What We Talk About When We Talk About Sideloading

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Submitted ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨floofloof@lemmy.ca⁩ to ⁨technology@lemmy.world⁩

https://f-droid.org/2025/10/28/sideloading.html

cross-posted from: lemmy.world/post/38001927

In this post, I hope to clarify and expand on some of the points and rebut some of the counter-messaging that we have witnessed.

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XLE@piefed.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
This is good writing.

In promoting their developer registration program, Google purports:

Our recent analysis found over 50 times more malware from internet-sideloaded sources than on apps available through Google Play.

We haven’t seen this recent analysis — or any other supporting evidence — but the “50 times” multiple does certainly sound like great cause for distress (even if it is a surprisingly round number). But given the recent news of “224 malicious apps removed from the Google Play Store after ad fraud campaign discovered”, we are left to wonder whether their energies might better be spent assessing and improving their own safeguards rather than casting vague disparagements against the software development communities that thrive outside their walled garden.

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- Kirk@startrek.website ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  I’ve been impressed with F-Droid’s press releases. If they have a snowball’s chance in hell of stopping this, they are certainly giving it a clear and concise effort.
  
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