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I Love Sideloading (lemmy.dbzer0.com)

TLDR: I love sideloaded apps and they r a godsend

So I’ve been using sideloaded yt and Spotify and now I can NEVER go back. Makes me feel like a PEASANT if I do.

So a couple weeks ago I went on a 4 hour drive and sadly my sidestore time expired and I couldn’t renew due to ap ID it so I had to wait a week and by the time I would drive another 4 hours back. And let me tell you FREE SPOTIFY SUCKS ASS. I can’t go back or scrub through the songs, I can only do 6 skips per hour and replay COUNTS AS THE 6, luckily I use a vpn which blocked other company ads but SPOTIFY HAS THEIR OWN DAMN STUPID ADS EVERY 3 SONGS. And I couldn’t add songs to queue by swiping and I had to tap on the three dots and add to queue which I can’t do while on the highway. And of course I can’t play a specific song, I can’t even decide whether I want shuffle or not. And I didn’t even wanna try yt with no playing off the app or while the phone is off.

It’s as if getting into sideloading, piracy, and modding made me feel true online freedom and I can’t wait or imagine the feeling I’m going to have when I start self hosting. I’m definitely going to donate to these projects due to the improvement in my life they contributed to.

all 18 comments
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[-] ranzispa@mander.xyz 1 points 2 hours ago

If you use Spotify, I'd pay for the subscription. If you don't want to pay for the subscription, I would download the music so that you have it on your phone.

[-] whotookkarl@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 10 hours ago

It can be a very liberating feeling to only run the software you want and how you want to run it on your hardware.

[-] eleitl@lemmy.zip 20 points 17 hours ago

I call that ”installing software” on devices I really own, those with free/libre OS.

[-] Ulrich@feddit.org 12 points 20 hours ago

I quit Spotify and started using internet radio. Once a month, instead of giving $20 to a corporate overlord, I donate it to my favorite indy radio station playing fresh songs. Not the same pop BS over and over. Unique music from talented local artists around the world.

It does take a bit more time and experimentation to find some great stations.

[-] kalpol@lemmy.ca 6 points 19 hours ago

SomaFM is maybe the best thing to ever exist

[-] humble_boatsman@sh.itjust.works 4 points 17 hours ago

Ill just leave this here. WWOZ New Orleans. Guardians of the Groove.

[-] Ulrich@feddit.org 2 points 16 hours ago

Thank you, we should probably have a community for this.

[-] BiomedOtaku@lemmy.dbzer0.com 59 points 1 day ago

Don't call it " sideloading " calling it that just reinforces all the conditioning we have been given to believe that when anyone wants to install a software of their choosing on a device they paid for its called " side loading " its not all you did is install an app on your device and that's it.

[-] Kirk@startrek.website 9 points 20 hours ago

I agree with this. It's installing an app. Installing a program to a computer you own should never be considered "unofficial"!

[-] Draconic_NEO@lemmy.dbzer0.com 89 points 1 day ago

You shouldn't use the term sideloading to describe installing apps from alternative sources, that just makes it seem like it's some weird and different, possibly unintended thing. When it is an intended part of an open ecosystem.

[-] Steve@communick.news 30 points 1 day ago

Agreed.
Alternative app stores aren't sideloading.

[-] zarkanian@sh.itjust.works 2 points 10 hours ago

When I think of sideloading, it's installing software without using an app store, because that's the name of the command in adb. You plug your phone into your computer, open a terminal, and do adb sideload path/to/my/app.

[-] prenatal_confusion@feddit.org 4 points 1 day ago
[-] idriss@lemmy.ml 33 points 1 day ago

Side loading is a made up word by mega corpo which implies installing software on the device you paid for is wrong and makes you feel like a pirate

[-] prenatal_confusion@feddit.org 6 points 1 day ago

I agree. I didn't see the first line of your comments when I replied.

[-] Ulrich@feddit.org 4 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago)

It's nonsense. These people expect you to say "installing apps from outside the first-party app store" every time you refer to sideloading and suggest that somehow the word has a negative connotation and was made up by corpos to keep you in their silos, even though the word predates the concept altogether.

[-] cecilkorik@piefed.ca 21 points 1 day ago

I love hardware that doesn't require sideloading. I bought the whole house, including the front door, and I will use the front door. If they don't allow me to use the front door, then I don't really own the house after all, do I, so what did I even pay for?

this post was submitted on 07 Feb 2026
70 points (98.6% liked)

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