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Open letter from an Android developer to the Google Play team

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Re: Open letter from an Android developer to the Google Play team

#191

Post by ajscanlan »

xvector wrote: post #177
lol768 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Ad-blocking is easy and well-supported in Safari. Safari’s tracking prevention extends far beyond anything Firefox has even with the best extensions. Do you have any links so I can read further on this? I'd like to compare it to both Firefox's built-in tracking protection (and fingerprinting resistance) and the functionality provided by e.g. uBlock Origin.

Not any links on hand, but try it yourself. Load up Firefox with the best tracking prevention tools you can find. Go to https://panopticlick.eff.org/ . See how many bits of entropy you have. Do the same in Safari.

I did some testing.

Android - Firefox - Ghostery + uBlock: "Strong protection against Web tracking" 17.59 bits of identifying information

iOS - Safari - Stock: "Some protection against Web tracking" 17.59 bits of identifying information

iOS - Safari - AdBlockPlus: "Some protection against Web tracking" 17.59 bits of identifying information (Exact same as Stock? Blocks ads though)

Mac - Safari - Stock: "Some protection against Web tracking" 16.59 bits of identifying information.

Mac - Chrome - Ghostery + uBlock: "Strong protection against Web tracking" Doesn't seem to finish the fingerprinting stage.

Mac - Chrome - Stock: "No. You are not protected against tracking on the Web" 16.01 bits of identifying information.

Re: Open letter from an Android developer to the Google Play team

#192

Post by MaysonL »

nobrains wrote: post #176
nominated1 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes everyone should be rich enough to buy a 1000 dollar Apple phone. I bought an iPhone 7 from Net10 about 5 months ago for $220 shipped. It requires a minimum $20 a month plan for 12 months before I can unlock it. About 2 years ago I got my mom an iPhone SE for $140 with similar plan/unlock. Both brand new. They’re not everyday prices and not the newest model but it is possible to go iOS without breaking the bank.

I got my mom an iPhone SE for $140 How is the 16gb storage holding up for her?

My $140 SE from Walmart has 32GB.

Re: Open letter from an Android developer to the Google Play team

#193

Post by Illniyar »

mprev wrote: post #159
Illniyar wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All those things don't really matter, the only thing that matters is that you cannot sideload apps in iOS. As long as you can sideload apps in android, it will always have a better reputation than somewhere you cannot. But even those things you mention, they are all part of a scale, even if android becomes more closed-source it's still miles more open-source than iOS, even if it delays new app submissions it's still…

Sideloading of apps is, at best, a niche interest.

Until it isn't. The moment a popular enough app gets banned by google play store, the use of sideloading will skyrocket. If apple decides to ban Telegram, there's nothing you can do (which it did btw at some point).

The ability to sideload is more important than it's usage, both for your personal freedom and for keeping large companies in check.

Re: Open letter from an Android developer to the Google Play team

#194

Post by Illniyar »

KenanSulayman wrote: post #161
Illniyar wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All those things don't really matter, the only thing that matters is that you cannot sideload apps in iOS. As long as you can sideload apps in android, it will always have a better reputation than somewhere you cannot. But even those things you mention, they are all part of a scale, even if android becomes more closed-source it's still miles more open-source than iOS, even if it delays new app submissions it's still…

Just resign the app IPA file and you can literally drag and drop it through Xcode onto your iOS devices. Unless you mean pirating apps with sideloading...

that's not even remotely usable by 99% of iPhone users. It's like saying you can sideload apps if you root your phone.

Re: Open letter from an Android developer to the Google Play team

#195

Post by bad_user »

xvector wrote: post #177
lol768 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Ad-blocking is easy and well-supported in Safari. Safari’s tracking prevention extends far beyond anything Firefox has even with the best extensions. Do you have any links so I can read further on this? I'd like to compare it to both Firefox's built-in tracking protection (and fingerprinting resistance) and the functionality provided by e.g. uBlock Origin.

Not any links on hand, but try it yourself. Load up Firefox with the best tracking prevention tools you can find. Go to https://panopticlick.eff.org/ . See how many bits of entropy you have. Do the same in Safari.

Not sure what I'm supposed to see, however this is my Firefox: https://www.dropbox.com/s/iiahhn1hb05nm5w/Screenshot%202019-...

And this is my Safari (with the most popular content blocker active): https://www.dropbox.com/s/4n4hxbnumcyqegu/Screenshot%202019-...

