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On your PC, installing software means downloading it from wherever you want.

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That could mean a developer's website, GitHub, an actual app store, or a

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sketchy forum at 2:00 a.m. For better or worse. But with our phones, we're used

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to a different workflow. If you want to put an app on your phone outside of the

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official app store, you need to do something called side-loading.

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Traditionally on Android, that hasn't been too difficult, but Google recently

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made it a lot harder. Meanwhile, it's always been nearly impossible to

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side-load on iPhone, but that seems to be changing, too.

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And for the better? I feel like I've taken crazy pills. What is side-loading?

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Why are Google and Apple so terrified of it? And is the fear even legitimate? Or

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are these tech giants just trying to keep us in their ecosystems? All right.

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Let's slow down. At its simplest, side-loading just means installing apps

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manually outside of an official app store. On Android, that's APK files. On

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iPhones, IPA files. Both are just how their respective systems package apps.

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This isn't really some fringe work-around. On computers, side-loading

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is just called installing stuff. App stores came later and just kind of took

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over, like an HOA that moved into a neighborhood where everyone was already

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just doing fine. So, what kinds of reasons do people have for side-loading

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apps? Lots, actually. Access to beta software, region-locked apps, or

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utilities that app stores won't approve of, like emulators, adult content, or

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tools that don't play by the gatekeeper's rules. Or maybe the app

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publisher doesn't want to surrender a huge chunk of its revenues to the

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platform. Or you're using alternative operating system that requires

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side-loading in order to increase user privacy. Or maybe the company that makes

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your phone was sanctioned from Google services altogether. Convenience,

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privacy, survival. Three different reasons, but they all point to the same

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conclusion. The official app store isn't always the answer. Android has always

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technically allowed side-loading. Hell, I've done it. But allowed doesn't mean

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encouraged. The toggle is buried behind warnings, and Google Play Protect flags

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side-loaded apps aggressively. Still, once you flipped that switch, you were

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in. It was like an open door, but one that made you feel nervous walking

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through it. Like those big revolving doors at the airport. Apple took the

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opposite approach. iOS flat-out banned side-loading, and Steve Jobs made it

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personal, famously telling a critic that the iPhone offered freedom from porn,

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and that anyone who disagreed could go buy an Android. The message was clear.

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If an app isn't in the app store, it probably doesn't need to exist, which is

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wild logic because Macs have been installing random software from the web

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for decades. Up until the recent changes, getting an app onto an iPhone

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from outside the app store meant jumping through hoops that would make a circus

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dog quit. To explain the process, here is alternative app store developer Riley

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Testut. So, before we had an official app store, we had AltStore Classic, and

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the process was you would download a program on your computer, Mac or PC, and

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then you would open up the program, and then you would >> [music] >> type in your little Apple ID and

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password, and just normal account information, you

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would send that to us, and then we would sign in on your behalf with Apple,

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pretend you're a developer, and then we would like basically install apps as if

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it was your own app that you had developed yourself, because Apple allows

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like developers to test out their own apps on their phone. And so, we had this

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whole system that required you to plug in your phone to a computer to install it, and apps expired every 7 days, so

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you had to refresh your apps like once a week. And and you could only install

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three. It was like all the restrictions you could think of,

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and yet people did it. That friction was

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not accidental. Companies have their own business reasons for gatekeeping what

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gets put on their platform. Take Amazon's Fire tablets. They're sold at a

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discount because Amazon expects to make that money back through their own app

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store ecosystem. They don't ship with the Google Play Store. So, if you want

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standard apps like YouTube or Gmail, you're forced to side-load, and millions

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of people do it, even if it's really onerous to do, because we want to use

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our devices the way we want to use them, damn it.

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>> [laughter] >> But are we taking on more risk when we side-load compared to using the official

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app store? Like it's like I can't say there can't be an app that could be malicious and could appear, but that's

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also true of the app store. Like that does happen. There are apps that like

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are tricked app review and they turn out to be something else in the app store. And so, I think it's kind of just like

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an inherent risk of if you're installing software

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on a device. But I think the key distinction that people do leave out a

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lot is the iPhone is not like the Mac, because the iPhone has sandboxing and

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entitlements and a whole bunch of security measures that just are not

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existing on the desktop. And those things really do so much to prevent a

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lot of things that could go wrong. Like your photos just can't be accessed in

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the background by a random app. Like you have to give permission to that. And I think it's good to say that that's why

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I'm such a proponent of side-loading. That's the critical distinction. What

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matters isn't where an app comes from. It's how much damage it can actually do

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once it's installed. And notably, the most headline-grabbing Android banking

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Trojans in recent years, like Anatsa, which hit over 150,000 devices across

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Europe, spread primarily through Google Play itself, not through side-loading.

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So, the app store isn't bulletproof, and side-loading isn't the wild west the

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tech giants try to make it out to be. But here's where things get interesting,

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because both platforms are changing the rules right now, and they're going in

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completely opposite directions. We'll get you up to speed right after this

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Center and tech over at Micro Center News, as well.

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Both Android and iOS are changing their approach to side-loading. Let's start

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with Android. Android 16 already blocks

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you from enabling side-loading while you're on a phone call, specifically to

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stop voice phishing scams where attackers walk your grandmother through

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installing malware step by step. But the real shift is the upcoming advanced flow

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rolling out globally through 2026. If a developer isn't verified by Google, you

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can't just hit install on their app. You now have to enter a 24-hour protective

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waiting period. You have to restart your phone, which kills any active screen

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sharing or scam calls, and then wait a full day before the install button even

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becomes clickable. Google says this breaks the spell that scammers cast on

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victims. But for developers, it's a massive barrier. No impulse buyers. To

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be clear, power users can still bypass

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this by, well, waiting. But the message is clear.

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Android's open door is officially getting a bouncer. Meanwhile, on iPhone,

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regulators, first in the EU and as of iOS 26.2 in Japan,

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have forced Apple to allow apps from outside the app store. Luckily for

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Apple, they already knew how to accommodate side-loading whilst

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maintaining a certain standard of security, because they already solved

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this problem on the Mac back in 2019.

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It's called notarization. On macOS, you can download any app from the web, and

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Apple still performs a basic security check to make sure the code isn't signed

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by a known bad actor and doesn't contain obvious malware. It doesn't require the

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app store. It doesn't take a 30% cut. It

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just works. And now Apple has brought this system to the iPhone. They're still

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scanning apps for malware and sketchy behavior. They're just letting you

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install them from outside the app store. Beyond those select regions, though,

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>> [music] >> it's business as usual. Apple protecting your proprietary while collecting the

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toll. If you want to see just how far the side-loading rabbit hole goes, our video

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on running Windows on your iPhone shows exactly what becomes possible when you

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push past Apple's limits, and how much control you actually have over the

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device in your pocket. So, check it out.