> The word itself hardly has any negative connotations aside from something like "not primary", which might be argued as negative, but is nonetheless correct.
Android has an APK installer built in. Opening an APK file launches the installer and installs the application, just like opening an MSI file on Windows launches built-in Microsoft Installer and installs the application.
Google have gradually added impediments to this over this years, such as a requirement to toggle a checkbox in the settings to enable installation, and later some prompts about letting Google scan the package, but calling the system's built-in application installation mechanism "not primary" is absurd.
>but calling the system's built-in application installation mechanism "not primary" is absurd.
So you're arguing that because play store installs and random .apk installs both goes through packageinstaller, the concept of a "primary" install method doesn't exist?
If we're using "primary" to mean "first-party" (as in your original comment), then the system's built-in package installer is the most first-party of all, so it's definitely not "not primary".
If we're using "primary" to mean something like "most popular", then I don't see how the term "sideloading" would make any sense to describe "not primary". Are we side-commenting here, and side-submitting HTTP requests, because we're not posting to Facebook, the primary website?