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GitHub Should Start an App Store

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Re: GitHub Should Start an App Store

#301

Post by fjabre »

criddell wrote: post #300
fjabre wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We always give up freedom in the name of security so so easily. Why is that? Why does fear always win? Your argument is based on fear. Why do we favor fear over rationality? You would choose a dictatorship over a democracy if it meant that you felt safe. This where that line of thinking leads. You'd rather be safe than free.

It isn't about fear. The internet is a space we share. Do you look at drunk driving laws as an irrational concession to fear? The slope isn't nearly as slippery as you seem to think it is.

Seatbelt laws are not the analogy I would use. It's direct physical bodily harm vs some unknown and unquantifiable risk when installing a 3rd party app.

We got by just fine in the 80s and 90s without App stores. So much innovation came out of that world which established the dominant players who are in control now.

And you don't even get security with App stores. As we already know with all the malware found in Google Play apps.

App stores are simply keeping the big guys big and small guys small with few exceptions here and there.

It's just another walled garden that keeps the little guy out and keeps players like Google and Apple entrenched.

Re: GitHub Should Start an App Store

#302

Post by confiq »

heavyset_go wrote: post #188
confiq wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there is Amazon Appstore!

I have the Amazon Appstore on my Android phone. Google does not allow Amazon to compete on feature parity with the Play Store. Amazon's Appstore cannot do background installation of apps, batch installation of apps, or automatic upgrades if the device isn't an Amazon device.

> background installation of apps

I wish google would not do that...

Re: GitHub Should Start an App Store

#303

Post by whatshisface »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #295
whatshisface wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet this AI company can be undone by a single good salesman who's friends with someone in Purchasing.

How and why? I don't get the point about salesmen here. Companies are not perfect optimizers. Arguably not even that strong. If someone in Purchasing is willing to reward their buddy instead of picking the best vendor for the job, well, that happens. It's noise. Doesn't change the overall behavior of the company. And it only happens within limits - do it too much, and the person in Purchasing will find themselves fir…

People who professionally influence companies, i.e. those whose job it is to understand corporate decision-making, focus almost exclusively on the dynamics of personal relationships. Salesmen, B2B marketers and even activists all use human behavior as the foundation of their techniques. This thing about corporations being monolithic being-like entities is a "theory without a practice;" we can look to the people who empirically deal with corporations to see that they do not find it useful to think that way.

Re: GitHub Should Start an App Store

#304

Post by Mindwipe »

criddell wrote: post #300
fjabre wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We always give up freedom in the name of security so so easily. Why is that? Why does fear always win? Your argument is based on fear. Why do we favor fear over rationality? You would choose a dictatorship over a democracy if it meant that you felt safe. This where that line of thinking leads. You'd rather be safe than free.

It isn't about fear. The internet is a space we share. Do you look at drunk driving laws as an irrational concession to fear? The slope isn't nearly as slippery as you seem to think it is.

I dunno, do our drink driving laws sometimes get political freedom campaigners or sex workers murdered?

Re: GitHub Should Start an App Store

#306

Post by pier25 »

rk06 wrote: post #270
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sidebar: It's incredible that Microsoft itself now uses Electron with Squirrel for apps like GitHub Desktop and Microsoft Teams: It violates every notion of how Windows apps are supposed to be installed, wrecks havoc with enterprise application security policies, and is just the sort of aggressively irritating silent updating garbage that makes Microsoft's primary users, businesses, irritated as heck.

Github desktop and microsoft teams are meant to be cross platform, not windows only. Teams is a competitor of Slack, so going windows only would be stupid. And among all other options, right now using electron is the most popular for cross platform apps. moreover, it also allows teams to have a single version for web and desktop

They could have simply used a different shell for Windows. Heck, they could have simply used Electron without Squirrel and distribute it through the Windows store.

