Re:I help seniors with technology issues. A regular came in ...
by bakugo on Monday October 24, 2022 @08:38AM
(#33315884)
> Google can remove all they want from their Play Store, installing APK is easy.
Please, let's not act like this is a real solution. It's definitely better than not having that option at all, but:
- 99.5% of users don't even know it exists or how to do it because it's intentionally hidden away
- Because of the above fact, it's generally not viable to develop an application that can only be sideloaded, anything that gets removed from the Play Store usually dies
- Google has recently been moving away from the traditional APK format and towards their new "split APK" structure meaning you cannot sideload apps that were downloaded from the Play Store without a third party app to handle it
Please, let's not act like this is a real solution. It's definitely better than not having that option at all, but:
- 99.5% of users don't even know it exists or how to do it because it's intentionally hidden away
- Because of the above fact, it's generally not viable to develop an application that can only be sideloaded, anything that gets removed from the Play Store usually dies
- Google has recently been moving away from the traditional APK format and towards their new "split APK" structure meaning you cannot sideload apps that were downloaded from the Play Store without a third party app to handle it