I don't agree with the word "sideloading" though. It's just _installing_.

"Installing" has the connotation of doing it directly from the Play Store. This is also known as "Downloading" (because the data is on a server, in the cloud, and you're fetching it "downstream" to a local device.)

"Sideloading" doesn't refer to the installation process, but to the file transfer process. You're sideloading when you transfer, e.g. APKs from your notebook to your Android. Or, from a USB stick into your phone or something.

In general, though, "sideloading" also refers to any "non-app-store" installation. It's a kind of colloquial shorthand. It's not really a technical term. But it's adequate for getting the point across.

If you just called it "installing" without qualifying it, how would anyone know that it's a different process, or that it's accomplished not by navigating to the app store? It seems that you would invite ambiguity here!

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clhodapp 5 hours ago | parent [-]

The point is that before walled-garden app stores, that was how pretty much every normal person installed software on their PC's. Using the term "sideloading" for that is a clever invention to try and retroactively rebrand what is actually super-normal as something scary.

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B1FIDO 5 hours ago | parent [-]

It is not really though.

"Sideloading" refers to data transfer between two local, peer devices. Really, that is it. It is not "something scary" or something forbidden. It is not even really installing. It's data transfer.

So "before walled-gardens" people would install software in many many ways. I originally typed it in from scratch, or from a magazine. I loaded it from tape. Or diskette. That's not really "sideloading" if you think about it, because it's just "loading" from peripheral storage.

Later, when people dialed up on a PC, they could "download" software and then install it or do whatever with other data or media. They could also upload it. They could transfer it among devices locally. This was not, at the time, called "sideloading" but just transfer, or "null modem", or "sneakernet", or "a station wagon full of backup tapes".

If we're going to use "sideloading" in the strictest sense, then we cannot actually refer to the process of downloading APK files separately and then installing them, because that's literally downloading. But that is the colloquial meaning now.

Hey, if you want to coin a new term or neologism for it, by all means do so. But it seems absurd to downplay "sideloading" as having "scary" or "negative" connotations, when it really doesn't. You've got to look past the hype and F.U.D.

Remember, there was a time when people considered FTP and torrenting to be dangerous or subversive. Perhaps they still do.

	▲	swiftcoder 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Given that you've agreed that "sideloading" is not an accurate descriptor of installing apps directly from the web browser, I'd think you could see how using "sideloading" incorrectly like this is a marketing gimmick designed to scare users (and politicians!) into backing the official platform app store monopolies...