Last week, we were talking about how glad we are to be the type who by-and-large understands technology, and how it’s becoming more and more difficult to simply get along otherwise. We thought we had a good handle on the topic.
Then, we were talking about Google’s plans to require an ID for Android developers, and whether or not this will shut down free and open software development on the Android platform. Would this be the end of the ability to run whatever software that you’d like on your phone? Google offered the figleaf that “sideloading” – installing software through methods other than Google’s official store, would still be be allowed. But there’s a catch – you have to use Android Debug Bridge (ADB).
Is that a relief? It surely means that I will be able to install anything I want: I use ADB all the time, because it’s one of the fastest and easiest ways to transfer files and update software on the device. But how many non-techies do you know who use ADB? We’d guess that requiring this step shuts out 99.9% of Android users. If you make software hard to install for the masses, even if you make it possible for the geeks, you’re effectively killing it.
I have long wondered why end-to-end encrypted e-mail isn’t the default. After all, getting a GPG signing key, distributing it to your friends, and then reading mail with supporting software shouldn’t be a big deal, right? If GPG signing were available by default in Outlook or GMail, everyone would sign their e-mail. But there is no dead-simple, non-techie friendly way to do so, and so nobody does it.
Requiring ADB to load Android software is going to have the same effect, and it’s poised to severely restrict the amount of good, open software we have on the platform unless we can figure out a way to make installing that software easy enough that even the naive users can do it.
The people who use F-droid are the same people who can use ADB. I don’t think it will affect “the masses” in any noticeable way – one of my mates who is “sort of” tech savvy didn’t even know how to unlock dev mode on his phone to be able to install F-droid (which he’d never heard of).
Exactly. Not sure what the point of this article is. Masses != developers. Developers == can use adb
This is wildly untrue, F-Droid is way more easier to use than to ADB, it’s untethered, and lets the app and the OS handle everything for you. It’s just an alternative app store with FOSS software. F-Droid users are more likely to know how to use ADB or to be predisposed to learn how to use it since they’re very likely power users, but they don’t necessarily have to know how to use it
Isn’t Android open source? How come Google can dictate such things?
Looks like Android is just another walled garden. Or has it always been?
So someone will code, probably vibe-code, a graphical wrapper for ADB with some setup smarts in it? So “the masses” get a easy to use tool to “sideload” stuff.
But here’s the thing I don’t see mentioned, and by all means I don’t want to discourage the Google-bashing because they’ve earned it for a lot of things (imho), but reducing the possibility to install any old APK with maybe malicious code inside that you get from a shady place (cracked games or softwares, that sort of stuff kids do?) seems like a good move. People that are able to use ADB may be better estimating risks of unmoderated software packages, whereas the typical not-informed user might not be able to see a risk.
Like with a lot of things, this could be seen two or even more ways – a grey area, as you may call it.