> On Android, you can install any app from any third-party store without having any accounts. There's a store called Aurora Store that even lets you install apps from golgle's Pay Store without an account as well.
I thought Google recently announced changes to this requiring a developer account to side load.
Yes, Google did announce of the plans, but those changes aren't active yet, and they plan to start enforcing them in only several APAC countries where sideloading is far too popular and gets abused far too much.
Hopefully, they'll see just how ineffective their measures are, and abandon before applying the plans to the rest of the world.
> where sideloading is far too popular and gets abused far too much.
Why do we consider user installation of software abuse? Plenty of people install software from non-play repositories simply to prevent Google from getting data about their app profile.
The issue I spoke of, is not by the user, but by the fraudsters tricking people into installing malicious apps.
I disagree that such protections (at the expense of the power users) are necessary, but, OTOH, you cannot just ignore such issue existing in the first place, because it does exist, and Google already does have the tools to combat it (by scanning all apps regardless of origin, and blocking malicious ones).
The unspoken part is, now that the functionality exists, it will be rolled out in more and more countries because it allows governments to directly control what apps users have access to. My response to Chat Control in the EU, if all efforts to stop it were to fail, was always "well, I have an Android, so I'll just install whatever app that isn't backdoored". But if Chat Control passes, this exact functionality will eventually be used to ensure that I can only use backdoored apps.
There is no way to abuse it "too much". In fact there is no way to abuse it at all. "Sideloading software" means "installing software on my own damn machine". You can't abuse installing software on your own machine.
I thought Google recently announced changes to this requiring a developer account to side load.