Re: GitHub Should Start an App Store

#307

Post by heavyset_go »

confiq wrote: post #302
heavyset_go wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have the Amazon Appstore on my Android phone. Google does not allow Amazon to compete on feature parity with the Play Store. Amazon's Appstore cannot do background installation of apps, batch installation of apps, or automatic upgrades if the device isn't an Amazon device.

> background installation of apps I wish google would not do that...

If I click to install an app, I want it to install in the background instead of booting me out of the foreground app to show me the installation screen. As a result, any time I want to upgrade or install an app using the Amazon Appstore or F-Droid, I have to click through a dozen install screens that I can't get through all at once or have them install in the background.

Re: GitHub Should Start an App Store

#308

Post by johnisgood »

glenneroo wrote: post #143
GekkePrutser wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Samsung isn't much better than Google on the privacy side. They're just replacing all the standard apps to make them more in line with OneUI in terms of UX. But things like Samsung health send data home too unfortunately. They are stepping back from cloud services a bit now and letting Microsoft step in, also not privacy driven but more financial I think.

After installing NoRoot Firewall on my phone, I discovered that every single Samsung app was phoning home: camera, gallery, contacts, bixby, health, messaging, etc. On the upside, I was able to remove 99% of the pre-installed apps without any special tools. The only one that refused to go was bixy (and no way to reprogram the dedicated button), but at least it can be "disabled" and denied all permissions via Android'…

> On the upside, I was able to remove 99% of the pre-installed apps without any special tools.

I wish I could do this. I have 32 GB space on my phone. Half of it is wasted on pre-installed junk I cannot delete because "it came with the phone". This involves games, or something like "Booking.com", and so forth.

Re: GitHub Should Start an App Store

#309

Post by warrenm »

rmsaksida wrote: post #81

I think what's more important is somehow getting Apple to allow alternative app stores in their phones. While Android phones are the most popular in many (most?) countries, iPhones are still very common and make it so solutions in one distribution platform don't extend to all phone users. Once a competitor is able to operate in both Android and iOS, I think we will see a real threat to official app stores, whether it…

Like it or not, pretty much the whole reason Apple only has The One True App Store™ is to ensure at least some amount of review of QA is done before unleashing apps on its customers.

Does that get abused? Arguably - yes.

Is it overall a good trade-off? Depends on your use case. Want "full" control of your whole mobile device? Get a Pine phone or rooted Android, etc

What any app you download to be highly-likely to be free of bugs and spyware? Go for an iOS device

Re: GitHub Should Start an App Store

#310

Post by syshum »

Phemist wrote: post #155
syshum wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This really is a generational divide, those of US that were around for the 90's and early 00's Microsoft crap still have a bad taste for the "new Microsoft" that claims to love FLOSS (while still showing many signs of EEE.. ) During that time Google was very friendly to FLOSS, and open protocols (remember when GChat was just a XMPP client) Today MS and Google seems to have flipped, Google now is fully embracing Embra…

I have developed a rekindled hatred for M$ in the past few weeks trying to install firefox on a fresh installation of windows 10. I counted 5 seperate scare tactics employed by M$ to keep you using Edge. I thought they were successfully sued for monopolistically coupling Internet Explorer to Windows and had a flow in their installation menu's for installing competing browsers. I was surprised that this is now totally…

>>I have developed a rekindled hatred for M$ in the past few weeks trying to install firefox on a fresh installation of windows 10.

Install a Package Manager like Chocolety [1], AppGet [2] or the new "Official" one WinGet

>>I couldnt find a simple, one-click way to change all these. I had to go over them one-by-one.. (.doc, .docx, .dochtml, .docxhtml, .xls, .xlsx, .xlshtml, .xslsxhtml,....)

Yea MS has tried to bork this, but in the "Default Apps" settings page of the new "Settings" Application, there is a link called "Set Defaults by App" that makes it MUCH easier than what you did which was "Choose Default Apps by File Type"

[1] https://chocolatey.org/

[2] https://appget.net/

[3] https://github.com/microsoft/winget-cli

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