Comment by theandrewbailey
3 days ago
It's sad that Tuta has fallen for Big Tech newspeak. Once upon a time, we installed stuff on our devices. Calling it side-something makes it seem frowned upon, which plays right into Google's hand.
3 days ago
It's sad that Tuta has fallen for Big Tech newspeak. Once upon a time, we installed stuff on our devices. Calling it side-something makes it seem frowned upon, which plays right into Google's hand.
It's a blue-bubblification, something which tricks the mind.
It's not newspeak, we've been calling it sideloading since the 90s
Got any citations for that? The first time I personally ever encountered the term "sideload" was at a Microsoft developer demo for the upcoming Windows Phone around 2010, and another audience member raised his hand to ask what that term meant.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sideloading
I don't remember calling it side loading when I had some of those earlier mp3 players but my experience wasn't universal.
right but sideloading means installing outside the official channel. last i checked playstore was an option, not android official.
> sideloading means installing outside the official channel
On VMS ? Or plan9 ?
That is untrue. It's called "installing" or just "running". Sideloading makes no sense if you describe normal installing that way. The side load is the app store.
Not for apps and games on most phones.
I made these and we installed them as JARs or Whatever Symbian used.
No, we called it installing software.
And also the phones people had in the early to mid 90's were analog bricks, with serious batteries. The smaller phones like nokias came 97 onward and were smaller.
Lol, no.
> we installed stuff on our devices
I am not sure about that. Windows, Linux based devices were like that but for a lot of things like gaming consoles etc. you were locked into the ecosystem and 'side loading" was indeed something.
I do understand developer mindset but I would be pretty unhappy if my mother's phone could just install stuff. A lot of people get harmed and lose their life's saving over wrongly installed crap.
A good middle ground for the Big Tech is to let folks pay $$, a money that is high enough and has sufficient friction.
That isn't even true about gaming consoles. They were completely open in the 90s and before. The consoles even lost lawsuits keeping it open. For newer consoles, a modchip doesn't side load, it enables normal loading without the drm check.
Bypassing/disabling drm would not be called sideloading.
If anything, the app store would be the sideload because they are loading the installer via a middleman instead of downloading the installer and running it yourself like normal.
Sideloading is a type of installing defined by the source of the file(s) being installed. Google will still allow installing from the Play store. The distinction is valid.
> Sideloading is a type of installing defined by the source of the file(s) being installed
Installing is the action of the owner of the device, to add functionality to that device by adding compiled executable code, regardless of the source.
You can acknowledge that different concepts exist and would be better served by having different words, rather than trying to force others (via downvoting) into not using a given word. Whether you support google's restrictions or not, they only apply to a subset of apps, so having a word to refer to the specific subset of apps is helpful.
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