store but any other word for stuff from other sources, you are aiding and abetting Google’s anti-property-rights propaganda.
The same word that I use to when I get software that’s not on the Microsoft Store, the Mac App Store, or whatever distro’s Software GUI when I am using my desktop…
When you install a ‘.exe’ file in Windows, you don’t call it ‘sideloading’, you call it ‘downloading and installing’.
This is the exact same thing. I download from sites, F-Droid, Obtainium, etc., and install the software that is the file I downloaded. I’m effectively NOT side-anything.
When I install software from the Arch User Repository I still just call it installing, even though it isn’t through the standard path. Everywhere else, you don’t make the distinction. For some reason on phones we’ve come to call it sideloading, even though the software is just software —it doesn’t care where it came from.
The issue people have with making the distinction is that Google is trying to spin the narrative and make side loading seem like a dangerous and bad thing to the average user base who don’t know any better.
They’re taking umbrage with you agreeing that quantitative usage of a storefront makes something simply installing vs side loading a program. Because it helps Google’s narrative in a way.
Installing software from outside the play store should be called installing software. It’s installing software from the play store what should have a special name, like “gatedloading” for example.
In what way is installing from the play store fundamentally different? Just because it was preloaded on your phone? What if F droid was preloaded on your phone instead? Is it still sideloading? Google’s logic breaks down pretty quickly when you think about it
If you need to be that specific, “installing” as in “installing software from outside the play store”
G3NI5Y5@piefed.social 2 days ago
Like "Jaywalking", suddenly, walking is no longer the norm, but the car is preferred. The victims are seen as perpetrators.
ideonek@piefed.social 2 days ago
And "littering" is the "real" culprit why we all drawn in uneccesey plastic. We should blame consumers not the polluters.
Corporations do it all the time.
turmacar@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Yes, but littering used to be a legitimately big problem to. Like the hole in the ozone, now that it’s “solved”/ the norm for it to be getting better the focus should shift to other things.
ideonek@piefed.social 1 day ago
For sure. That's why it worked so well. You take a valid problem and abuse it for your corporate gains.
joshchandra@midwest.social 1 day ago
FTFY, at least here in a certain country…