When the microcomputer first landed in homes some forty years ago, it came with a simple freedom—you could run whatever software you could get your hands on. Floppy disk from a friend? Pop it in. Shareware demo downloaded from a BBS? Go ahead! Dodgy code you wrote yourself at 2 AM? Absolutely. The computer you bought was yours. It would run whatever you told it to run, and ask no questions.
Today, that freedom is dying. What’s worse, is it’s happening so gradually that most people haven’t noticed we’re already halfway into the coffin.
News? Pegged.
The latest broadside fired in the war against platform freedom has been fired. Google recently announced new upcoming restrictions on APK installations. Starting in 2026, Google will tightening the screws on sideloading, making it increasingly difficult to install applications that haven’t been blessed by the Play Store’s approval process. It’s being sold as a security measure, but it will make it far more difficult for users to run apps outside the official ecosystem. There is a security argument to be made, of course, because suspect code can cause all kinds of havoc on a device loaded with a user’s personal data. At the same time, security concerns have a funny way of aligning perfectly with ulterior corporate motives.
It’s a change in tack for Google, which has always had the more permissive approach to its smartphone platform. Contrast it to Apple, which has sold the iPhone as a fully locked-down device since day one. The former company said that if you own your phone, you could do what you want with it. Now, it seems Google is changing its mind ever so slightly about that. There will still be workarounds, like signing up as an Android developer and giving all your personal ID to Google, but it’s a loss to freedom whichever way you look at it.
Beginnings
The walled garden concept didn’t start with smartphones. Indeed, video game consoles were a bit of a trailblazer in this space, with manufacturers taking this approach decades ago. The moment gaming became genuinely profitable, console manufacturers realized they could control their entire ecosystem. Proprietary formats, region systems, and lockout chips were all valid ways to ensure companies could levy hefty licensing fees from developers. They locked down their hardware tighter than a bank vault, and they did it for one simple reason—money. As long as the manufacturer could ensure the console wouldn’t run unapproved games, developers would have to give them a kickback for every unit sold.
By and large, the market accepted this. Consoles were single-purpose entertainment machines. Nobody expected to run their own software on a Nintendo, after all. The deal was simple—you bought a console from whichever company, and it would only play whatever they said was okay. The vast majority of consumers didn’t care about the specifics. As long as the console in question had a decent library, few would complain.
There was always an underground—adapters to work around region locks, and bootleg games that relied on various hacks—with varying popularity over the years. Often, it was high prices that drove this innovation—think of the many PlayStation mod chips sold to play games off burnt CDs to avoid paying retail.
At the time, this approach largely stayed within the console gaming world. It didn’t spread to actual computers because computers were tools. You didn’t buy a PC to consume content someone else curated for you. You bought it to do whatever you wanted—write a novel, make a spreadsheet, play games, create music, or waste time on weird hobby projects. The openness wasn’t a bug, or even something anybody really thought about. It was just how computers were. It wasn’t just a PC thing, either—every computer on the market let you run what you wanted! It wasn’t just desktops and laptops, either; the nascent tablets and PDAs of the 1990s operated in just the same way.
Then came the iPhone, and with it, the App Store. Apple took the locked-down model and applied it to a computer you carry in your pocket. The promise was that you’d only get apps that were approved by Apple, with the implicit guarantee of a certain level of quality and functionality.
It was a bold move, and one that raised eyebrows among developers and technology commentators. But it worked. Consumers loved having access to a library of clean and functional apps, built right into the device. Meanwhile, they didn’t really care that they couldn’t run whatever kooky app some random on the Internet had dreamed up.
Apple sold the walled garden as a feature. It wasn’t ashamed or hiding the fact—it was proud of it. It promised apps with no viruses and no risks; a place where everything was curated and safe. The iPhone’s locked-down nature wasn’t a restriction; it was a selling point.
But it also meant Apple controlled everything. Every app paid Apple’s tax, and every update needed Apple’s permission. You couldn’t run software Apple didn’t approve, full stop. You might have paid for the device in your pocket, but you had no right to run what you wanted on it. Someone in Cupertino had the final say over that, not you.
When Android arrived on the scene, it offered the complete opposite concept to Apple’s control. It was open source, and based on Linux. You could load your own apps, install your own ROMs and even get root access to your device if you wanted. For a certain kind of user, that was appealing. Android would still offer an application catalogue of its own, curated by Google, but there was nothing stopping you just downloading other apps off the web, or running your own code.
Sadly, over the years, Android has been steadily walking back that openness. The justifications are always reasonable on their face. Security updates need to be mandatory because users are terrible at remembering to update. Sideloading apps need to come with warnings because users will absolutely install malware if you let them just click a button. Root access is too dangerous because it puts the security of the whole system and other apps at risk. But inch by inch, it gets harder to run what you want on the device you paid for.
