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Comment by Mediterraneo10 | Hacker News Reader

There has been speculation that Google will eventually make its Advanced Protection model, currently optional, mandatory in a future Android version. A consequence of that will be that sideloading will only be possible if you connect to the phone over ADB and install the app from the command line that way. Obviously only a tiny, tiny amount of techies like us will every know how to do that. So, I don't think Google can so easily be held up as an example of user freedom.

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It's not difficult to learn to do that, though, and regardless this is just speculation of what may happen.

Using the shell is difficult to learn for 99% of Android phone owners. We nerds here are not a representative crowd.

You don't particularly have to learn to "use the shell", however. If you only want to sideload apps it's just a matter of copying simple commands from the internet. This is well within the capabilities of most people who are technically competent enough to sideload apps now.

Users are certainly very reluctant to drop into a command line, but in my experience if it is a true necessity for something they want to do, they don't actually have that much difficulty with it.

No, the vast majority of Android phone owners are not going to open the command line. The very prospect of it will daunt them, or it may even be unfamiliar to them (a lot of Android users, especially in the developing world, rarely or never use a traditional computer and are unfamiliar with the full range of its features). Even those users who would copy and paste into the terminal are a niche more comparable to us here than the average phone owner.

Yes, of course sideloading may still remain possible in such a scenario, but it would not be mainstream enough to sustain any kind of mainstream ecosystem of apps outside of the Google Play Store. Even F-Droid supporters have been worried that clamping down on sideloading could marginalize F-Droid even further than it already is.

The vast majority of Android users are also not going to sideload illegal apps currently.

Don't get me wrong, I agree that trying to restrict users from installing software of their choice on their own computing device is user-hostile, but in this specific scenario, users sideloading apps banned by their government, I don't think having to open a command line to do it would significantly shrink that userbase, which is already comprised of a small minority of particularly committed people.

But all of this is moot regardless, because AFAIK this doesn't extend beyond the realm of speculation.

Doesn't that require a security key? That will never be implemented due to that requirement.

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