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Google have declared Droidscript is malware

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Re: Google have declared Droidscript is malware

#71

Post by patrakov »

seanhunter wrote: post #20
thereddaikon wrote: post #4

Google is pretty infamous for the over reliance on automation for customer service. But ultimately the reason why they persist is because they can afford get away with it.

It's sort of interesting how long this has worked, and as well as automated customer service the same or similar case can be made for automated moderation. You can often hear people on here excusing this by saying "if they didn't do this, their business model wouldn't scale". Well yes. If you can do the automation and it works then you have a business at scale. If not, perhaps your business shouldn't be a scale busin…

So community lawyers and other interested parties should make sure that their business model doesn't scale this way.

Re: Google have declared Droidscript is malware

#72

Post by cortexio »

i hope one day someone hacks google and puts all their servers offline and puts a text saying: this service is not inline with our guidelines. Even if it's for 1 day, just to give them a small taste of their own non-sense. If you buy something, it should be yours to control. If i buy a plate, you dont get to decide what food i eat. The phone space is currently completely controlled by 2 giants... it's sad.

Re: Google have declared Droidscript is malware

#73

Post by pdkl95 »

nromiun wrote: post #26

> We don't allow apps with any code that could put a user, a user’s data, or a device at risk. If Google thinks the ability to execute arbitrary code puts users' data at risk why don't they go the full iOS route and ban everything, from scripting apps to other JS engines beside Chromium? I am so sick of their behaviour, the only reason I am still on Android because things like F-Droid still exists and iOS is even mor…

>> "Can't you just make us a general-purpose computer that runs all the programs, except the ones that scare and anger us? Can't you just make us an Internet that transmits any message over any protocol between any two points, unless it upsets us?"[1]

The War On General Purpose Computing continues. Far too many business models depend on selling general purpose computers as "appliances". They presume it is possible to sell a computer that isn't Turing complete.

[1] https://boingboing.net/2012/01/10/lockdown.html

Re: Google have declared Droidscript is malware

#74

Post by donio »

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #56
nromiun wrote: post #26

> We don't allow apps with any code that could put a user, a user’s data, or a device at risk. If Google thinks the ability to execute arbitrary code puts users' data at risk why don't they go the full iOS route and ban everything, from scripting apps to other JS engines beside Chromium? I am so sick of their behaviour, the only reason I am still on Android because things like F-Droid still exists and iOS is even mor…

Given the issues that termux has hit, they're certainly moving that way. https://github.com/termux/termux-packages/wiki/Termux-and-An...

Once there is no way to run Termux that will be the end of the line for me and I've been on the Android train since the G1 days. I am ok with installing it from F-Droid or adb as long as it remains runnable. (I guess I am in the bargaining phase)

I don't think that I am ok with not being able to easily run my own executables since I rely on running a few Go utilities in the Termux CLI.

Re: Google have declared Droidscript is malware

#75

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

ben509 wrote: post #19

The writing style of the piece looks like a political mailer. > The Google Play system has declared DroidScript is Malware and accused us of committing Ad Fraud! Needless to say, we are extremely upset and totally flabbergasted at this shocking allegation! That kind of hyperbole sets off all my BS detectors. As I go through the back and forth, DroidScript speculates this: > Our main guess was that one of our users wa…

> What I don't see is that they ever went back to the policies to check if that was legit. If it wasn't and you tell Google, "right, that was totally a feature but we've removed it," then, you just indicated that you deliberately implemented a feature that violated the terms of your agreement.

A user reverse-engineering your app to pull out its AdMob ID is neither a feature nor something the app dev can reasonably be faulted for.

Re: Google have declared Droidscript is malware

#76

Post by nromiun »

diogenesjunior wrote: post #68
nromiun wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, Termux is the most used app on my phone and I don't know what I will do when they have to migrate to SDK 29. I will probably buy another phone and install LineageOS.

>I don't know what I will do >I will probably buy another phone and install LineageOS

It was just a figure of speech and if you know how Termux works even a rooted phone is no alternative. (Termux exposes Android APIs, like camera and GPS.)

Re: Google have declared Droidscript is malware

#77

Post by grawprog »

ajross wrote: post #14
blakesterz wrote: post #2

I had to go look to see what this was: "DroidScript is an easy to use, portable coding tool which simplifies mobile App development. It dramatically improves productivity by speeding up development by as much as 10x compared with using the standard development tools. It’s also an ideal tool for learning JavaScript, you can literally code anywhere with DroidScript, it’s not cloud based and doesn’t require an internet…

Time for one of these again. So... having read through their marketing material, this is an on-device tool that opens up what appears to be most of the Android application API to at least the user of the device, and potentially to any Droidscript applications they grab from other sources, and... maybe to other apps on the device? It's not clear from a quick read how extensive the runtime control is. So just right out…

Yes...Droidscript allowed one to use the tiny computer in their pocket similarly to the way one could use the large computer on the desk. One could script small apps on their tiny computer and they could access most of the same api as java apps. It was pretty awesome.

Re: Google have declared Droidscript is malware

#78

Post by kjrose »

ddtaylor wrote: post #43

Google bans thing. Ban gets attention on HN and a few other social media sites. Google unbans thing. Repeat.

The second step only happens for a small select group of "things." There are myriad apps, people and organizations that Google has blindly banned with no recourse or reasonable appeal that we will never hear about.

The bigger point is the system is clearly broken, but how in the world can you fix it?

Re: Google have declared Droidscript is malware

#79

Post by femiagbabiaka »

nromiun wrote: post #65
yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given the issues that termux has hit, they're certainly moving that way. https://github.com/termux/termux-packages/wiki/Termux-and-An...

Yep, Termux is the most used app on my phone and I don't know what I will do when they have to migrate to SDK 29. I will probably buy another phone and install LineageOS.

Curious, is the Librem 5 an alternative you would consider?

Re: Google have declared Droidscript is malware

#80

Post by fmajid »

Aperocky wrote: post #33
eplanit wrote: post #25

It's seriously time to re-embrace the idea of ownership and control of our devices, and reject Android and iOS altogether. Developing for those platforms has become worse and more restrictive over the years, and this kind of crap is now just everyday news. How good are Pinephones[1]? Are there better alternatives? [1] https://www.pine64.org/pinephone/

Maybe it's just time to see phones as what they are - a phone. I don't really care what software is ran in my truck, as long as it works (And that's why I'll not buy a Tesla). It's a phone, use it to call text and guide and browse some internet. That's it.

> Maybe it's just time to see phones as what they are - a phone.

Maybe it's time to call phones what they really are: pocket computers with a legacy voice call functionality that is increasingly irrelevant to anyone who isn't a Boomer.

Now, regarding the locked-down of both iOS and Android ecosystems, I can see both points of view. The majority of ordinary users need to be protected from increasingly sophisticated malware stealing their online banking credentials or other mischief, but power users also need to do whatever they want to do once they've signed a disclaimer

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