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this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2025
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But apps outside of their store (such as fdroid) get constantly pinged for malware security scans, and android treats them as second class citizens in a lot of scenarios. It's really frustrating to fight your phone on so many fronts just to use the apps you want.
Apple iOS users outside of the EU are familiar with this too.
For the curious, sideloading apps requires you to run a server on your computer, and refresh the signature on the app at least once a month. Because iOS automatically kills any apps with out-of-date signatures, only automatically refreshes signatures on official App Store apps, and doesn’t allow any signatures longer than 30 days.
Don't you also need a developer license? So that's like an additional $8/month subscription to sideload on iOS.
Or I could be wrong 🤷
Users make abhorrent weird workarounds for that, like running a PC software that uses a free temporary developer license to re-license an app on your phone, that then uses that license to resign other apps ""automatically""
Not quite. You can use your free apple ID for temporary self-signing. But this cert is only valid for 7 days and can sign up to 3 apps simultaneously before you have to update the cert.
I have many, many apps installed through not-Play Store methods. Haven't really run into any issues with them. Yeah, Android gets a bit picky on initial install, but once you've gone through that process once, it becomes a no-brainer.
This has been changed if you're lucky enough to have a recent Android version, but not long ago any gallery app sideloaded from external sources couldn't be set as the system gallery, meaning managing pictures was really annoying because any changes required a pop up confirmation.
Pixel 9 Pro XL on Android 15.
That said, I haven't tried changing the photo gallery app yet.
Does this still happen? I use fdroid and it's not only more reliable than the play store, Ive never seen a malware warning or anything.