It’s probably called sideloading because historically you weren’t downloading from an app store but instead transferring from your computer. The term itself is ancient https://sh.itjust.works/comment/23484915
yeah trying to explain tethering to a non technical person because it used to have a cable and now doesn’t
I remember we called it a hook.
I remember the on-hook and off-hook commands, and I remember calling the cradle that old land lines sat on/in being called the hook. When was the tether called the hook?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not being rhetorical here as a gotcha. My memory just ain’t what she used to be and I’d like to remember.
I just remembered one of the first “apps” on my android eris was a hook. It let me plug my phone into my laptop and use my mobile data on the pc. Thats all i remembered. Got the phone as it came out so end of 2009.
I remember those days! I used PdaNet because whoever I was with (AT&T? Cingular?) sold tether data like it was being brought to me by a parade of half nude sexy folks bit by bit.
Uploading: Sends thing from your device.
Downloading: Receives thing to your device.
Sideloading: ???
Sideloading is an all encompassing term for when you change the physical orientation of your device so that up/down becomes right/left.
Google bans screen rotation
Apple did it first /j
Holy shit
But there’s a time delay for that hence the “loading” term
Downloading a thing to your device to sideload it to your companion device.
^We’re monsters^!
Hold on babe, I’m sideloading Firefox on my Arch install
Arch’s package management is actually the ideal, in my opinion. Official repositories for the stuff the distro maintainers want to officially support, a user-maintained AUR for other common packages, and the ability to build your own software with the Arch Build System, and letting pacman know where everything is. In a sense, the stuff in the official repositories have a privileged position, and you should be aware of the difference between the AUR and the official repositories, but you’re still always in control of what software is installed.
The AUR packages and user-specific builds can be thought of as side loading, and the distinction can matter in some circumstances. So I’m ok with having another name for different installation/upgrade/update methods.
And it even supports signed packages by now
Good, I love crime now.
Greatest con the government ever pulled was convincing the masses that state law = right. Way I see it, there are five primary laws and each region’s society and ruler values their hierarchy independently: State, Ethical/Natural, Religious, Corporate, Moral. Each can influence the other. Cutting off from the corporations a cloud-dependent device you paid money to possess is no doubt right, and ethically sound.
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Now??
so is F-Droid sideloading?
/me just starting some shit
According to Google yes, because the Play Store is the “official” way of installing software.
But personally I hate this mentality and I don’t want a centralized and controlled way of installing software
Yes, exactly, adopting the term side loading into our common vernacular is exactly what they want us to do. They want us to view installing apps from places other than the Play Store as Bad™ and Dangerous™ so they can better control what we do.
I want my phone to be like a computer not a federal prison, dammit
Didn’t Apple lose a lawsuit which forced them to open iOS to third party app stores? How does Google expect to get away with effectively shutting out third party app stores after that?
Google does not want to abolish third party app stores, they want to take control over the process of installing packages by requiring the authors to be verified by giving their personal info to Google. Also, there are still a catch to how Apple is “opening up” their iPhone ecosystem
If I have to install an app store I don’t consider it to be the ‘official’ method. By default my phone doesn’t have it, a lot of android forks don’t, but if I have to break the law to add it, I guess I’ll stick with manually installing packages.
sideloading isn’t even a real word.
it’s not even a legal term.
sideloading is installing software on your physical device.
unless installing software is illegal across all platforms it’s legally unsound to block the ability to “sideload”.
Your phone ? There are 2 US companies that own 99.9% of phones.
PinePhone 🙂
Where on the entire planet is sideloading a crime?
Not where, when. Most likely in a few months, a year tops.
Where? Why? Your when makes no sense. Laws take time to craft, so if it was going to happen in a year tops you’d already be seeing these laws being crafted and going through chambers. Where on the planet are these laws being crafted?
I mean, I don’t want to be all doomer. But big tech companies (Meta in particular, iirc) are the ones pushing for age verification at the OS level. So the laws would be crafted in a corporate office or think tank paid by the corporate office, then presented to lawmakers to approve.
Sideloading is an old and well established term for it when it comes to phones though. Sideloading is installing stuff outside of app stores
Before phones that was the only way to install apps though.
Maybe we should have a term for the inverse, like ‘wallgardening’, or ‘bootlocking’, or ‘corputing’, or ‘inshilling’? 🤔
Before phones
But the discussion is specifically about phones…? I’ve never heard anyone use sideloading in a different context
Phones are just computers except they fit in your pocket and have a cellular connection. Distinction without a (meaningful) difference
Phones are a specific type of computer. I wonder if some madlad hates the term “smart phone” so much that they’re out there calling them computers and confusing everyone.
smart phone literally means phone with computer or computer-like abilities, contrary to popular belief, smartphones existed before the iPhone and in fact didn’t have to be a locked down slab of glassNobody is disputing what smart phones are lol, just that people do make the distinction and do use different terms
misread ur comment and worded mine badly, sorry
I really need more sleep
Yeah, it’s about phones because they changed established practice, but then why use a new word for what was established practice and not the ‘new’, phone-specific, practice of limiting app availability?
Sideloading is a more specific term than just “installing”, it’s more about where you got the software, the process of installing it. So people started using a more specific term to distinguish it from other types of installing.
Why people choose to adopt one word or another, I dunno. We just started calling it sideloading and that’s been the term for as long as I remember (though very early on I didn’t read or write much in English)
What about before app stores were a thing?
The point is that today the term only serves to delegitimize what should be accepted practice (installing whatever software you want on the machine you paid for) by making it sound like some secondary/shady behavior. Thus allowing phone manufacturers to maintain their walled gardens and control over consumers.
Tbf these days it is secondary behaviour. Most people aren’t installing stuff outside of app stores on their phones.
It would just feel weird changing the words we use because companies started using the same terms too. We had it first!
only might gives name to that which they deem important. We are just reactionaries.
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