161–170 of 345 posts
> However, our recent analysis found over 90 times more malware from sideloaded sources than on Google Play Google has seemingly never seen an elderly person's phone, where it is completely infected with crap including literal popup ads (that somehow overlay other apps), yet all of it was downloaded from GPlay.
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I don't necessarily like the idea of a company wiping their hands clean and saying "well - not our problem!" either though. Companies shouldn't wait to solve issues like this - they should be proactively helping their most vulnerable users. That is the "do no evil" motto. I don't know enough to say whether this method is the right approach however.
Saying that computer/OS manufacturers should prevent malware is effectively equivalent to saying that they should not sell general purpose computers to the public. A general purpose computer is one that can run any program the users tells it to, which necessarily includes one that's malicious. That doesn't necessarily preclude helping the user to notice when they're doing something dangerous, but a waiting period bef…
(in Gilbert Huph (Wallace Shawn) voice) Yes, precisely!
Don't love it but (1) it's addressing a serious problem and I'm not sure what the alternative is and (2) if you all remember the starting place, it was staggeringly, dramatically worse, practically a death sentence for F-Droid and seemingly testing the waters for if they could simply power through and do it despite objection. This is a major course correction that doesn't kill F-Droid. A one time 24 hour hoop to jump…
Is it a serious problem that you can run whatever software you want on your computer? Should we make it so that no one can do that without permission to protect them? I recommend Cory Doctorow's talk on why this is a serious problem for society: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Coming_War_on_General_Com... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUEvRyemKSg
tl;dr how to install an app from unverified developer ("advanced flow") 1. enable developer mode 2. confirm you aren't being coached 3. restart your phone and reauthenticate 4. come back after 24 hours and unlock device 5. install app from unverified developer, option of enabling for 7 days or indefinitely This is apparently a one-time process. Advanced flow for users launches globally August 2026. Verification requi…
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Yeah I would imagine that the value the get out of a passport is not anything to do with validating a company (they’re cheap and easy to make anyway) but validating the person (which is not a throwaway entity)
Fair point. However that invites those bad scenarios where someone gets blacklisted by BigTech in some manner, later gets hired by a small business, the new employer adds an association to the blacklisted account, and suddenly the company app is banned from the app store seemingly without reason. At least a few such stories have appeared on HN over the years. I feel like pay to play ought to be sufficient because in…
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Pretty much everyone would hate it if a relative lost their life savings to a scammer, though they may not know it yet. The idea isn't to protect the power users or average users. It's to protect the most vulnerable. Android is for everyone . Us power users will have a minor speed bump, but we can deal.
Android is for everyone, provided they submit to Google exclusively. It's not about power users, and that isn't a speed bump. You can protect vulnerable users without centralizing power like they did, but that's not their motivation so here we are.
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They may want proof that you, the human filling out this form, are authorized to publish apps, communications, etc. as the company you say you represent.
How does a passport solve that? Most small private companies are entirely opaque. A government ID doesn't help you determine authorization. It won't even help you determine ownership since anyone doing things sensibly will be using a registered agent to hold the company on his behalf. The correct approach here (AFAIK) is to punt the trust decision to the bank by requiring payment with a method that you can confidentl…
BTW both the id card and the passport have cryptographic authentication and you are able to open a bank account or use govt services completely online by scanning it with the phone Rfid . They could have make me scan that, scan my face and be done with the identity verification. My identity is already verified and tied to my company the same way and also listed in the companies registry which means they could have had skipped all the other company verification stuff too.
What % of Android users actually want this? Do they know or care? I've been using Android since 2010 because it was open in ways that the Apple ecosystem wasn't. I do not want this and imagine hardly any other power users (for lack of a better term) do. I'm already using a mostly deGoogled device but this really seals the deal. I have been longing for a true Linux phone for years and now seems like a good time to get…
Rounded to the nearest percent, I'd guess power users make up 0% of android user base.
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Being able to side load apps was why I switched to android 10 years ago
Please call it what it is and always has been: I.N.S.T.A.L.L.I.N.G S.O.F.T.W.A.R.E "side load" is like "jay walking' seeks to stigmatize humans being human.
So I don't understand your analogy? Are you suggesting that pedestrians own the streets and should do what they please, as users own their phone and should have the right to do as they please? Or something else?