Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Google Play app review process now regularly takes longer than a week

gultsch.social

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 354 posts

Re: The Google Play app review process now regularly takes longer than a week

#191

Post by voakbasda »

neilv wrote: post #174
voakbasda wrote: post #151

I hope someone will sue the ever-loving shit out of Apple when their foot dragging prevents a critical update from going out in time to prevent a 0-day from being widely exploited.

Interesting. And all the history of Kafkaesque review interactions that various developers have had could be subpoenaed, as evidence of a pattern: that delays aren't necessarily due to excellence and good faith.

Given the sibling reply, I can imagine them claiming national security prevents them from releasing those records. But that’s okay; I am fairly certain we can find enough developers willing to tell their tales.

Re: The Google Play app review process now regularly takes longer than a week

#192

Post by pjmlp »

sunaookami wrote: post #176
pjmlp wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many of us have routinely cleaned computers from adults that installed several Ask Jeeves and Yahoo toolbars.

And e.g. browsers cracked down on it, removed toolbar support and powerful add-on support AND enforced signing meaning everything goes through their gatekept extension store and these problems still persist (e.g. addons changing the search provider, new tab page or homepage). Locking everything down does not help.

More a problem of those stores still not being properly validated rather a dumping ground for extensions, than anything else.

Re: The Google Play app review process now regularly takes longer than a week

#193

Post by pjmlp »

voakbasda wrote: post #143
pjmlp wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People have to successfully get through a state exam in order to drive cars in first place, can be jailed, get fined when not driving them safely, or forbidden for life to ever drive again. People that accidentality cut their fingers in lawnmowers due to lack of safety features are allowed to sue the lawnmower company. What I would agree is that it is about time computing gets the same liability laws that the rest of…

Do you hate open source and want only projects where their authors can afford liability insurance and are willing to put themselves in the firing line of a legal system that can be both arbitrary and capricious? Because that’s what you seem to want.

Even people selling on the street or doing charity work have to account for liability of their actions.

Lets stop talking about open source as special snowflakes where everything is excused.

Re: The Google Play app review process now regularly takes longer than a week

#194

Post by pjmlp »

close04 wrote: post #146
pjmlp wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People have to successfully get through a state exam in order to drive cars in first place, can be jailed, get fined when not driving them safely, or forbidden for life to ever drive again. People that accidentality cut their fingers in lawnmowers due to lack of safety features are allowed to sue the lawnmower company. What I would agree is that it is about time computing gets the same liability laws that the rest of…

On power tools, appliances, etc. the safety features are at the user's latitude to bypass. They are usually a hint (don't microwave your dog), not a hard barrier ("I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that"). A spinning blade is covered by a grill you can trivially remove without permission from anyone. I agree that the defaults should be secure, but you can't force security on people without creating parallel issu…

Yes, and when they fail to do so, there are laws in place for liability of third party, or when their own irresponsible actions affects others.

Re: The Google Play app review process now regularly takes longer than a week

#195

Post by no-name-here »

yosef123 wrote: post #61
setgree wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what should we do about apps' getting hacked, sending out malicious updates that get auto-updated and thereby infecting tens of millions or billions of phones simultaneously? I'm not saying we have the perfect system but anything that slants the system towards "easier downloads" or "less gatekeeping" brings large, obvious risks. I don't see how regulation would address them.

And what do windows / linux / macos do about apps getting hacked to billions of pc's simultaneously? How is that a new problem?

> macos

MacOS has been moving to a more locked down model over the years - increasingly difficult to install unsigned applications, SIP, etc.

> Windows

I think Windows is incredibly impressive for its ability to run binaries from many years ago, but I don't think there's much people would point to as a positive regarding Windows’ approach to app security.

