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Android overtakes Windows as the internet’s most used operating system

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Re: Android overtakes Windows as the internet’s most used operating system

#281

Post by yomly »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #109
rb808 wrote: post #20

Does that mean google can't bundle a web browser with the operating system now?

Google now has: The dominant operating system, the dominant web browser, the dominant search engine, and the dominant email service. They bundle all of these together and make them relatively independent, and there still isn't an antitrust suit in the US. This is where all the money Google pours into government comes into play.

Actually, I think it all comes down to the fact that Google's "products" are all free.

I think the fact that a service is given away for free has been the loophole for Google and Facebook to create large and powerful all-encompassing monopolies on things which really shouldn't be monopolised.

Re: Android overtakes Windows as the internet’s most used operating system

#282

Post by gribbly »

Shank wrote: post #185
narrator wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to play devil's advocate: Windows became the dominant platform when it had terrible security. Android became the dominant platform when it had terrible security. Maybe people don't care that much about security vs other features. At it's low point, Windows security was a lot worse than Android security. At one point, a fresh Windows XP machine plugged into the Internet would be compromised within a couple of min…

I don't really understand this metric at all. I've heard it colloquially, but I highly doubt anyone was scanning IP address ranges so often that you could be passively attacked on the internet without any interaction by two minutes in. Even more so, people are often behind NAT, which acts as a good firewall on its own. Maybe it's related to browsing habits? IE? I mean, you aren't going to get hit by a drive-by attack…

I also had this happen 'live', one of the major problems as I recall was that Windows XP (and earlier) had the bad habit of enabling a ton of internet facing services by default, and these services contained lots of vulnerabilities so you didn't even have to manually 'go online' using a browser or some such in order to be infected.

Re: Android overtakes Windows as the internet’s most used operating system

#283

Post by CountSessine »

floatboth wrote: post #221
CountSessine wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is mostly a problem that Google themselves architected into Android. By not building a sensible HAL in to android like requiring ACPI in the hardware for the first android phones (especially the moto droid which they worked on closely with Motorola), they condemned us all to vendors-specific kernels and bootloaders. Google's inept 'management' of the android ecosystem has left us with openness for hardware vend…

On the Nexus 5X/6P and some other new phones, there's a separate /vendor partition for proprietary blobs that can be updated separately from your Android distro (which is at /system). Granted, the Nexus is Google-related and I'm not sure if that's the case on other devices… By the way, the upstream Linux kernel supports the Nexus 5X! http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Linux-4.9... And the bootloaders…

Samsung's Odin bootloaders are not based on fastboot (or at least I don't think they are). And whatever they are based on, the problem is that they can be locked, depriving end-users of their right-to-modify. And that Google went out of their way at every turn in Android's development to reimplement GPL components with permissive licenses (like Bionic) that would enable hardware vendors to engage in this sort of dickery.

Android is the emblem and sigil of Tivo-ization. And Google was the key enabler of this. I get that this was successful - after all, "Android overtakes Windows as the blah, blah," is very successful. And maybe if Google had behaved ethically Android wouldn't have been the success that it is. Just don't give me any of the "don't be evil" BS. When threatened, Google was every bit as evil as Microsoft was at the height of the browser wars.

Re: Android overtakes Windows as the internet’s most used operating system

#284

Post by cmurf »

Also, Microsoft, with Windows Phone, tried to be much more domineering with the hardware vendors than Google. And those vendors told Microsoft to go pound salt. Google is letting the hardware vendors be true to their model which is to sell something snazzy, and then drop support after 12 months, with life support for another 6-12. That's what the device manufacturers want.

Re: Android overtakes Windows as the internet’s most used operating system

#285

Post by bitmapbrother »

temac wrote: post #205
bitmapbrother wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google created the OS. In fact, OEMs are forbidden from forking Android, and therefore, cannot "roll their own OS" from Android, without violating their agreement with Google. Yes, they sprinkle some of their own apps and drivers in, but this is a design flaw in Android: Google needs to be updating their own software independently of manufacturer-specific components. Forbidden from forking Android? Every OEM versio…

> They take the AOSP source code that Google drops and then they add all of their source code and then build and distribute their own version of Android that only they can update. Yep that's a insanely huge design flaw, coherent with: "Google needs to be updating their own software independently of manufacturer-specific components."

So an OEM being allowed to build their own OS is a huge design flaw?

Is Debian also responsible for Ubuntu's security flaws?

