Maybe Im a conspiracist but it seems there is a recent concerted effort to lock OS platforms down.
Just last week apple added an age verification system to uk iPhones. No legal req. as far as I can tell
Android’s new sideload settings will carry over to new devices
121–130 of 245 posts
Re: Android’s new sideload settings will carry over to new devices
#122Play store is the largest distributor of spyware and viruses for Android.
Not even a small fraction of a percentage of scams come from installing software normally, but only from Google Play store.
Re: Android’s new sideload settings will carry over to new devices
#123None of the comments here seem to discuss or even mention how this situation looks from googles perspective? I feel like HN readers are not aware of the scale of the problem they face or their motivation behind these changes. If you look at the rate of growth of the call/text scam industry I think it's entirely possible that android owners are getting scammed out of more money than google themselves makes on the andr…
Google's perspective is that they want full control on Android.
If they really care about scams, the first result when I search for chatgpt is a fake app with a fake logo. Maybe they should start by tackling the scams on the play store as the play store is the far west.
Re: Android’s new sideload settings will carry over to new devices
#124I despise how this incredibly user-hostile move is spun in the title: "Google just gave Android power users a huge sideloading win", as if it was a good thing that Google did for some portion of its users. That's such a blatant, incredibly damaging lie, on all levels, that it's probably called journalism at this point.
Re: Android’s new sideload settings will carry over to new devices
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
So let's discuss a good solution instead of this boring repetitive outrage.
First we need to understand what the root cause of the problem really is then we can discuss solutions. All we've been told is that "Android users are getting scammed, we are going to make side loading impossible". There is no clear cause and effect established, no data shared with the public on what percent of scams were caused by sideloaded apps and how the scams actually operate for us to be able to accept the sol…
> no data shared with the public on what percent of scams were caused by sideloaded apps and how the scams actually operate for us to be able to accept the solution.
They will not share the data because the data goes against their public stance.
Apks are already very annoying to install for your average user. The scams will target the web, the playstore and then as a very last resort, direct installs
Re: Android’s new sideload settings will carry over to new devices
#126Re: Android’s new sideload settings will carry over to new devices
#127We hereby grant you a conditional right to install software on the device you "own", subject to conditions, and terms, but only under certain circumstances and only so long as it pleases us. Modern handheld computing is such a shitshow...
Yeah, to me android is another Linux machine. I can change the date and for the device it's tomorrow. At least should be. What then? Will it accept the apk I just installed because it's tomorrow? Or reject because of no lease token from the one-almighty-Google? Or maybe it won't work at all when offline even with offline apk?
So Google proved that Android is not Linux. Time to switch to actual (GNU/)Linux phones?
Sent from my Librem 5.
Re: Android’s new sideload settings will carry over to new devices
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
I understand usually the megacorporation is simply being anti-consumer with these kinds of changes, and who knows maybe this is the same. But I think this might be an actual exception. They seem to be actually implementing a lot of high effort scam protection features recently in android so unless they did all of that just as an excuse to make side loading harder then they've fooled me. https://security.googleblog.co…
Do you also believe mass surveillance is necessary to protect children?
No. Their stated implementations should be also privacy preserving as they are using on-device LLM models. Not sending your calls or texts to a datacenter.
Re: Android’s new sideload settings will carry over to new devices
#129What's the phone OS landscape now? What can someone who values their agency and wants FOSS choose? * iOS - walled garden, so no * Android: * * with a Google account and Play Services - a bit less of a walled garden, but still no * * Android without Google: * * * GrapheneOS - root or adb not supported, so no * * * LineageOS - (edit: root or adb not supported, so no - just learned) seems like a viable option although i…
Obligatory mention of Sailfish OS.
Website: https://sailfishos.org/
Main forum: https://forum.sailfishos.org/
Recently on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47216037 / https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47311456 / https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41749296
Re: Android’s new sideload settings will carry over to new devices
#130None of the comments here seem to discuss or even mention how this situation looks from googles perspective? I feel like HN readers are not aware of the scale of the problem they face or their motivation behind these changes. If you look at the rate of growth of the call/text scam industry I think it's entirely possible that android owners are getting scammed out of more money than google themselves makes on the andr…
Google’s perspective is that they don’t want people to install NewPipe so that the CEO can buy more yachts.
I would bet the amount of people getting scammed is probably higher than those installing NewPipe.