101–110 of 219 posts
Simple solution is to just stop writing apps for Google's platform. There are other avenues that aren't dependent on the corp whims of entities you can't really talk to.
Google has a monopoly on phone apps. If they don't like your app then you pretty much don't exist. You don't have many options.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23219427
Can someone remind me why there is an "app store" that is run by the phone OS maker? Aside from the anti-trust/monopoly type issue, should there be a more market healthy de-coupling between the place I buy my apps and the OS maker? Monopolies are almost always bad for consumers. I kind of chuckle when I think about how Microsoft had such a huge battle over IE being integrated into Windows, and now we sort of accept a…
Finding software for Palm and Windows phones was often a trek through random forums and websites to download garbage that didn't work.
There needed to be a central registry before smartphones would be adopted by the average person, and the registry needed some quality assurance so that the average person would have a good experience.
Tucows wasn't going to cut it, and the only open model that worked at the time was linux distro package repositories, which would need a dozen features tacked on before it was usable, and only added packages glacially (that QA problem again.)
Smartphones wouldn't be a thing without centralized app stores, but I'm also in favor of allowing users to add third-party app stores, in the belief that 99% of people won't do it, and the 1% would understand the security risks.
- The information on their app store regarding the virus is 100% medically and scientifically accurate.
- Nobody takes advantage of the pandemics to profit.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23219427
Can someone remind me why there is an "app store" that is run by the phone OS maker? Aside from the anti-trust/monopoly type issue, should there be a more market healthy de-coupling between the place I buy my apps and the OS maker? Monopolies are almost always bad for consumers. I kind of chuckle when I think about how Microsoft had such a huge battle over IE being integrated into Windows, and now we sort of accept a…
Google copied them because they wanted a piece of the app store tax.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can someone remind me why there is an "app store" that is run by the phone OS maker? Aside from the anti-trust/monopoly type issue, should there be a more market healthy de-coupling between the place I buy my apps and the OS maker? Monopolies are almost always bad for consumers. I kind of chuckle when I think about how Microsoft had such a huge battle over IE being integrated into Windows, and now we sort of accept a…
On Android you can sideload apps easily but nobody does it. According to Google, less than 0.5% of Android devices do it.
Even then at least power users would be happy. At least I could load up apps that aren’t approved without having to jailbreak.
Google is just such an awful, despicable company, that I've actually moved everything I can from their platform. It wasn't easy, I'd been a Gmail user for nearly 15 years. I'd rather pay Microsoft a hundred bucks a year than support them. That's how much I hate Google.
Agree. I am using the German email provider mailbox.org They even report how often the government forces them to release info with a search warrant. However, I have yet to find an email provider that mimics Gmail's tagging system (=> you can give n many tags to a single email and that email is only kept once on the server). I often think that Google's "Don't do evil" motto is stretched way too often these days.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Definitely Well deserved. That's not Android fault: you're asking Android to give you access to an unrestricted storage area (e.g. because you want to edit photos shot with your Camera app), and the fact that other apps can read/write to it, is the whole point of that storage. Hence you need to treat it as untrusted, and validate that you're going to install the APK that you thought you were going to install.
The flaw appears to be that there is no way to validate in external storage, since the contents can be changed after validation. Which, yes, is a reason to not use external storage. But for large downloads it's undeniably the norm, since internal storage is frequently limited. Since Android doesn't appear to provide a way to use the SD card and also prevent this, that part of it is an Android flaw IMO. As evidence, n…
https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/data/data-storage...
The fact that the norm is different is a good point, but the norm is also not to implement your own app stores.
In fact, if internal storage is so limited that you don't have space for the APK, you'll get errors due to lack of space even while installing apps from the Play store
Since Google is taking such a strong position against what they view as COVID19 misinformation, are they liable if I get sick as a result of some misinformation that managed to get through their filters? I might not try to go after some small time app developer or other rando on the Internet, but if Google is willing to stand behind their guarantee with those wonderfully deep pockets...
That's like saying the police are liable for you being robbed because the thief wasn't in jail.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The "why" is because the creator of the OS can lock down the system to only allow apps from their own marketplace. The "why is this not being discussed as an anti-trust violation like Microsoft was hit with" is because the US government of the last 10-15 years doesn't have the same viewpoints on anti-trust that they did 20+ years ago.
The US government didn't go after MS over IE bundling. That was the EU. The US targeted them over anti-competitive contracts forcing manufacturers to pay for licenses on systems without a MS OS installed.
The US government went after MS multiple times. Most were over anti-competitive contracts. But the list includes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor.... Which definitely did go after MS over bundling IE.
The penalties that Microsoft suffered under from the USA were sufficiently weak that they considered it a cost of doing business. It was only the much larger EU penalties that caused them to change course. But the USA definitely went after them for bundling IE.