""""sideloading"""", oh look who cant say installing software
this post was submitted on 19 Mar 2026
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I do not consider a win, and I will continue applying pressure where I can.
still just not gonna update my phone for a while until they've for sure have allowed side loading. Got my pixel because it's just a nice phone, and i can put graphene on it when it's paid off. Half of my apps are all from f-droid, too.
You cannot install graphene until it is paid off?
xfinity locks the bootloader until you get your phone paid off and you call them to get it unlocked
Some carriers lock the bootloader until you've paid off the phone.
Phones produced for sale through Verizon have a permanently locked bootloader.
Fuck Verizon for this exact reason. Never buy from them direct if you can help it.
Didn't realize this when switching. Went through a whole kerfuffle to cancel the trade in deal.
Phone agent sounded perplexed when I wanted to keep my old Pixel 7 Pro lol.
Why is that?
Would you be able to change the IMEI as I would have thought those were encoded on the hardware chip. If you could it means they couldn’t blacklist the phone if you stopped paying.
Paying you can spoof it
Can someone please come out with a phone that's an actual computer and help stop this nonsense?
Phones cost a lot of money at this point and I'm completely sick of them being some locked down, surveillance ridden pile of crap. A reasonably built one would be able to replace a laptop at this point if it weren't for these artificial constraints imposed by the stupid fucking suits running things.
dude. you can just install a custom rom.
furilabs flx1s. I'm using one
https://www.www3.planetcom.co.uk/astro-slide-5g
This sounds up your ally
Pretty sure they meant a smartphone with a desktop OS installed on it (eg Linux phones), not just "phone that looks kinda like a laptop but still uses Android"
Valve should make a Linux phone. Smaller Steam Deck with a modem
Battery life is limited by cell modem drivers being closed source and having to be reverse engineered.
I have been looking into an alternate hybrid radio device using Reticulum. Though with that comes a new less convenient user experience for a lot of apps.
If antitrust was being enforced, Google execs wouldn't even dream of attempting this bullshit.
Antitrust regulation is probably the easiest way to fix the biggest problems in our society, it is 100% bipartisan, and it is easy to explain to the average US voter. The only group that is against it is the billionaires/ultra wealthy. Instead, politicians are all hyperfocused on culture war mudslinging and bullshit that makes no difference.
Break up Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta (just to start), and watch how the tech industry explodes with innovation again, and the tech billionaire becomes an endangered species. The AI bubble will burst as companies actually need to compete to survive, and thus won't be burning as much resources on crap that clearly doesn't work.
I, as the owner of my device, don't want to wait 24h.
I hope this will popularize the ROM community again. It gradually faded out due to mainstream ROMs having every perk of the custom ROMs but now the custom ROMs can start offering freedom, which no official ROM will offer.
Is there a tap to pay system that works on custom ROMs? I thought those really required SafetyNet/PlayIntegrity/Whatever-it-is-now.
I would rather not give up tap to pay but I will if I have to. It seems like trying to Magisk my way into getting Google Wallet to work would be a PITA.
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It’s not side loading. It’s installing software on the device you probably paid multiple thousands for that you no longer own.
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To call the install of apps of your choice as «sideloading», means that they have won.
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I'm writing an app that I will distribute only through f-droid. The people I would like to share it with are typical, non-technical android users. Before those changes I could just send them a link to f-droid apk and explain it's just another app store or send a link to the apk directly and probably most of them would be able to install it. Now I would have to tell them to do all those weird things first, things that look suspicious and that they would not understand the purpose of. I don't think anyone will be wiling to do it. This is not a win. The effect will be exactly the same - serious limits on distributing apps though alternative channels.
Narrator: No, they did not, in fact, win.
It is always like this. Make a very anti consumer decision that everyone hates, then tone it down so the half of those people will say “we won”. This is a loss.
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My galaxy will let me install but then I get this when I try to run the app:
Disable Google Play Protect. It's a scam that doesn't protect you at all, it just gives more control to Google.
Google Play Protect is designed to protect Google Play from competitors
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no.
i'll look into this, but they seem to have used the old strategy of announcing something absurd then back down to what they wanted because of "community pressure"
bonus for not looking bad in comparison, while still being bad.
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