Because it isn’t real. You aren’t “sideloading”. You’re simply installing apps. You’re not doing anything different, other than using a source that the big company does not like.
It needs a definition because it is a thing that happens though.
You need to differentiate between installing from the app store and installing from other sources, you might not like the choice of word, but we need a word to define it.
It has a definition already, which is the same it always has been. And no, you don’t need to differentiate this. We’ve always installed applications from outside sources. Hell, until recently there weren’t even official app stores and shit. Locked down operating systems where you only get what the tech giant wants you to get is a very recent development in order to take control away from the user.
The reality is that there is a difference now, and it needs to be clarified. How would you, talking to another regular human being communicate to install an app that isn’t in the official app store succinctly? If you just tell someone to ‘install the app’ then you are doing a bad job communicating. Economy of language means that new words are going to form to distill common concepts.
Package managers have existed for a long time, so the concept of app stores isn’t new and is actually generally the accepted solution by the open source community. It’s typically regarded as the safest way to install software as it comes with auditing and active management.
Side loading does a great job at communicating what is being done, and it helps consolidate the various ways you actually install applications into a nice generic term.
A store being locked down doesn’t really have much to do with the concept of side loading anyway, since a locked down device doesn’t support it in the first place.
Yes but sideloading makes it sound like something dangerous to people that don’t know any better. This is by design.
Now that there’s a Microsoft/Windows app store, any app not sourced there is sideloaded.
It did, you just did not accept the answer. Installing apps is just installing apps, regardless of its source. That’s it. Sideloading, just like jaywalking, makes it sound like you are doing something dangerous, something forbidden, something you should not do. The whole locking down of operating systems is to take control away from the user.
Sideloading is a term that’s been around for decades, it’s not some made up word by tech giants to make people scared of installing apps.
The term originates from a designation for transferring data between physical devices and was slowly adopted (because language is fluid) to its current definition (by people on forums like xda).
This isn’t some conspiracy and Google and apple don’t need to use coded language to prevent you from side loading, apple for example just outwardly and bluntly forbids it.