Windows Watches and Waits
The walled garden has since become a contagion, with platforms outside the smartphone space considering the tantalizing possibilities of locking down. Microsoft has been testing the waters with the Microsoft Store for years now, with mixed results. Windows 10 tried to push it, and Windows 11 is trying harder. The store apps are supposedly more secure, sandboxed, easier to manage, and straightforward to install with the click of a button.
Microsoft hasn’t pulled the trigger on fully locking down Windows. It’s flirted with the idea, but has seen little success. Windows RT and Windows 10 S were both locked to only run software signed by Microsoft—each found few takers. Desktop Windows remains stubbornly open, capable of running whatever executable you throw at it, even if it throws up a few more dialog boxes and question marks with every installer you run these days.
How long can this last? One hopes a great while yet. A great deal of users still expect a computer—a proper one, like a laptop or desktop—to run whatever mad thing they tell it to. However, there is an increasing userbase whose first experience of computing was in these locked-down tablet and smartphone environments. They aren’t so demanding about little things like proper filesystem access or the ability to run unsigned code. They might not blink if that goes away.
For now, desktop computing has the benefit of decades of tradition built in to it. Professional software, development tools, and specialized applications all depend on the ability to install whatever you need. Locking that down would break too many workflows for too many important customers. Masses of scientific users would flee to Linux the moment their obscure datalogger software couldn’t afford an official license to run on Windows;. Industrial users would baulk at having to rely on a clumsy Microsoft application store when bringing up new production lines.
Apple had the benefit that it was launching a new platform with the iPhone; one for which there were minimal expectations. In comparison, Microsoft would be climbing an almighty mountain to make the same move on the PC, where the culture is already so established. Apple could theoretically make moves in that direction with OS X and people would be perhaps less surprised, but it would still be company making a major shift when it comes to customer expectations of the product.
Here’s what bothers me most: we’re losing the idea that you can just try things with computers. That you can experiment. That you can learn by doing. That you can take a risk on some weird little program someone made in their spare time. All that goes away with the walled garden. Your neighbour can’t just whip up some fun gadget and share it with you without signing up for an SDK and paying developer fees. Your obscure game community can’t just write mods and share content because everything’s locked down. So much creativity gets squashed before it even hits the drawing board because it’s just not feasible to do it.
It’s hard to know how to fight this battle. So much ground has been lost already, and big companies are reluctant to listen to the esoteric wishers of the hackers and makers that actually care about the freedom to squirt whatever through their own CPUs. Ultimately, though, you can still vote with your wallet. Don’t let Personal Computing become Consumer Computing, where you’re only allowed to run code that paid the corporate toll. Make sure the computers you’re paying for are doing what you want, not just what the executives approved of for their own gain. It’s your computer, it should run what you want it to!
Answer: Microsoft
Freedom kind of an illusion isn’t it especially in light of the HaD articles about E-waste and we can’t do with phones like we do with PCs lament?
If you buy into a locked-down system by pay for a device, it’s not your computer. It’s only your device. The computer is a whole, comprised of both software and hardware. If you don’t control both, it’s not your computer.
P.S. The comment interface really needs a preview.
During DOS times end lusers were just as clueless about computers as they are today. The difference is a virus back then would show some offensive phrase, make letters fall to the bottom of the screen or wipe the 8-megabyte hard drive. With always-connected PCs, laptops and smartphones of today, unrestricted spread of malware could cause damage far greater than a 500-strong swarm of Geran drones.
We can:
a) prevent normies from running unapproved code, turning computer into yet another appliance comparable to washing machine or game console.
b) disconnect everyone and everything from the Internet
c) bring everyone’s knowledge of programming, operating systems and IT security to the level of kernel hacker running his own LFS/yocto distro.
Realistically speaking only option a) is feasible.
Oh no, someone listed three options for an unrelated problem and somehow the one they want is the only feasible one. Gosh, we should call that something… hay man? grass man?
Should be pretty clear that human-in-the-loop code authorization (e.g. which looks shockingly like “dialogue boxes”) would be EITHER: enough to stop fantasy out of control malware,. OR: that lack of authorization wouldn’t stop the malware, which was conveniently ignored above – perfectly possible to be non-free and have malware. Doesn’t mean you have to line up your neck to be stomped on.
What the next reasoning? We’ve had “improving cybersecurity”, so the usual suspects coming up will be….”protecting the children”, before that “defending from terrorists”, before that “protecting the recording industry”, “protecting against communism”, before that “protecting against fascists”.
