F-Droid says Google's statement about Sideloading is Not Going Away is false

A month ago, F-Droid criticized Google's anti-sideloading policy. Shortly after that, the Mountain View company said that sideloading isn't going anywhere.

Now, F-Droid says Google's statement is false.

In case you missed it, starting next year, Google requires Android developers to verify their identity, even if they do not distribute their apps via the Play Store. This means that all Android app developers will need to register with Google, pay a fee, and provide an ID to Google to get a verification which will be used to sign their app, whether the APK is hosted on GitHub, distributed by F-Droid, etc.

Google claims this verification process will help mitigate malware on Android. However, power users and app developers are concerned that this "self-doxxing" would dissuade developers from continuing their work on Android apps, leading to the apps' death. This in turn could effectively spell the end of sideloading on Android.

Speaking of which, F-Droid pointed out how the word sideloading was coined as a misleading term as opposed to just installing. The term sideloading was crafted to insinuate the process was unsafe, and bypassed safeguards. Sideloading is defined by Wikipedia as "the transfer of apps from web sources that are not vendor-approved". Based on that, Google's statement that sideloading is not going away is a lie. That's because Google is the vendor in question, and its new policy will give it absolute control over which apps get approved.

F-Droid also noted that Google's anti-sideloading policy takes away the choice of picking which software users install on their devices. It goes against the promise of Android being an open ecosystem. The report also said that Google's purported claim that it "found over 50 times more malware from internet-sideloaded sources than on apps available through Google Play", has no supporting evidence. The Play Store itself has been found to have hosted malware apps several times. So its claim about third-party app marketplaces being a security threat is rather ironic.

F-Droid is asking Android app developers not to sign up for Google's early access program, or to verify their identity, or accept an invitation to the Android Developer Console. It is advising devs to decline the invitation, while highlighting concerns and objections the developer may have. F-Droid is directing app devs toward the Keep Android Open website, that has details about contacting national regulators in various countries, that developers can contact to complain about the upcoming change to Android app development.

And as I said before, Google's new rule could be used to the benefit of protecting Google's apps and services. If it deems an app has violated its terms of service, it could potentially be banned.

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