this post was submitted on 19 Mar 2026
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"This is Android's new 'advanced flow' for INSTALLING apps without verification". Sideloading is such a bullshit term made only to confuse consumers. They can wrap that in sparkling wrapper, but it's still security theater at best and definetly misleading. Apps from F-Droid or any other app 'store' are not any less safe than the ones at googles own offering.
The advanced flow is not for "installing apps". It's for sideloaded apps.
Do you consider installing games to you PC from Steam sideloading too? What about downloading Firefox installer? It is installing software on your computer, no matter if that computer happens to be in a cellphone form factor, and always has been. Sideloading is a made up term to make it sound somehow dangerous or complicated in order to justify even bigger walls on the ecosystem garden and control how people use their own devices.
This is not a PC though. Whether you or I like it or not, they are different. And no one wants to type out "installing apps from outside the Google Play Store" every time. It's a useful term.
All terms are made up.
[Citation needed]
People keep saying this but it makes absolutely no sense. The term predates both Apple and Google, and nothing about the term itself suggests it is "dangerous".
To me that implies it's somehow different than just installing software. You could say 'install from play store' or 'install from f-droid' if you need to specify which app repository you should use, as that what it is. Sideloading might be an appropriate term if you need to upload apk to your device via USB-cable from your PC, which the term originally meant.
From the article:
Sure, the term itself comes from 1990s, but lately specially Google tries to twist that to mean something only 'power users' do and it comes with a 'educated risk'.
That's because it is, as I've just finished explaining. Again, see the "advanced flow" in OP? This does not apply to "installing software". It only applies to sideloading. I'm not sure why this is so difficult to understand.
Did you think about this at all before typing? Which repository do you think the OP refers to?
None of this says "sideloading" or refers specifically to the term, it refers to the practice.
You're incredibly naive if you think anyone other than "power users" are sideloading.
And it does come with risk, because there's no technological difference between downloading from FDroid, or downloading a random app from some unverified (by anyone) sketchy website.
Semantics, no? Side loading is an alternate way of installing.
Yes, it is, thank you.