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Google Play has been spreading advanced Android malware for years

arstechnica.com

41–50 of 127 posts

Re: Google Play has been spreading advanced Android malware for years

#41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why you have package managers to work with thousands of repos for you.

yes, my granny loves working with her package manager with thousands of repos when she wants to install a funny kitty photos app.

Fdroid, ubuntu store, Discover, etc are all graphical interfaces to these. There is no reason to have one authority over packages.

Re: Google Play has been spreading advanced Android malware for years

#42

Tin foil hat on. We had these iOS zero days and now conveniently we get something about Android security.

There's no tinfoil hat needed. It's pretty common for people who get their feelings hurt to lash out against "the enemy" with whatever they have. It doesn't matter how old the news is when they can just post it again and people will upvote it like it's new.

And it doesn't even necessarily have anything to do with Apple themselves. They don't need to spearhead this movement because fanatics will defend them like this anyhow.

The same goes for Google fanatics, and every other kind out there.

Re: Google Play has been spreading advanced Android malware for years

#43
post #8

Let this be another nail in the coffin of the "walled garden" farce. We learn this lesson again and again. People want someone to trust, but a bureaucracy isn't trustworthy. It has its own agenda and values inconsistent with yours. They take 30% from everybody whether they approve malware or not, and whether they reject legitimate apps or not. Trust doesn't come from size. If you want someone to vet your apps, it has…

I would still prefer to have to trust just one authority for my platform than a multitude of random developers. > Let this be another nail in the coffin of the "walled garden" farce. There is no coffin, the walled gardens are not dying, and have long since become the norm, which happened because the people found them to be better than the alternative: getting apps (and manually updating them) from many different sour…

> I would still prefer to have to trust just one authority for my platform than a multitude of random developers.

You mean like open source developers?

Re: Google Play has been spreading advanced Android malware for years

#44
post #11

The wording of the title is interesting - how it puts all the responsibility onto Play store and none of it onto the people actually developing the software. We truly live in an age where the mass media demands that corporations censor and police everything we see and use. I wonder when they'll start targeting Linux and Windows for allowing you to download and run malicious programs without any corporation approving…

> The wording of the title is interesting - how it puts all the responsibility onto Play store and none of it onto the people actually developing the software.

But this is how app stores advertise their only benefit over traditional sales channels.

Re: Google Play has been spreading advanced Android malware for years

#45
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But security is not binary. They (especially Apple) are doing something to limit the amount of fraudulent apps on their platform. I would strongly prefer having a free-for-all platform because I have some basic knowledge of information security. Most people don't.

How is your “knowledge” going to help you? Are you capable of vetting every app you install?

I’m capable of knowing which app I’m going to install. I’m unlikely to fall for Instagram-styled icons that promise me free face filters.

Re: Google Play has been spreading advanced Android malware for years

#46
post #11

The wording of the title is interesting - how it puts all the responsibility onto Play store and none of it onto the people actually developing the software. We truly live in an age where the mass media demands that corporations censor and police everything we see and use. I wonder when they'll start targeting Linux and Windows for allowing you to download and run malicious programs without any corporation approving…

Google advertises their store has "Google Play Protect" which promises to ensure no malware in the apps you download from them. Of course Google is going to get the blame when they make promises like that.

It doesn't say anywhere that it's infallible. https://support.google.com/android/answer/2812853?hl=en

Re: Google Play has been spreading advanced Android malware for years

#47
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> which happened because the people found them to be better than the alternative Walled garden only exists because mobile devices make self-install alternatives very difficult or impossible to get on purpose, otherwise they would not be able to compete in any ways. Case in point, the Mac App Store and the Windows Store are both moderate failures despite a lot of technical & marketing push.

Which is why with every macOS and Windows release there is some small fine tuning to drive the herd into the sandboxing model. Like frogs cooking in water, macOS and Windows users will be eventually realize that all their apps are store based as well. And for everything else they get Web apps, including AAA games.

Which AAA games are web apps?

Re: Google Play has been spreading advanced Android malware for years

#48
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google advertises their store has "Google Play Protect" which promises to ensure no malware in the apps you download from them. Of course Google is going to get the blame when they make promises like that.

It doesn't say anywhere that it's infallible. https://support.google.com/android/answer/2812853?hl=en

Do you really expect it to say “Google Play Protect is infallible”? It’s obviously pitched as anti-malware and the fact that it’s not working is an issue despite them not saying it’s perfect.

Re: Google Play has been spreading advanced Android malware for years

#49
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would still prefer to have to trust just one authority for my platform than a multitude of random developers. > Let this be another nail in the coffin of the "walled garden" farce. There is no coffin, the walled gardens are not dying, and have long since become the norm, which happened because the people found them to be better than the alternative: getting apps (and manually updating them) from many different sour…

> which happened because the people found them to be better than the alternative Walled garden only exists because mobile devices make self-install alternatives very difficult or impossible to get on purpose, otherwise they would not be able to compete in any ways. Case in point, the Mac App Store and the Windows Store are both moderate failures despite a lot of technical & marketing push.

Most of the apps on my Mac are from the App Store and I wish all of them were.

The Mac App Store is not a failure from the user side, it's where users would look first. Nobody wants to have to go to different websites/repositories every N days to update all of their apps/drivers, or put up with spam from 10 different update notification mechanisms. I still remember that hell from barely 12 years ago. Why do you think gamers flocked to Steam?

As a developer, it's more of a failure of Apple's dismal documentation; I -want- my product to be a nicely sandboxed, well-behaved citizen that only accesses exactly just what it needs, but the state of macOS API documentation was too grim to learn how to do that the last time I tried (like "security bookmarks" and "file providers" from a relatively-simple Swift app).

Re: Google Play has been spreading advanced Android malware for years

#50
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would still prefer to have to trust just one authority for my platform than a multitude of random developers. > Let this be another nail in the coffin of the "walled garden" farce. There is no coffin, the walled gardens are not dying, and have long since become the norm, which happened because the people found them to be better than the alternative: getting apps (and manually updating them) from many different sour…

You misinterpreted. OP was saying that "Apple has walled garden while Google is open" farce is dying and this another confirmation. Sadly people in general can't be trusted to make good decisions because of lack of knowledge and preference of short term gratification over long term well-being.

> OP was saying that "Apple has walled garden while Google is open" farce is dying and this another confirmation.

It's very hard to get that interpretation even after re-reading the OP's comment.

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