[earthicus]

This certainly won't solve the problem, but I would at least like to banish the term "side load", which is a kind of Orwellian word that takes something everyone used to do all the time and makes it sound obscure and a bit nefarious. Maybe we, the tech literate, can start calling sideloading a "free install" or something. When asked, we can clarify that the 'free' stands for both freedom, and not paying middlemen 30%.

[ManlyBread]

I really don't understand this war on language that is so prevalent in tech circles. There's a bunch of these like switching git branches from "master" to "main" or "blacklist"/"whitelist" to "allowlist"/"denylist" and I have yet to see a single problem that all of this term shuffling has actually solved.

[dubbel]

If it weren't effective, large businesses and interest ("lobby") groups wouldn't spend millions on trying to establish certain words.

Calling it "sideloading" instead of "installing" software successfully cements the notion that it is somehow not a completely normal thing to do. That's problem solved for the Googles and Apples of the world.

See the history of "jaywalking".

[fauigerzigerk]

True, but on the other hand the meaning of words often follows usage rather than the other way around.

There is no choice of words that will make it normal to install mobile apps from anywhere other than an app store. Whatever word we use will take on the meaning of doing something unusual.

"Sideloading" doesn't have an inherent or deeply ingrained negative connotation. I don't see a reason to try to change it.

[inetknght]

> "Sideloading" doesn't have an inherent or deeply ingrained negative connotation.

Let me just "sideload" an app onto my laptop...

Does that make sense at all? "Sideload" and not "install"?

[a5c11]

It's usually pushed by people who want to feel "modern" and "proper". It doesn't have any value added, never helped anyone other than people who pushed that.

The curious thing about the word "slave" is that it originates from "slavs" i.e. people living in slavic countries, who were forced to slavery, yet we aren't freaking about that (I'm a slav by myself), it's just a word.

[megaloblasto]

This is a very hot take that I've never seen expressed before. The subtle use of words has a major impact on society and the people in it.

[a5c11]

There are societies, however, where words aren't (shouldn't be) treated emotionally, like engineers and scientists. Engineers put priority on ease of communication and clarity. We just do the job, we didn't ask for DEI lectures. You want to be included - show your skills. As simple as that.

[y0eswddl]

Just because it's not conscious and intentional doesn't mean that there isn't still an effect.

It's the way our brains work - the intention doesn't necessarily matter. Next time you're pissed off, try expressing out loud how "darn peeved" you are and watch how much words change how we think and feel

[andrepd]

Apples and oranges. Blacklist→allowlist is 2010s social justice virtue signalling thing. Sideloading→installing is about a word that is scary to normies vs a word that's completely normal and neutral.

See the history of words such as "jaywalking" or "carbon footprint" and how their usage cements the respective ideas.

[ManlyBread]

It's not an apples and oranges thing, it's the same practice of changing one term to an another because someone out there chose to believe that these words are somehow so powerful that they're pushing away swaths of people. You have no way of proving that "side loading" somehow scares away people because such proof does not exist.

[uselesswords]

It’s modern tech sycophancy. Meaningless change that serves no one, but the ones pushing it. They get to say they did something to “fight” some sort of inequality when it’s all just performative. Worse, in the examples you gave, it draws attention away from real issues to fight a culture war that was kind of already won years ago.

[lopis]

Words have nuanced meanings and emotions attached to them, and people take emotional biased actions based on them.

[zulban]

Because for most people hearing the term is the only education they get about the concept.

[sgustard]

I save two keystrokes typing "main" these days so I'm happy. Also, words change from time to time, life goes on.

[medhir]

This is a great point. Not sure if it’s possible, would be great if there was some way to reclaim the notion of installing software as a general practice, regardless of whether a computer is “mobile” or “desktop”.

Like people still download software packages from the web on Windows, MacOS, and Linux… right? Maybe hard to grasp for the kids that grew up with tablets with no notion of a file system, idk

[realusername]

I call it "direct install" personally. It's how you are supposed to be able to install programs, directly from the source.

If anything, it's the playstore and appstore which are side channels.

[gblargg]

I think of it as manual installation, since I also have to manually update it. The app stores automatically install and update it (they find the appropriate APK for my device, download it, run the installer, and do the equivalent each time a new version is released).

[realusername]

This is a software limitation of the device, technically there's nothing preventing the app to auto-update like on Windows.

We could also imagine a mechanism to provide an update URL in the app metadata. The OS could query this URL periodically to check for updates.

So it's still a direct install, it's just that direct install support is limited on phones.

[poly2it]

This is a good term, as it avoids the libre/gratis confusion as well.

[goku12]

Direct install isn't true either when you think about package managers like Fdroid, Epic store, etc. They are about as indirect as the official stores. Perhaps you should try 'user loads' for them and something like 'officially blessed loads' for the play and app stores. (I hope the latter is offensive enough to let the users know that it's the corporations in control)

[TeMPOraL]

Focusing on "stores" is part of this problem in the first place.

It's one of those seemingly innocent UI and communications changes that causes most users to develop a wrong mental model that obscures what's actually happening.

F-droid isn't actually installing the app. Neither does Play Store or Galaxy Store. Nor does Steam install your games on PC. People think they do, because the store fronts take over informing about installation progress. This little UI change alone - taking over the installer's progress bar - makes people develop bad mental models.

Direct installation is a great term IMHO. That's what you do when you download an APK onto your phone's file system, and then use e.g. file manager app to find that APK file, and run the system's package installer over it.

All F-Droid or Play Store or other stores do is to automate the "find the right APK" and "invoke installation" parts.

[goku12]

I thought that was the default understanding. That's one of the options you have to choose in many installers. For example, an option exists to install the software over ADB from within Android (eg: Shizuku). So, one of the other options you get is "install using system package manager" or something similar. In fact, that was the only method that worked for me until recently.

[latexr]

> When asked, we can clarify that the 'free' stands for both freedom, and not paying middlemen 30%.

Every time you have to clarify, it’s another opportunity to lose the asker. It’s not a good strategy to use a term we have to keep defining or that people may misunderstand. Stallman and the FSF continue to make that mistake and we have had decades to understand that’s a bad approach.

Call it something else, like a “direct install” or something better. You can still have a deeper meaning to it (“direct because it bypasses the App Store middleman”) but make it something people can understand fast. You can’t fight marketing with ideology alone, you have to beat them at their own game.

[protocolture]

I propose "load" or "install".

And while we are at it, "Application"

[uneekname]

I'm so used to installing via F-Droid or straight APKs, installing something using the Play store feels weird and hack-y. If anyone's doing the "side loading" I think it's Google :P