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Google confirms 'high-friction' sideloading flow is coming to Android

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Re: Google confirms 'high-friction' sideloading flow is coming to Android

#401

Post by PlatoIsADisease »

_vqpz wrote: post #346
PlatoIsADisease wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple has had better mobile hardware for years. No Aux port, no usb. Slow phone with slow animations. But maybe this is fixed, its been 10 years. >Apple has higher consumer trust. lmao, this is just a user error problem. None have trust. If they trust, yikes. Thats a negative that Apple can brainwash people. >Apple has better app selection (for most people). Solid no here. Being able to install stuff from fdroid is…

"Slow phone with slow animations" is a crazy assessment, I switched from Galaxy S7 to iPhone XR in 2018 because the Galaxy was (like every other Android I had) slow to do everything, applications would crash randomly and my phone would just give up and reboot without warning. Not to mention all of the killer Android features that Google had gotten rid of up to that point (RIP notification ticker, I miss you so much).…

Samsung is the Apple of Android. They are fake luxury and use a big marketing budget.

Not surprised the same kind of person that buys an iphone also fell for samsung.

Re: Google confirms 'high-friction' sideloading flow is coming to Android

#402

Post by minitech »

hypercube33 wrote: post #359
1970-01-01 wrote: post #311

I'm with Google on this one. Idiots and old people (the public) use these devices daily. These are the very same people that send money to Nigerian royalty and expect to hear back about a great reward. This is mostly a CYA move with hard data behind it. If they completely removed side load, that would be a different story.

The old saying goes a fool and their money is soon departed. Why should the rest of us be punished?

You pay a cost either way: live in a world with better funded and incentivized scammers and in a community less wealthy by a corresponding amount, or have a slightly less convenient sideloading experience.

I guess if you take the old saying extremely literally, you could conclude that every fool is guaranteed to be parted with 100% of their lifetime available money regardless of what anyone else tries to do to stop that, but that’s not true – and why old sayings (with a respectable 75% of the words right) taken literally aren’t a good basis for decision-making.

Re: Google confirms 'high-friction' sideloading flow is coming to Android

#403

Post by archvile »

gruez wrote: post #383
goldenarm wrote: post #182

Sideloading is a neologism to scare users and lawmakers, it just means "Installing software" and should be a basic right. Also software installation in Android has been high friction for a while. Installing an APK on my phone is at least 10 clicks.

>Sideloading is a neologism to scare users and lawmakers, it just means "Installing software" and should be a basic right. No it's not. The term originated far before this debacle, and carries a meaningful distinction than just "installing". Specifically it means installing from a non-first party source. You might not agree the restriction should exist, or that even the concept of first party source at all, but for c…

So... installing software?

>Specifically it means installing from a non-first party source.

Just like 99% of software running on computers in the world today? How is it different from "installing software"?

Re: Google confirms 'high-friction' sideloading flow is coming to Android

#404

Post by dmitrygr »

onli wrote: post #56
AlotOfReading wrote: post #12

Google's long term strategy with Android is baffling to me. Apple has had better mobile hardware for years. Apple has higher consumer trust. Apple has better app selection (for most people). Apple has been increasingly implementing the core features that differentiate Android devices, like USB-C and RCS. Every Android user lost to the increasing iOS market share is another customer Google has to pay exorbitant fees t…

I don't see any iOS advantage with the apps anymore. That was maybe true in the very beginning, during the gold rush time of the app store. But not since then. In which category are there better iOS apps? Browsers? No, strictly worse. Youtube app? No, worse. Texting? Worse or equal (Whatsapp). Podcast client? I assume worse, since there is no Antenna Pod. Social media apps? The iOS variants of those apps are afaik in…

If you’d like an example, every single person who flies has an iPad to use an app called FOREFLIGHT. It doesn’t exist in android. Other EFBs exist on android but they are not as good. To a point that among things a new pilot student has to buy, like headsets and such, is an iPad.

