2 mo. ago • 92%

New Samsung phones block sideloading by default

www.androidauthority.com PSA: New Samsung phones block sideloading by default. Here's how to re-enable it

Auto Blocker stops apps from being sideloaded and is enabled on Galaxy devices released with One UI 6.1.1. Here's how to turn it off.

Android @lemdro.id PSA: New Samsung phones block sideloading by default. Here's how to re-enable it

41 comments

I really hate the term “side-loading.” We shouldn’t need a word for the normal way we’ve been installing apps for the past 40 years. If tomorrow Apple decided they were going to start only letting you visit web pages they approved of, we wouldn’t call some sort of alternating system that let you see the rest of the fucking internet “side-paging”. We’d instead call the whole thing bullshit.

Source

173
- Until some time ago, I always though that "side-loading" is something different. Since I first saw "side-loading" used in ADB, so I thought that it means using another system on the side to load and install software onto a target system.
  
  So to me that seems fitting, but now it seems to be used differently. How is installing software using just one device "side-loading". What side do they mean?
  
  13
  
  I've always took side-loading to mean installing from local storage, as opposed to downloading from remote storage. As far as I'm concerned downloading from a third party app store should not be treated as side-loading.
  
  4
All Android phones block side loading by default, do they not?

111
- It's in the article : "Samsung’s Auto Blocker feature takes things a bit further.The feature, fully blocks the installation of apps from unauthorized sources, even if those sources were granted the REQUEST_INSTALL_PACKAGES permission."
  
  100
  
  Damn. Finished the paragraph before it and made the comment. Lol. Interesting. Seems redundant.
  
  29
  
  So this new update (assuming the update ads this too) i just got today should have killed my revanced apps?
  
  2
- But it also shows you a button to go straight to the toggle that lets you enable it when you try to install an app
  
  6
- I really don't mind that they hide the button to enable installs from .APK when they are being directly downloaded. It has been in my opinion very bad idea from the beginning that it shows that, it has enabled multiple malwares in android. Non-technical people should not have easy way to install things, even with big warnings, because people ignore warnings.
  
  If google removes the ability to install non-store apps all together, then that day I will stop using Android.
  
  2
- I'm not sure if this is what they are referring too, but some mobile phone providers put mandatory apps on the phone such as Facebook.
  
  0
wasn't it always blocked by default? Google's always given a scare alert on sideloading apps, is this just an additional popup or is it replacing the stock one. Seems rather pointless if a setting and a waste of developer's resources if you ask me.

78
- My phone randomly started quarantining basically every app that wasn't from the play store after my last update, annoying as hell.
  
  15
  
  That is super obnoxious, but I don't think it was supposed to do that judging by the article it's supposed to keep your existing settings it wasn't supposed to be forced on
  
  3
So you need to change two settings instead of one to side load. Seems rather pointless.

77
- Big difference is that that one setting was shown to you with a button press when you tried to install an app. With this, you need to remember or make a screenshot of where you need to go, open the settings app and then go there and toggle it on. It's just a lot more annoying to do and Samsung probably hopes that that will deter people from doing it.
  
  30
  
  Just standard corporate dark patterns
  
  11
  
  Screenshot? What are you, a goldfish?
  
  3
  
  ...Why? What's the point? What do they possibly hope to achieve?
  
  3
I'm pretty sure the EU Commission will have something to say about this

25
What's the problem? you can disable it, and, for example, I don't want my 80 yr old mother sideloading stuff. It's not like Apple where you just CAN'T do stuff.

21
- the problem is the one we're gonna have in a few years if nobody steps in now and does something
  
  cough cough EU please
  
  13
- she already can't unless she specifically enables sideloading
  
  11
  
  And that popup probably scares her away from doing it anyway.
  
  3
They always did this. Tap two more buttons and allow.

12
What in the cock

8
So does macOS, but as long as you can still enable it in settings eh, fine.

7
I was prompted during the initial set up of my Fold 6 (Singapore SKU) on whether I wanted to enable it or not though and the option was disabled by default. So something doesn't seem right here or maybe this is an American SKU only thing?

6
Permanently Deleted

3
See, this is another thing broken in the current web. I made a usercss (Stylus) to normalize font size for certain elements and it works reasonably well. But on this site, it looks like this.

Anyone has a guess why, something with viewport or other meta tags?

Edit: fixed, they use a custom font with weird size settings. Looks like this now (with my normalize usercss).

-1
- As a web dev we do try to accommodate userCSS for accessibility reasons but often font sizes are tuned to what they are for a reason. I'd guess there's a line height issue here.
  
  6
  
  You mean that their font was customized to display a certain size, for whatever reason?
  
  Right, browser.display.use_document_fonts = 0 fixed it, lol.
  
  2
- Maybe a fixed line-height?
  
  3
  
  But my usercss enforces font-size: medium for <p> elements but this looks more like x-large. And it works well for 99% of pages.
  
  2

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