[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".

[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.

[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.

[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).

[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)

[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