And these for profit company ‘curated’ ‘approved’ experiences are actually safer?!?!?!?!
I’d love to see the complete known world-wide set of data combined for this sort of thing, but the non tech savy if I can’t configure it I don’t want it person’s locked down IOT device is almost certainly part of a botnet, accessible remotely without their authentication, a backdoor into their local network etc. At least if their equally locked down usually garbage ISP router hasn’t actively prevented it (and as they don’t care, as you have to pay them anyway…).
The Apple and Google Play store has been full of dubious applications of many types, some of which last for many years after the first report of fishy behaviour – as again these companies really don’t have any reason to care how screwed over you get as long as you keep paying them their cut! And you the user have ever fewer ways of knowing how the bad stuff happened to you…
The only thing that actually protects the normies is that the tech savvy have enough access to similar hardware and software to find and fix the flaws that bother them individually and can submit them to collective. Which leads to the whole collective having access to a fairly secure and functional system as a rule.
Very much the FOSS model of the real Linux distro. Which is a good option as you have the chain of trust in the package management system, everything is signed so the normies have that easy playstore like way to install and keep updated ‘secure’ programs and the experts get to inspect each others work and will eventually (usually rather fast) find the bad actors and correct it. Along with real access to all the tools to debug should anything actually go wrong. Still doesn’t in any way restrict a normie or the technically capable from installing anything bad from outside – but its rather easier to find the problem…
The conspiracy theorist in me says this was always the plan. When “big data” realized that they couldn’t control the bits on the internet they needed to wrest control back. Hence apps. It was entirely possible to just keep HTML on the phones but a very deliberate decision was made not to do that.
So now every little thing I want to do requires an app. Park my car at a meter in the city? There’s an app for that. Convenient coincidence that that app can track my location realtime without my knowledge. Something that HTML probably could never do.
And now it’s just a matter of slowly locking down the app infrastructure.
I once predicted “approved bits only” on the internet, but that would require completely replacing the packet protocol so is practically impossible worldwide. So I rescind that prediction in the light of this new approach. Different means, same end.
At least until some form of Secure Boot is required to connect to an ISP.
SaaS crept in, on the backs of venture capital. So you can continue to rent what you used to own, while having a steady stream of advertising targeted at you.
Windows 10 needs cracked to remove the “security” and telemetrics that are baked in. Open source security updates would free up billions for industry and home users alike. Linux is not an option for most.
Can’t believe nobody has mentioned Linux as the antidote here yet. Or BSD, if you insist.
the thing is, even with the “average user friendly” distributions, people don’t want to switch because they’re so brainwashed by “big tech.”
They don’t want to switch, because they would lose access to all the closed source software they want. Linux does not support the distribution of such software because the community is ideologically biased against anyone not giving up the source code for the community.
And the reason why there will always be more and better closed source software for the users is because they’re paying for it. The providers of the software are competing to gain users, so there is an incentive to do more and do better rather than just do whatever pleases yourself as a developer.
Engineers of all sorts, left to their own devices, are happy to use whatever convoluted concoction they come up with, because they are experts in their own fields. Users are not, they demand more, so the developer driven open source community is not as well suited for mass appeal.
Hmm, not everyone in the Linux world is Richard Stallman, browsers on Linux will ask to install Widevine so you can watch Netflix etc. Proton from Valve makes running many Windows games easy (Wine can potentially do that for other software). I would assume most people don’t want to switch OSes because installing an OS is not terrifically easy (they likely wouldn’t be able to install Windows without some help).
Another dimension of locked-down-edness that doesn’t come up here is access to the command line and being able to write and run your own programs; on macOS, dire as things are getting, you still get Python and Ruby pre-installed, which is great.
The software I use for a living does not exist under Linux and there is no equivalent.
I hear this a lot, and sometimes is actually true. But I’m still curious enough to ask what software you use and need.
I’m not the original poster, but I use LightBurn a lot and about a year ago they dropped linux support.
This was for licensed and paid professional sofwware. Linux support is frozen at 1.7, while windows support is 2.07 and actively supported.
When I first purchased a laser I reviewed the available software packages, and chose LightBurn over RDWorks because RDWorks only runs on windows.
So to answer your question: RDWorks and LightBurn only run on Windows.
Many users are content to use the OS supplied with their PC (typically, Windows) and the apps that run on it. Others want a less flexible but cleaner experience, and are willing to pay for it (most of my family) and choose Apple’s walled garden. A small minority want maximum flexibility and minimal interference from the supplier of their OS, and choose a Unix-like os (BSD, GNU/Linux, roll their own).
