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Android's sideloading limits are its most anti-consumer move

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Re: Android's sideloading limits are its most anti-consumer move

#371

Post by BenjiWiebe »

rkomorn wrote: post #292
FranzFerdiNaN wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe it’s because I’m European but I’ve never understood what iMessage even is or what it offers above either sms or WhatsApp/signal. And I’ve used an iPhone for the past 15 years.

For me, mainly: no international cost, no metered cost (other than data), no extra app like WhatsApp to install (but other party needs iOS). Edit: that said, nowadays, maybe because I'm back in the EU, I use WhatsApp way more often than iMessage.

It is easier, however, to install WhatsApp then to switch from Android to iOS.

Re: Android's sideloading limits are its most anti-consumer move

#372

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

BenjiWiebe wrote: post #367
raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean like all of the ransomware that is being reported on a monthly basis? My mom looked for a printer driver by searching on Google and installed some type of crap that wasn’t the official driver. She is 80. But she has actively been using computers since we had an Apple //e in the house in 1986. On the Mac, people installed Zoom and it installed a backdoor web server.

Please install an ad blocker on your mom's computer, if you haven't already. Not every fake driver etc gets blocked by an ad blocker, but the majority do.

The fake printer driver came up in the organic results…

Re: Android's sideloading limits are its most anti-consumer move

#373

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

orangecat wrote: post #368
raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For almost every user - yes. If apps had to run in a strict sandbox it would be better for most users. Where it would make you jump through an incredible number of hoops or even install “developer editions” of operating systems. You really can’t trust developers to do the right thing - even major developers like Zoom (the secret web server) , Facebook (the VPN that trashed usage actoss apps on iOS) and Google (convin…

I appreciate your response even though I strongly disagree. You really can’t trust developers to do the right thing Indeed not, and that includes OS developers. Imagine if Microsoft had been able to block web browsers other than IE in the name of "security".

Well, you have to trust the operating system vendor.

Re: Android's sideloading limits are its most anti-consumer move

#374

Post by gt0 »

WD-42 wrote: post #342
jolmg wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re: banking, not until adoption of non-Android and non-iOS devices grows. To break this chicken and egg problem, one can get an Android phone and use it exclusively for the banking app, treating it like one of those hardware security keys the banks used to give out in the early 2010s. One used to just leave it at home; maybe take it to work occasionally. Another option is to live like the early 2000s and go to an ATM…

Or use the banks website from a computer? Which banks do not allow this?

My bank in Australia has a great desktop website, but you have to do 2FA on your phone to access it. That means even though I prefer to use the desktop site, I still need to be able to run the app too.

Re: Android's sideloading limits are its most anti-consumer move

#375

Post by octoberfranklin »

uyzstvqs wrote: post #80

I just wish BlackBerry went in a different direction. If during the early-mid 2010s they decided to dedicate to open-source and privacy-first, as well as keeping their flagship QWERTY format with the optimized BlackBerryOS, they could still be around serving a particularly large niche in the smartphone market: Those who use their phone for communication and utility over entertainment. Maybe they can make a comeback.…

It's sad that basically anybody can type faster on a 15-year-old blackberry than on the latest and greatest touchscreen-keyboard phone.

Re: Android's sideloading limits are its most anti-consumer move

#376

Post by blurbleblurble »

itg wrote: post #2

Installing any app I want outside the Play Store was the primary reason I decided to go with Android, despite most of the people I know using iPhones. If I can't do this anymore, I may as well switch and be able to use iMessage and FaceTime with them.

I might as well get a landline/dumbphone and a small linux tablet.

Re: Android's sideloading limits are its most anti-consumer move

#377

Post by Buttons840 »

itg wrote: post #2

Installing any app I want outside the Play Store was the primary reason I decided to go with Android, despite most of the people I know using iPhones. If I can't do this anymore, I may as well switch and be able to use iMessage and FaceTime with them.

Switching to iPhone will make it even more obvious there is an unhealthy monopoly, so that's nice. If there's no good reason to choose Android, why not?

Re: Android's sideloading limits are its most anti-consumer move

#378

Post by thaumasiotes »

falcor84 wrote: post #344
vivalahn wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another road that leads to BBM it seems. It’s utterly bizarre how BBM could have been the iMessage and WhatsApp and who knows what else. But rich out-of-touch people thinking exclusivity is a perk in a commodities market just shows how business savvy and wealth are in reality disconnected from eachother.

Just to assist perplexed netizens like myself, apparently in addition to being an acronym for Big Beautiful Men, BBM also stands for BlackBerry Messenger [0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBM_(software)

Weird. If I wanted to send messages from my BlackBerry, I used AIM. I had no awareness of BBM (despite owning a BlackBerry), nor would it have provided nonzero value even if I had heard of it.

This does not suggest to me that BBM was somehow positioned for mass adoption. There was no problem for it to solve. It was worse than the existing messaging landscape.

(If I had wanted to send a message to someone else whose only mode of communication was their BlackBerry, a situation that never arose, I would have emailed them. Convenient email was the BlackBerry's entire marketing strategy. Note that this works just as well on smartphones today.)

Re: Android's sideloading limits are its most anti-consumer move

#379

Post by tjpnz »

monksy wrote: post #348

The funny thing here: They have active spyware and malware on their app store. They go by vague offical sounding names like "Gallery" and "Messages" "Text Messages" I've reported it and that goes to an google form where the app stays up. I've even gone farenough where I've escalated through internal Google contacts. Nothing is done. It's not sideloading that's the issue. It's google. This is a hostile behavior to all…

Google know full well that it's malware. They also know that it makes them money so they're not going to do anything.

Re: Android's sideloading limits are its most anti-consumer move

#380

Post by NotPractical »

kube-system wrote: post #361
GeekyBear wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's certainly possible for the same company to create an open platform in addition to a separate platform that is a walled garden. Microsoft Windows is an open platform that is open to running whatever software you want, while Xbox is a walled garden. That doesn't mean that Google can fraudulently market an open platform and then close it after driving competing platforms out of the market without running afoul of a…

> That doesn't mean that Google can fraudulently market an open platform and then close it after driving competing platforms out of the market without running afoul of antitrust law. But they haven't done these things. If they violate the law, they will have violated the law. Google hasn't imposed the discussed requirements yet. However, even if they imposed them today, I do not believe they currently advertise that…

> Basically all antitrust actions thus far regarding mobile platforms have been regarding their gigantic commercial app stores. That is entirely unaffected by these changes.

This is more or less true. Epic Games is most likely not going to fight Google any further in the U.S., assuming they actually get what the recent injunction promised them (which does not include unrestricted sideloading, but does include better protections for verified third party app stores on Android).

But at the same time, I don't think it's invalid to say that antitrust law provides a pretty solid framework for a hypothetical "sideloading mandate". The EU's Digital Markets Act comes very close, but falls short of declaring exactly what a "third party app store" should be. That is, "an independent source of applications without any oversight whatsoever from $BIG_TECH_CO".

However, they probably specifically avoided doing that because they knew it would lead to malware on iOS, and a huge win for Apple in the court of public opinion. Will the EU or any of the other regulators actually ever go any further than "third party app stores"? Probably not, to be honest.

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