Play Store could soon handle updates for sideloaded apps (APK teardown)

GreenEngineering3475@lemmy.world to Android@lemmy.world – 73 points – Play Store could soon handle updates for sideloaded apps (APK teardown)
androidauthority.com

Google is working on a change that may let users install updates for sideloaded apps right from the Play Store.

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i do not trust this at all. just let me disable it.

Just don't update the app from Play Store, it's not automatic, you have to chose to change its source to the Play store

On the app listing, you’ll also see a new “Update from Play” button that will switch the update ownership from the original source to the Play Store.

It's not automatic, you have to chose to update the side loaded app from Play store, if available.

I nixed the Play store and its related gpservices. Google doesn't own my phone, and they can stay the hell away from from my sideloaded manually installed apps.

Really wish there was a real third OS choice. Hilarious that Apple (by force) is having to open up their platform to third-party stores. Meanwhile Google is continuing their enshittification of the entire platform full steam ahead. At this point, Samsung, bring back Tizen, or....someone do anything.

I really wonder how this is going to work, there are odd scenarios like the offline Wiki app Kiwix. If you install it from the Play Store, it can't see your filesystem and you can only download wiki images in the app itself and they live in the container directory with their own user:group assigned by the app. (One is also not even allowed to modify the user:group on files even via ADB anymore without root, so copying a sideload into the app container directory still won't work, as the app won't "see" it.)

If you sideload from the Kiwix web site, the app is then allowed to have access to what remnants of the filesystem apps are still allowed to see, and you can just copy the 100GB wiki file to your phone over USB and access it in the app.

If the app is then updated in the Play Store, will it inherit the neutered permissions of the Play Store variant and suddenly not see your wiki images?

Did you not see the news about Autoblocker being enabled by default on Oneui 6.1.1 blocking sideloading of apk files by default.

Only on new phones that ship with 6.1.1, so your existing phone won't change this setting with the update. There's also a page during the OOBE setup with a toggle for this block where you can simply tap to disable it before proceeding.

But, the precedent is there. Samsung is not pro sideloading or custom ROMs. In fact tizenOS was more locked down than android.

Can we allow unintended installation for third party AppStore’s like fdroid and aurora tho

If you mean unattended, they already do since Android 12.

Apps do need to implement the functionality manually, but it seems pretty simple.

Looks like Aurora already has, it just updated Discord for me while my phone was off.

Is your phone rooted? I have Aurora as well and it still has to harass me to give permission for every update. I'm on Android 14.

It's not. I am on GrapheneOS though, also Android 14, but I don't think that should make a difference here.

Maybe the flavour of Android you're running decided to do things a bit differently? I honestly don't know

I think it depends on the app though. I use obtainium and it can download and update Firefox Nightly without any input from me, but for Mastodon I need to manually download and install it

I tried specifically with discord because they mentioned discord and it didn't work.

hmm that's weird.

i was wondering what's up with that, so i took a look at the source code of aurora, and it seems they don't even call the requireUserAction thing that's supposed to disable the prompt. As far as I can tell it should just always require the prompt the way the app is built now. Wonder why it doesn't do it for me then.

Wow, nice digging. That is so bizarre. If I were you, I'd check to make sure that you do get thT prompt normally with other apps, since that might be a security hazard.

It's already a feature since android 12 like the other user said. Try droidify if fdroid doesn't do background updates for you.

I think it's already available. I was able to update a sideloaded app via the play store just the other day. (Blackmagic camera, since officially the play store says it's incompatible with my device. It wouldn't let me install it, but it was happy to update it.)