Re: Android overtakes Windows as the internet’s most used operating system

#286

Post by oefrha »

WorldMaker wrote: post #275
maverick_iceman wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AOSP forks seem alive and well in China. But yes, in rest of the world non-Google Android is struggling.

I'm curious how many of the Chinese forks label themselves as "Android" and if the Chinese have a different mental model of what "Android" means. Without any first hand knowledge, I'd assume that the balance of things towards WeChat and away from Play Store/Play Services in China might mean that "Android" really does mean something different in Chinese markets? It's easier to sell an "Android" device if the benchmark…

I am Chinese and I've been living in the U.S. for a couple of years, so I know both worlds. Everyone I know in China who use an Android has ton of apps on their phones. I'd say there are at the very least tens to hundreds of thousands of apps to choose from either in the various third party app stores or directly from first party websites, and it's very common for people to have multiple apps with similar functions, e.g., four or five web browsers.

I don't know where you learned about the misinformation that is "the balance of things towards WeChat and away from Play Store/Play Services in China", which is frankly quite ridiculous because WeChat is just a messenger app with a few added functionalities (social timeline, payment, etc.) — it's not comparable to an app store or a service SDK at all.

Re: Android overtakes Windows as the internet’s most used operating system

#287

Post by bitmapbrother »

shp0ngle wrote: post #196
bitmapbrother wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does your OEM create their version of Windows? No, they ship the binaries they receive from Microsoft. As long as Android OEM's are allowed to build their own version of Android this problem will always be in the hands of the OEM.

Well they sort of do, by adding pre-installed bloat. But it's still Windows. I just wonder why that is. Maybe Microsoft has stricter licensing?

There's a big difference between an OEM merging their source code with Google's AOSP source code and then compiling it to build an OS than just adding crapware to a Windows installation. OEM's can't modify the Windows source code and can only distribute the OS given to them.

Re: Android overtakes Windows as the internet’s most used operating system

#288

Post by vram22 »

digi_owl wrote: post #255
vram22 wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had read that OS/2 Warp was considered a pretty good OS technically, though I don't remember the details now, as to what made it an improvement over Windows. I remember that PC Quest, an Indian PC magazine, gave out OS/2 Warp on a CD [1] in one issue. [1] They often bundled a CD with lots of free software with their magazine issues, e.g. different distros of Linux, server software, utilities, etc. All free or trial…

OS/2 existed for quite a while before Warp came about. Warp was IBM trying to salvage a sinking ship more than anything else. http://www.filfre.net/2016/08/ibms-new-flavor/ OS/2 was to go along with the PS/2. A update on the PC platform that was much more bespoke IBM compared to the largely assembled from off the shelf parts that was the PC/AT.

>OS/2 existed for quite a while before Warp came about.

>OS/2 was to go along with the PS/2. A update on the PC platform that was much more bespoke IBM compared to the largely assembled from off the shelf parts that was the PC/AT.

Yes, I was aware of those points, that Warp was a late or last version of OS/2 and that IBM tried to make the PC architecture closed with the PS/2 line - after it being originally open with the PC (which was what led to its success as a platform, due to the adoption and all the clones and extension cards and software for it). Had read about it. That doesn't change the fact that Warp had good reviews. Didn't try it out personally though.

Re: Android overtakes Windows as the internet’s most used operating system

#289

Post by pjmlp »

DannyBee wrote: post #211
pjmlp wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is signing a contract, with the respective legal consequences for breach of contract, a non-trivial problem to solve?

Because suing customers is sure to improve things! That's definitely the path to greater cooperation and goodness. Do you really believe any of these companies would sign that instead of going with whatever plan b is? If so, I guess n-gate is right. But let's follow this silly thread anyway. On average, the lawsuit would take three to seven years to resolve. Assume they win: great, they get some small amount of damag…

Let them stop selling phones with Android, create their own forks and lets see whose devices the public will bother to buy.

Re: Android overtakes Windows as the internet’s most used operating system

#290

Post by bitmapbrother »

temac wrote: post #188
bitmapbrother wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You could have a bug in a single binary at the kernel level, but instead of a tiny 1Kb diff patch you wait a year for a giant 1.2 GB vendor update that also contains a lot of other changes you have no interest in. Security patches are not 1+ GB in size - no where close to it. You're referring to OS updates that completely replace the old OS.

So there are security patches in Android? So the problem seems to be: some vendors seem not interested in distributing them... :/

Google distributes patches each month to OEM's 1 month before they're released. Some OEM's merge them into their code base and create a patch while others don't really care.
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