simple solution for anyone considering funding their apps with advertising.
Don't.
Google have declared Droidscript is malware
251–260 of 665 posts
Re: Google have declared Droidscript is malware
#252The War On General Purpose Computing[1][2] is escalating. The war has moved past trivial fights over copyright/"DRM", and is now directly targeting programming environments. [1] https://boingboing.net/2012/01/10/lockdown.html [2] https://boingboing.net/2012/08/23/civilwar.html edit: fixed link - thanks for the bug report
This seems so self-defeating by these companies. All this will do is push people to learn to develop on the web (arguably where they already are learning), while completely bypassing any built-in API's and stores. Sure, there's stuff you can't access without native code, but at a certain point why would anyone want to risk making their primary codebase dependent on one of these stores? When FOSS tablets and phones be…
It won't become so without your help, join the fight and make a stand. Every user lost by proprietary platforms tilts the scales more in FLOSS/H's favor. Scale makes all the difference.
Re: Google have declared Droidscript is malware
#253Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most users don't really understand what they're giving up when they give up the option to run arbitrary code As with privacy (Facebook privacy settings, cookie boxes), it's easy to bamboozle the general public with complexity and then interpret their confusion and (violated) trust as consent.
This is one case though where that lack of understanding leads to the right conclusion. The average user is giving up nothing by losing the right to run arbitrary code, because they never were running arbitrary code.
Plenty of users run f droid.
Re: Google have declared Droidscript is malware
#254Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes. Android and gmail are my last two to get rid of. I was wanting to play with mail in a box, but this morning had an alert on my phone demanding my birthdate within 14 days. So, I'll be expediting google out of my life within the next 14 days.
Android is so bad for privacy.
Base Android with unmodified settings is terrible for privacy. If you're willing to put in the work to install LineageOS and move off of Google apps and jail/delete them, it can become a superior option over iOS, if for no other reason that that you can set up competent adblocking and take advantage of Open Source replacements for apps like Youtube that don't transmit as much data.
This is part of why it's tricky to make phone recommendations to privacy-conscious people. iOS is the clear winner on privacy for nontechnical people, and the clear loser on privacy for highly technical people. But a lot of people fall in the middle of that spectrum -- semi-technical -- and then it becomes complicated to figure out what they should do.
Re: Google have declared Droidscript is malware
#255The 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…
Are you serious? It takes a minute to disassemble literally any APK with AdMob SDK and abuse their ID's. These values are not secrets. If a billion dollar company like Google can't detect simple fraudulent activity like this, how are their ads supposed to be worth a single dollar?
Re: Google have declared Droidscript is malware
#256Earlier quoted context omitted.
And I would. At much much much lower prices
I have had my same fridge for 10 years, with no signs of failure. Unless the monthly payment was $3.00 or less, I would be paying more than I should starting in June. The rental/do not own anything model is just awful, in my opinion.
Totally agree. The more time passes, the more I realize that I want to own what I have. I've grown more selective about what I purchase in general and I've become more minimalistic; but if I want to have it at all, then I want it to be mine free and clear. Especially when it comes to tools, land, and personal items. I want Good Quality and paid for with cash.
I tend to use things until they completely wear out, and I get really good life out of them. This makes them very cheap compared to the usage pattern of upgrading all of the time. Renting would be very expensive lifestyle; and my usage pattern is more environmentally friendly to boot.
Re: Google have declared Droidscript is malware
#257I can't find it now, but I read a story that's been repeatedly posted here about someone who got an idea, dropped everything, built an MVP, showed it to potential customers who loved it ... and was told "I definitely need this, but I wouldn't pay for it." And then the person realized that the customer was right (the worst kind of right), and that the idea was both awesome and unmonetizable. In the same vein... questi…
The signal to noise ratio would still be terrible. The company would have no mechanism to work out who was actually being honest.
For every story that trends on HN, 9 times out of 10, it turns out Apple/Google/Microsoft/Facebook were right, and the company was doing something dodgy.
Re: Google have declared Droidscript is malware
#258Earlier quoted context omitted.
The biggest problem with "alternative" platforms is just the lack of app support. I used to have a Nokia N9; great phone. But it didn't support WhatsApp and I was out on the loop on the WhatsApp chat all my other coworkers were in. Then there's things like banking apps, flight check-in apps, food ordering apps, dating apps, etc. etc. Can you do without those? Sure, of course. But if I want to order food where I live…
> It's a "vendor lock-in" ecosystem that's worse than the Windows lock-in of yesteryear IMO. For regular companies, if they want to shoot themselves in the foot by not being on the web, they're welcome. It's not such a huge issue as it would be with government for example. Also "any chance of any form of adoption" is a bit overstatment. I still use a dumbphone, and if I migrated to pinephone, lack of the kind of apps…
"Not being on the web" doesn't seem like a huge footgun. There are probably more people with a mobile phone and no traditional computer than the other way around, especially if you go outside of the US and Europe.
Revolut, Grab, Gojek, Tinder, WhatsApp, and many more are all successful that offer a mobile-first solution, with either no web/desktop client or just as a an additional client (usually with fewer features, and/or still requiring access to a smartphone).
> Also "any chance of any form of adoption" is a bit overstatment. I still use a dumbphone
Of course it's possible; but depending on what your interests in life are you will pay a price, and in practice for the vast majority of people the price is too large to use a non-Android/iOS compatible device.
> many apps have web alternatives here, or alternative GPLed clients for Linux (that includes whatsapp, apparently), that can be made native on pinephone.
Unless they somehow hacked the encryption, you're still going to need a connection to the phone's WhatsApp client.
Re: Google have declared Droidscript is malware
#259Earlier quoted context omitted.
It seems to me that the nature of the app is whats causing the issue. From one of the emails they got from Google: > We don't allow apps with any code that could put a user, a user’s data, or a device at risk. Maybe they think the ability to execute arbitrary code is too powerful of a feature?
> Maybe they think the ability to execute arbitrary code is too powerful of a feature? Yes, probably. But maybe they can act and speak like humans, maybe even make a phone call before just deleting without notice a well established 7 years old app with more than 100k users, cancelling all revenue from user's subscriptions, and all that while sending bot-like mails just saying that they can't give more information abo…
Maybe the business should have read the policy guidelines.
Re: Google have declared Droidscript is malware
#260Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, as both an end-user and tinkerer, I'd rather not have to own two devices when I can go out and get one that will cover all my bases.
Sounds like Purism Librem5 is more for you then?
Possibly. Their laptop devices look excellent. On the list when my current device gives up the ghost.