So my Firefox has less bits of entropy than my Safari, although I do admit that my Firefox has a custom configuration (it isn't out of the box), but so does my Safari.

Also Firefox might have plenty to work on in regards to resisting fingerprinting techniques, however there are ongoing projects for that, for importing techniques already used in the Tor Browser:

https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Fingerprinting

And Firefox does protect against entities known to practice fingerprinting, which you can't say about Safari:

https://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases/2019/04/09/protectio...

Re: Open letter from an Android developer to the Google Play team

#197

Post by ninedays »

bad_user wrote: post #189
ninedays wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is no open source in iOS and the entire platform has an anti open source culture. People really have short memory and unfortunately have too much biais to even make a simple Google Search to get some informations. Trying to define this as "one is better than the others related to X" is childish at best. https://developer.apple.com/opensource/ Warm vibes,

WebKit, you mean the source code that was forked from KHTML and because it was GPL, Apple would then do incomprehensible code dumps to comply with the law? WebKit that was forked by Google because they couldn't collaborate with Apple? I'm glad that they ended up releasing it, but to show that as an example of open source from Apple ... indeed shows that people have short memories ;-)

> WebKit that was forked by Google because they couldn't collaborate with Apple?

You say "they couldn't collaborate" I say "Google really wanted to compete".

Remember that it was Google who decided to perform a fork because they had a different approach than Apple for how "multi-process" should be implemented. Google had an implementation that they didn't want to integrate into the Webkit branch - hence the Blink fork.[1]

Also Apple would have been happy if they could use the Google's implementation instead of using their own - they said that repeatedly [2]

You can also find more details of the story here. It looks more and more obvious that the decision to create a WebKit fork was more political than technical : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5490242

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/apr/05/blink-goo...

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5490661

Re: Open letter from an Android developer to the Google Play team

#198

Post by bad_user »

ninedays wrote: post #197
bad_user wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WebKit, you mean the source code that was forked from KHTML and because it was GPL, Apple would then do incomprehensible code dumps to comply with the law? WebKit that was forked by Google because they couldn't collaborate with Apple? I'm glad that they ended up releasing it, but to show that as an example of open source from Apple ... indeed shows that people have short memories ;-)

> WebKit that was forked by Google because they couldn't collaborate with Apple? You say "they couldn't collaborate" I say "Google really wanted to compete". Remember that it was Google who decided to perform a fork because they had a different approach than Apple for how "multi-process" should be implemented. Google had an implementation that they didn't want to integrate into the Webkit branch - hence the Blink for…

I am not defending Google. Google is really shitty in terms of open source collaboration. Many of Google's OSS efforts are OSS just in license, but not in spirit.

All I'm saying is that Apple's WebKit is not a good example of OSS and if that's what you have to show for iOS, then it's a really sad state of affairs.

Re: Open letter from an Android developer to the Google Play team

#199

Post by bad_user »

ajscanlan wrote: post #191
xvector wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not any links on hand, but try it yourself. Load up Firefox with the best tracking prevention tools you can find. Go to https://panopticlick.eff.org/ . See how many bits of entropy you have. Do the same in Safari.

I did some testing. Android - Firefox - Ghostery + uBlock: "Strong protection against Web tracking" 17.59 bits of identifying information iOS - Safari - Stock: "Some protection against Web tracking" 17.59 bits of identifying information iOS - Safari - AdBlockPlus: "Some protection against Web tracking" 17.59 bits of identifying information (Exact same as Stock? Blocks ads though) Mac - Safari - Stock: "Some protectio…

You could use uMatrix instead of uBlock.

Blocking JavaScript is the most potent form of fingerprinting resistance.

It's not comfortable to whitelist websites or pieces of functionality from websites, but at least you have the option. If on desktop Chrome, enjoy it while you still can, because Google just deprecated the underlying APIs ;-)

Re: Open letter from an Android developer to the Google Play team

#200

Post by ckastner »

dmitrybrant wrote: post #65

I'm the developer of a relatively popular app (50M+ on the Play Store) and have had very disappointing experiences with the Play Store, but in a rather opposite way from the OP: Once an app reaches a certain level of popularity, you begin to see "knock-off" apps, which are apps with a curiously similar name and icon (and screenshots and description), but which in fact don't do anything except blast the user with full…

Is your App also available on iOS? if so: how would you compare your experiences?

Stories like these are driving me away from Android and I'm considering a switch, but it would be pointless to switch to another ecosystem when it's plagued by the same issues.

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