@JohnEdwa @wide_eyed_stupid indeed. but it takes only a single incendiarily indignant but factually wrong mastodon post to force anyone left who's still reading wikipedia to clarify forever.
Comment on Android won't kill sideloading after all, but new verification rules will make it harder
JohnEdwa@sopuli.xyz 7 hours agoIt’s not a “bullshit new term”, it’s three decades old and means transferring files locally from one device to another, instead of directly downloading or uploading from/to an external server.
The most common sideloading people did was downloading music to their PC using services like iTunes, and transferring them to their mp3 players. As they did often with early PDA and smartphone apps, where the term for Android comes from - get the .app on your computer, transfer it to your phone, and install it.
Sideloading.
lritter@mastodon.gamedev.place 7 hours ago
lritter@mastodon.gamedev.place 7 hours ago
@JohnEdwa @wide_eyed_stupid the correct take would be "i should be free to sideload software to my devices in any way i please".
HK65@sopuli.xyz 7 hours ago
Okay, but Google uses it in a way where directly going to the server they host F-Droid.apk, downloading and installing it counts as sideloading.
If anything, using Google Play is sideloading by that definition, since I can’t just download a release from the originators’ server, they need to first transfer it into a secondary location, Google’s servers, and I can only install it from there.