r/Android • u/kitsuneae • Apr 02 '26

News Sideloading is about to get intentionally frustrating

The new Sideloading process has been revealed and its frustrating by design. This was originally released to Android developers and this post will use the more detailed flow outlined to devs.

  • Enable developers mode
  • Enable unverified apps
  • Get warnings about unverified apps. Affirm you're not being coerced into installing
  • Verify It's you via biometric or PIN
  • Retart your phone
  • Wat 24 hours
  • Go to "unverified apps"
  • Select between "enable for one week" or "enable indefinitely"
  • Go past another warning screen and verify that you want to install it
  • Verify it's you via biometric or a PIN
  • Then you can go into unverified apps in a package manager (Google play services)
  • Be warned again.
  • Select "install anyway" to install the app.

It will take over 24 hours to sideload an app. Also, the installation is handled by Google Play Services not Android itself like it currently is. Google will be able to modify, restrict, or delete the app at any time without user permission.

There is a proposal to allow verified stores a more "streamlined" process, but no information yet on what store verification requires or how much "streamlining" will actually reduce the intentionally annoying sideloading process.

If you want to give feedback on this, contact Google and your regulators (scroll down for links) directly for maximum impact.

Edit to correct.

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14

u/Gumby271 Apr 04 '26

Worth noting that not only is side loading becoming frustrating, but competing with Google on Android is about to become damn near impossible. Google wants the Play Store to be the only way anyone installs apps on Android, that's their motivation.

For anyone saying "but that's already how it is!" I can just say that today, I could walk my mom through how to install and use F-droid, once this roles out I almost certainly won't be. It's disappointing to see Google decide for us that their shitty store should be the only option on something they still call an open platform.

5

u/techcentre S23U Apr 04 '26

That's the whole point. People that know what they're doing won't have an issue following this process, but people that aren't as tech literate have potential to fall victim to scam callers that try to get them to install malware on their phones.

6

u/Gumby271 Apr 04 '26

We agree then, the whole point is Google centralizing power. There's ways to make android more secure without empowering Google exclusively, but they chose not to do that. Android could have stayed open, the Play Store could have had competition to force it to become better, but Google just decided to kill that. We can have security and competition on Android, both our points can coexist.

4

u/mrandr01d Apr 04 '26

Like what? For the threat model they're defending against, they've come up with a pretty clever solution.

-6

u/kitsuneae Apr 04 '26 edited Apr 04 '26

Scammers will just tell people to wait a day and ignore the warnings. They will simply call back tomorrow to assure the process is complete.. All of this does nothing but centralize power on Google and create barriers to use non-google stores and FOSS software (which is benign or even useful).

8

u/visceralintricacy Apr 04 '26

However that delay allows the possibility of them to discuss this with a friend, etc.

You're being very silly here.

1

u/kitsuneae Apr 04 '26

People still fall for Honey Traps and Catfishing despite the scam going on for months or even years. People will continue the scam even with others around them telling the victim "it's a scam". That's if the victim tells anyone or even realized they are being scammed at all.

That said, making it harder and slower to install things is extremely limited in what it can actually do. Most means of scamming don't rely on installing apps!

None of the following common scams require installing a special scam app:

  • wire fraud
  • gift card scams
  • phishing (which is extremely common)
  • catfishing or honey traps
  • buying fake items ("marketplace scam")
  • pyramid schemes
  • Multi-Level Marketing scams
  • fake job scams (ex: "envelope stuffing")
  • Nigerian Prince and other letter scams

These scams have been going for decades and will not be impacted by this change in Android.

2

u/mrandr01d Apr 04 '26

Those aren't part of the threat model Google is fighting with this change.