By Ben Schoon
Publication Date: 2026-03-22 16:00:00
Sideloading has been a key part of Android since the beginning, not only delivering a lot of flexibility to Android, but also a sense of openness and freedom. After Google announced it would make major changes to sideloading, the community (somewhat understandably) panicked, but as Google has now shown exactly how its new sideloading flow on Android will work, I’m not only happy to see that sideloading isn’t going away at all, but that Google’s compromise is as close to perfect as I think we can reasonably get.
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“Android Developer Verification” has been referred to by some as the death of Android’s open nature. Google announced the change last year as a restriction to app installation, including sideloading, which would…
