Sideloading apps to Android gets easier, as Google settles its lawsuit

Petteri Pyyny
19 Dec 2023 11:09

Google settled a class-action lawsuit in September 2023, which accused the company of distorting the Android app market and abusing its dominant market position in the United States. Today, the company announced the terms of the settlement.
Firstly, it will pay a total of $700 million in compensation to parties and authorities that participated in the class-action lawsuit. Of the amount, which is equivalent to approximately €637 million, 90% will go to consumers who participated in the class-action lawsuit, and the remaining 10% of the compensation amount will go to individual US states.

From the perspective of an average Android user, the bigger significance is that Google intends to simplify the so-called sideloading mechanism for Android as a result of the settlement. This mechanism is used to install applications on Android phones from outside Google's own Play Store.
Currently, the process of downloading apps (typically in .apk file format) with phone's browser and installing it includes several roadblocks that Google has added, to "protect the users". Because of the settlement, the entire process gets streamlined.

Here are two screenshots showing what exactly is changing (current popup alert on the left and the upcoming new notification on the right):

Previously, users were intimidated more, and downloading from an external source required navigating through settings, which caused some back-and-forth jumping between different views. In the future, only one question will appear, where the setting can be set permanently.

Google also commits to keeping the updated installation process at least as simple for five years from the time the updated installation process is introduced.

The exact time for when the update will come to Android has not yet been announced.