Comment by sschueller
20 days ago
The requirement of verification to side-load any app is fascist control. It is clear as night and day.
Shame on Google and Apple, it was always clear this was the end goal and next up is also your PC.
Right after will come the removal off apps they don't like and there is nothing you can do about it.
Stallman was right
PC only turned out open, because IBM never saw it coming, and when they tried to get control back it was too late.
Yep. PC openness is totaly a bug and not a feature of the capitalism. We should cherish this situation and fight for it because it really feels like the other long term alternative is techno-fascism.
I'm absolutely against this and for similar reasons have boycotted Apple for my entire life on hard ideological grounds, but not everything is "fascist" lol. Don't misuse the term.
In any case, I hope this blows up in Google's face hard, ROMs like LineageOS become as popular they were back in their heyday, and root hiders get extra attention too so banking apps etc work seamlessly as on non-rooted phones. Requiring some developer ID crap is essentially as bad as Apple has it, reason for which I've always considered developers having Apple phones quite unserious.
They're not going to publish device trees for pixel phones, so what hardware will you use?
Commercial apps and services will require passkeys and device attestation, so you'll only be able to use open source software even if you have a device to run it.
The walls are closing in, and it's not just mobile. It's only a matter of time before passkeys are used to block Linux users from the commercial Internet as well.
I did manage to run banking apps, and after some work, even Fortnite just for principle (they had a crazy anti hacking system) on my rooted Oneplus 7 Pro. I do want to believe if there's a will there's a way. Google has really overstepped here.
> The requirement of verification to side-load any app is fascist control.
Even the language we are using to describe the situation is problematic. Why do we say "side-load an app"? It should be just "run a program"!
An OS that doesn't let you run programs of your choice is laughable.
I think I have an old comment about this, but there is an actual `adb sideload` command for installing an apk on your phone from your computer. Since it's from your computer and not the phone itself, it's sideloading and not frontloading, I guess. Weirdly, and wrongly, people have also started to use the term to refer to just installing apps from outside the official appstores, but that's not sideloading. It's just installing an app. It's a normal Android feature. You can just grab a .apk file with your browser and install it like you would a .exe file on Windows.
iOS on the other hand historically required a jailbreak for this. I think that's where the confusion started. Android doesn't need a jailbreak, it doesn't need root (privileges), it doesn't need a custom ROM. You can just install stuff, it's normal. I think iOS users don't realize how different Android is and they just start repeating words like sideload and root without knowing what they mean, assuming it's just Android-speak for a jailbreak. They don't realize there's no jail in the first place.
I am aware English is a living language, and if enough people are wrong for long enough, they stop being wrong, but it's certainly painful to witness.
I always used "adb install" to install programs on my phone from my PC. I never heard of the "adb sideload" command, but my search results [1][2] indicate that the second command is for installing things from the recovery mode, when you don't have the full Android system running. So "install" is the command for installing programs under normal circumstances using the Android installer.
[1] https://android.stackexchange.com/a/84248
[2] https://www.androidauthority.com/how-to-use-adb-android-3260...
Yeah, words just change meaning and it's frustrating because people generally change them in ways that make their usage more sloppy, less precise. I've had multiple arguments on HN about this with the term open source, but unfortunately you've already lost the battle with sideloading, at least according to Wikipedia.
> When referring to Android apps, "sideloading" typically means installing an application package in APK format onto an Android device. Such packages are usually downloaded from websites other than the official app store Google Play. For Android users sideloading of apps is only possible if the user has allowed "Unknown Sources" in their Security Settings.[1]
> It should be just "run a program"!
More accurate would be "run a program not approved by Google"
> next up is also your PC
Already starting on macos. Gatekeeper had setting where you could allow any app. Now it is removed. While still possible to allow individual app (you need to do it after every OS update), trajectory is now clear.
boot into Recovery, run "csrutil disable" and do whatever you want (not a recommendation)
How many people would be able to use this workaround?
I asked an LLM, so I think I get it but could you try to mention what is meant with "Stallman was right"? The reason I'm asking you and not posting the LLM answer is because it still feels a bit icky to post an LLM answer for everything I don't understand [1].
[1] Feel free to discuss this too, if you want. I'm developing my opinion on it.
Richard Stallman has spent basically his entire career trying to convince people that all software should be free as in freedom, so that people truly control the devices that they own--preventing things like Google being able to lock users out of the ability to install applications on a device that they purchased.
Read up on the principles of the Free Software Foundation if you want all the details.
Stallman has a long history of being very abrasive and ideological. He is the kind of guy who makes zero concessions for practicality, and he insists on prioritizing user freedom because he has always feared that otherwise users will be locked out of having the ability to truly control their computers. It's always been kind of easy to laugh at his crusade because of how zealous he is, and how absurd the scenarios he warns about seem to be. The thing is... he seems to have been right the whole time. Companies really do want to lock you out of controlling the devices you own, and do so at the first opportunity. So... Stallman was right.
> He is the kind of guy who makes zero concessions for practicality...
Respectfully, this claim is incorrect. See this 2013 essay [0] for one example out of many where concessions are made to practicality.
Folks who are unfamiliar with Stallman's writing and the general philosophy of the FSF and/or the GNU Project might find spending an hour or so reading through some of the essays here [1] (perhaps starting with this 1991 essay [2]) to be informative.
[0] <https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/is-ever-good-use-nonfree-prog...>
[1] <https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/essays-and-articles.html>
[2] <https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/shouldbefree.html>
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> He is the kind of guy who makes zero concessions for practicality
Didn't he give some wiggle room in GPL license ?
2 replies →
Probably https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.en.html , mentioned elsewhere in the thread.
I wish it was as absurd today as it was the first time I read it.
I find Stallmans views are best summed up by this quote from him:
“I could have made money this way, and perhaps amused myself writing code. But I knew that at the end of my career, I would look back on years of building walls to divide people, and feel I had spent my life making the world a worse place.”
In this case it worked out well as a rhetorical device to make you look it up and learn something. Sometimes leaving out something for the reader to wonder about is more powerful.
I'm all for calling out fascist behavior when it is spotted, but let's not muddy the waters further. This word is already denatured enough.
This is not fascism, this is just a rational move from Google in a market economy. It feels like every time something like this happens, Americans rediscover what capitalism is and implies, then blame it on "human nature", "greed" or "fascism".
> This is not fascism, this is just a rational move from Google
Google is not very separable from the US government, and they use illegal monopoly everywhere without any oversight.
Google's stated reason for doing this says nothing about it being for market reasons, but rather for "security".
As they always do, you should know better than to buy it.
One day people on the internet will learn what the term „fascism“ entails. This is just plain old government overreach.
"Government overreach" by a private corporation? Let's see what wikipedia has to say about that:
> A fascist corporation can be defined as a government-directed confederation of employers and employees unions, with the aim of overseeing production in a comprehensive manner.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatism#Fascist_corporatis...
Google goes even further than that: they do not only control and oversee all production via the Play Store, they also control all usage of their products. And while it may currently not be government-directed, they certainly are government-protected as long as they're allowed to run the only app store in town.