I prefer Linux (Mint) but I realise I’m in a small minority. At work, we were forced into Linux as an OS for our embedded GUIs, since Microsoft was undependable and unaffordable, and the proprietary real time OS were not to our liking.
Horses for courses. Every option has its advantages and drawbacks. None of the major OS vendors are on the side of the consumer (though Apple makes a better effort than Microsoft at this)
First a phone (to me) is a ‘phone’ . Never download ‘apps’ for it other than what comes with it. Use it for calling, texting, pictures. If I want to run programs, use multi-media, the laptop and PC are the platform of choice. If I want to write applications, the PC, SBCs, laptops are platforms of choice.
Second use an open OS like Linux or BSD if you don’t want walled wally in your face forcing you to their way of thinking. You are responsible for security on your ‘device’. Run any app you want. The way it should be. The solution is clear… and easy. So instead of complaining, just switch. Life is much better on the Linux and BSD side, and forget Apple and M$. That ship as sailed. I do miss the good o’ days with DOS and early Windows, but that era is behind us.
For me a phone is an at-a-pinch computer for when I’m out and about away from my computer. It’s annoying as heck to use, but it’s better than nothing. SSH client and a browser being the most used apps.
Entities like Google, Apple, Microsoft, can keep their monopolistic practices and keep tightening the thumbscrew, because there’s no realistic alternative for the users.
If you want the vast library of software provided by closed-source for-profit software vendors, you’re not going to become a Linux user because those vendors cannot operate there, because these platforms are too heterogeneous and refusing to standardize to support closed-source software distribution.
They’re not going to give you anything when they can just put their software on Google Play and reach billions of paying users without jumping through the hoops and hurdles you’re trying to put in front of them to “encourage” them to play the open-source community game.
If you want the situation to change, the users have to be able to vote with their feet against Google and the rest. You want to create a truly open platform for all kinds of software and business. As it is, there’s no pressure of competition, so however much you’re complaining, the ideological balkanization against the commercial software ecosystem is just tilting at windmills.
Of course you can just make more open source software to replace the market. Yes, absolutely, do that: make it as comprehensive, good and as varied as the closed source competition without being able to sell it because you’re giving up the code for anyone to copy.
I’ll be waiting.
There are plenty of closed source for profit programs that work on Linux, pretty sure even a few that target OpenBSD despite its really really minor userbase and that has been true for eons…
If YOUR particular software company of choice has not made that decision to actively support Linux, or even just make sure to target WINE/Proton so the windows app will just work is a real problem for you as the user. But there is no real problem for the developer with creating closed source applications for Linux – pick any distro at all as the one support and say so, and all the users will find it works flawlessly on just about any other with a few posts in the support forum ‘oh x distro is missing y in their build of z – but you can get the patched version this way’ or ‘needs a feature in kernel 6.2 so get the upstream kernel your LTS distro hasn’t moved to’ etc…
Also before Big G dropped the ‘Don’t be Evil’ and started acting this way Android itself was a perfect example of a huge variety of closed source sold for programs can work on the open and rather varied platforms – Early Android is a pretty big development ride in hardware and software changes, but was rather open and full of paid for software… The only difference between Linux and Android is Google offered an easy distribution path shouldering most of the costs and took a cut of the sale, so no need to open up your own web store and authentication system etc – rather like Valve does with Steam for the game developers. Which is also a good example of a closed source (at least largely) for profit company that does and has for some time worked on Linux…
You know what console has no lockout chip and lets you run whatever you want? The GameTank ;)
In the days of the early videogame console it probably made sense to be more locked down – its a bit of a symbiotic relationship between the game developers/publishers and the hardware folks, as they have the choice of sell the console for a reasonable profit on the hardware, and thus get very few sales, so the game developers will also get fewer as there are so few potential clients or co-operate with safeguards to grow the user base. Adding in those safeguard features to make it difficult to void that mutually beneficial arrangement is logical and fair enough, even if annoying it isn’t really abusive to the users either at the time.
But today….
But with linux phones now and in the future will this even matter in the long run? When the world moves away from apk for linux possibly then maybe they will change there tune from lost market share is my guess. When some one pulls one way then other will pull the exact opposite, it’s human nature to go against the grain or find the grain that smoothest to work with. Theoretically a linux is could run a vm android os and emulated any android os that still can use homebrew apk. Theres always cracks in the cement where the plants can grow through
web-apps might be the linchpin for Linux phones. Developing native apps is a pain in the butt, so much so that major apps like Uber Eats are just web pages in a wrapper. The more common this becomes, the easier it will be to daily-drive a Linux phone.
hahaha now we’re trying to make this nothingburger of a footnote to android’s decay and portray it as an epoch-defining moment for computing. nuts.