Re: The Google Play app review process now regularly takes longer than a week

#196

Post by lern_too_spel »

graemep wrote: post #102
pavlov wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Apple and Google are WELL past due for regulation in this space." There is major regulation in place already. EU's Digital Markets Act forces these OS gatekeepers to allow alternative app stores and external payment methods. It also prevents Apple from playing anti-competitive games with App Store rules, like banning hyperlinks within apps that could be used to allow the user to make a payment elsewhere. The curre…

> There is major regulation in place already. EU's Digital Markets Act forces these OS gatekeepers to allow alternative app stores So does that mean: 1. People in the EU can continue to use F-Droid etc. exactly as they have in the past, permanently? No Google verification of developers needed? 2. People are free to install apps from any APK they choose?

Yes. Even beyond that, people outside the EU are free to install apps from any APK they choose.

Re: The Google Play app review process now regularly takes longer than a week

#198

Post by no-name-here »

sunaookami wrote: post #176
pjmlp wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many of us have routinely cleaned computers from adults that installed several Ask Jeeves and Yahoo toolbars.

And e.g. browsers cracked down on it, removed toolbar support and powerful add-on support AND enforced signing meaning everything goes through their gatekept extension store and these problems still persist (e.g. addons changing the search provider, new tab page or homepage). Locking everything down does not help.

> does not help

Is that true - do you not see significantly fewer of those installs on random PCs now than you did years ago? And that's even with the current situation not being what I'd call fully locked down.

Re: The Google Play app review process now regularly takes longer than a week

#199

Post by nchmy »

CharlesW wrote: post #177
nchmy wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, a truly Open Web is the solution that we need. It already works everywhere with a single codebase, and is more secure and private than native apps. But Apple prevents that by forcing all browsers to use terrible WebKit on iOS. Endless more information on all of this at https://infrequently.org/series/browser-choice-must-matter/ https://open-web-advocacy.org

Note that Alex Russell is a Blink partisan, currently supporting Blink at Microsoft and formerly having done so at Google. Folks like that don't take kindly to the idea that a Blink monoculture might not be a great thing, and definitely do not share the opinion that it's critical to the open web that Apple not cede the open web to Blink. Remember, Blink began as Google's 2013 fork of WebKit. They've embraced and exte…

The fact that your "argument" rests upon baseless ad hominem, I'm mostly inclined to not even respond.

I'll simply say that if you bothered reading anything (let alone objectively), you'd clearly see that no one is arguing for a blink monoculture. They're arguing for allowing everyone to choose whichever browser and browser engine that you want. Safari included.

The math isnt mathing on that site... And, no, safari is NOT capable of PWAs - which is the primary point of contention (not obscure APIs, though safari generally lags in all of that as well). They deliberately hobble PWAs and make them very difficult to install.

edit: also, your site is just obviously biased/poorly done, because there exist many better comparisons of web features, which show how vastly far behind Safari is, often even of Firefox. This is unsurprising given your chosen style of rhetoric

https://wpt.fyi/

https://webstatus.dev/

Re: The Google Play app review process now regularly takes longer than a week

#200

Post by cogman10 »

Forgeties79 wrote: post #155
MRtecno98 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the concern is what if users use an alternate source for apps and those have viruses, then.... okay. If the user wants to stay with strictly Google-vetted apps, they can. If desired, you could have an option on setup that users could choose to select that would put the device in a restricted mode that can only use apps installed from Google Play. So this doesn't solve the issue pointed in the OP. > don't force a…

>So this doesn't solve the issue pointed in the OP. Yes it does. This is their point: > The fact that we cannot download and install software from the internet onto our phones JUST like we can do with our computers is a symbol of our inept and ineffective politicians. It should be as easy for me to use an alternate storefront - or download directly from a site - straight to my phone. The googleplay store, which is (s…

> It’s my hardware

I mean, probably not technically due to some EULA you were forced to sign which says the hardware is actually Google/samsung/etc and not yours. Giving them the right to brick your phone the moment you step out of the bounds they define.

We really need some sort of open firmware legislation that mandates manufacturers of computer components need to opensource their drivers and firmware. There's no "special sauce" in that software that warrants a company being able to keep it secret. It's literally just so they can force you to purchase new devices when they get bored of supporting their old devices.

Post reply on HN