The plea Google makes against so-called "sideloading" always refers to "malware"
But how much malware has been distributed via F-Droid versus "Google Play Store"
It could be that smaller, independent "app store" might be better managed than Google's
That is essentially the assertion that we made in the prequel to this post (at https://f-droid.org/en/2025/09/29/google-developer-registrat...).
> But how much malware has been distributed via F-Droid versus "Google Play Store"
There's been only a single case of malware that we know of that has slipped into distribution on F-Droid (through a supply-chain attack on a transitive dependency), and it was caught within a day. So if we were feeling glib, we might have made the claim that "there is over 224 times as much malware on the Play Store than on F-Droid".
Because Google is suggesting that "malware" is a motivation/reason/justification for their new "sideloading" policy
It can be useful to show that Google's alleged justification is bogus
It's not about immediate safety, it's about safety in the long run.