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I switched to Android after 7 years of iOS

joreteg.com

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Re: I switched to Android after 7 years of iOS

#101
post #19

> WebBluetooth (yup, talking to bluetooth devices from JS on a webpage) This sounds like a great new attack vector for the black hats of tommorrow. There are just some things that a web browser should not do. Exposing things that previously required escape from sandbox attacks is one of them.

The user experience is similar to webcam/microphone access: nothing works without a prompt and browser-mediated pairing process, and only on secure origins (e.g. https). The spec goes into detail about security/privacy considerations, and includes a blacklist of problematic targets. https://webbluetoothcg.github.io/web-bluetooth/#security-and... Access through web browsers could expose issues in the user's kernel blu…

> The user experience is similar to webcam/microphone access

What happens behind the scenes is not. The microphone and webcam are far easier to secure because they just provide data streams if authorized and the web browser can provide a visual cue when it is in use. Some webcams even have a light to indicate when they are I use. Although that might not be perfect, it is far better than things like browser plugins.

Bluetooth is another story. With WebBluetooth, you are effectively providing access to an Advanced Persistent Threat attack vector. That takes things to a whole different level for black hats. If it is widely adopted, someone somewhere will find a way to target it as compromising the firmware of paired Bluetooth devices should be easier than typical escape from sandbox attacks. How long it takes for us to hear about it is another story.

> Access through web browsers could expose issues in the user's kernel bluetooth stack, but that risk exists with any binding. There should be time to explore this possibility while the feature is still behind a flag

Whether WebBluetooth can attack the Bluetooth stack directly is irrelevant. What matters is the embedded device's Bluetooth stack. Allowing a web site to dictate the contents of an otherwise legitimate communication with an embedded device's Bluetooth stack allows it to compromised with no compromise of the machine required.

Running exploits against the embedded device should just requires gaining control of a webserver hosting a site that the browser permits to use webbluetooth or injecting code through a XSS attack. If the embedded device allows firmware updates over bluetooth, getting malicious code onto it is easy. If not, the embedded code that communicates with a paired device should have been written under the assumption that the other end would not try anything malicious and consequently, it should have vulnerabilities.

Regardless of how a blackhat gets into a paired bluetooth device, once they are inside, they have code execution on the opposite side of the surface typically attacked on modern computers.

Re: I switched to Android after 7 years of iOS

#102
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These things that you mentioned, you didn't really have to do. Buy a nexus, and it's as clean as it gets. What you're saying is that you left the freedom of your device to jail yourself into simple interface...? I do agree though, that those samsung/lg/etc phone have lots crapwares + carrier crapwares.

What you're saying is that you left the freedom of your device to jail yourself into simple interface...? Actually, this is a pattern that many products follow, as they evolve from a newly tinkered thing pioneered by enthusiasts to a mature consumer device. There is much more "freedom" in 80's and 90's audio equipment. (And markedly higher build quality. Bargain stuff I bought as a teenager is now lauded on ebay as t…

> Cars also followed this pattern, come to think of it.

I remember my dad complaining all through my youth about how the more modern that cars get, the less serviceable you are. That in new cars you need special computers just to tell them that yes, you did fix the problem and the car can stop complaining now.

10 years later ... man, if I have to even think about opening the bonnet and poking at something, I assume the manufacturer has failed at their job. I don't want to maintain my car. I expect my car to be a tool. Even taking it into the shop to get its tires changed every winter (and the additional 30euro checkup and winter-prepr, then spring-prep) are too much of a hassle.

Maintainability is the feature of unreliable equipment.

Re: I switched to Android after 7 years of iOS

#103
I have to say that I'm all for web apps and web based apps using things like Cordova or what not, but recently my company's app has been hitting some walls. There are a lot of great things those systems can do and they're great for starting out. However in the long run you might as well consider developing native or developing using something Xaramin (which will probably be even more free soon). Native development just provides a less kludgy of developing. My company will be making the switch soon in this light.

EDIT: I'd also like to say that the reason it's tough to develop for the web is languages like Javascript, sure it's getting better very slowly, but it also doesn't really allow for other languages to run in the browser and probably won't in the future. Sure you can compile, but why compile to JS and use a web view and work around conflicts while developing an app, when you can use a typed language and access APIs that work?

Re: I switched to Android after 7 years of iOS

#104
post #86
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But unlike in iOS, the browser is a Play Store app which is updatable outside of major OS releases. So a two year old phone can run the latest version of Chrome. Why Apple still doesn't do this mystifies me.

You can install new browsers through the play store, but I do not recall the stock web browser being updatable back when I used Android. Can it be updated on Android 2.3/4.x and how much effort does that require? As for browsers installed through the play store, how many users can reasonably be expected to install them and of them, how many would update them?

4.x, yes. 2.x, no. But 2.x now only accounts for around 4% of devices out there:

http://www.statista.com/statistics/271774/share-of-android-p...

Re: I switched to Android after 7 years of iOS

#105
post #24

I agree with pretty much everything in this article - I firmly believe that we're due a "post-app" world where progressively enhanced web sites provide 95% of the functionality we require. But we're not there yet - I'd love to see better WebView integration into native UI components (UINavigationController and the like), to provide things like swipe-to-go-back, which is monumentally hard to do on the web. But hey. Ma…

"This app provides the functionality I require" is a pretty meagre goal. The idea of native apps using a platform's native support is that users come into your app already knowing how to use most of it, having learned the platform conventions.

If every app is a cross-platform web app, what's the point in having more than one platform?

Re: I switched to Android after 7 years of iOS

#106
post #70

I did the opposite and can't believe how much better my life had gotten because my iPhone is just a simple tool that I use for communications and don't think about it as a project. With Android, I always wanted to tweak silly things and run Cyanogenmod because the handset firmware was always so bad and vulnerable. On several occasions I'd bricked my phone requiring hours of recovery, or had transient failures of cell…

kev009 smellz

Re: I switched to Android after 7 years of iOS

#107
post #83
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did Android help you with f.lux? Apple just came out with a f.lux copy built into iOS, while none of the alternatives on Android work without rooting.

I installed another program that does the same thing, without any need to root my Android.

There aren't any programs that do the same thing without rooting. Android doesn't have any APIs that allow you to change the color temperature, so all of the non-root apps just add a transparent red overlay on top of the screen.

I know this area well since it's one thing I was really looking forward to when I got an Android phone and I was very disappointed.

Re: I switched to Android after 7 years of iOS

#109
TLDR: Chrome on Android supports Service Workers and WebRTC while Safari on iOS does not. This means Android these days is better suited for fully-fledged web applications that do not require a native app (or at least a native app wrapper).

Re: I switched to Android after 7 years of iOS

#110
post #89

I am always surprised when people say things like CHROME is bringing X API. Take a look at these HTML5 Web APIs : https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API They have been here since sometime now! and Mozilla built a whole operating system around them which is has "Progressive Web Apps" in its core!

Primarily because Firefox on Android doesn't yet support any of the technology being discussed in the article, or indeed most of the technologies on the page you linked to.
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