Re: Google confirms 'high-friction' sideloading flow is coming to Android

#405

Post by seg_lol »

lokar wrote: post #368
goldenarm wrote: post #182

Sideloading is a neologism to scare users and lawmakers, it just means "Installing software" and should be a basic right. Also software installation in Android has been high friction for a while. Installing an APK on my phone is at least 10 clicks.

I think what is missing here is the growing trend of scammers convincing people they are their bank (or whatever) and walking them through enabling side-loading and then installing malware (sometimes to address some urgent security issues with their account). This is meant to counter an actual issues that is affecting many many users.

Is the solution to make it harder? Or is the threat of scammers and the insecurity of the OS used as false flag to make installing software outside of the profitable walled garden much much harder?

Re: Google confirms 'high-friction' sideloading flow is coming to Android

#406

Post by ronsor »

lokar wrote: post #368
goldenarm wrote: post #182

Sideloading is a neologism to scare users and lawmakers, it just means "Installing software" and should be a basic right. Also software installation in Android has been high friction for a while. Installing an APK on my phone is at least 10 clicks.

I think what is missing here is the growing trend of scammers convincing people they are their bank (or whatever) and walking them through enabling side-loading and then installing malware (sometimes to address some urgent security issues with their account). This is meant to counter an actual issues that is affecting many many users.

This has been going on since the Internet became widespread and Windows users started regularly downloading random executables from random websites.

Re: Google confirms 'high-friction' sideloading flow is coming to Android

#407

Post by clickety_clack »

xigoi wrote: post #354
clickety_clack wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I switched from Android to iPhone last year, and this just isn’t true. There’s so many tiny issues with android apps that just don’t exist on iPhone, because the android apps have to work on all these different devices. You don’t even have to look for the kinds of apps you’re talking about because things like Safari and Apple Podcasts work really well. I know people have a lot of complaints, but things on the iPhone…

> I know people have a lot of complaints, but things on the iPhone really do “just work”. Recently on HN: https://www.bugsappleloves.com/

I would love to see a site like that for android, but people don’t have the same expectation of flawlessness with it.

Re: Google confirms 'high-friction' sideloading flow is coming to Android

#408

Post by fc417fc802 »

gruez wrote: post #388
fc417fc802 wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Color me surprised. But if you run the app using the sandboxing feature that it provides surely it will only be able to see other apps installed within that same sandbox?

What is "the sandboxing feature" you're talking about? The standard app sandbox built into android allows apps to discover each other for various purposes, and grapheneos doesn't do anything to attempt to plug this.

Apologies. I was thinking of Android user profiles which are available from mainline and (AFAIK) prevent the linked workaround from revealing any apps not installed in the same profile. So it's an example of an unfixed leak in Android but not (as I had previously implied) something that Graphene corrects.

Honestly the state of anti-fingerprinting (app, browser, and otherwise) is fairly abysmal but that's hardly limited to android or even mobile as a whole.

Re: Google confirms 'high-friction' sideloading flow is coming to Android

#409

Post by Voklen »

uyzstvqs wrote: post #151
xandrius wrote: post #121

I take the opportunity to let people know that there are alternatives to Google/Apple duopoly on mobile. Link: https://www.ubuntu-touch.io/ Sure, GrapheneOS is often suggested but Ubuntu Touch is a really interesting alternative, their own store and ecosystem. The community is amazing and welcoming. If there are Android apps which you can't do without, they can be emulated and used anyway. Imagine switching to Linux…

Ubuntu Touch has amazing UX, IMO. Sadly it's been non-viable for practically forever, and is non-viable today unless you want to use a 7-year-old out-of-production device. It's practically abandonware with a few hobby maintainers at this point, as much as it had potential compared to other alternatives.

I was under the impression that Ubuntu Touch worked just fine with the Fairphone 5 which is very much not a "7-year-old out-of-production device". I'm currently writing this from a Fairphone 4 (with CalyxOS, not Ubuntu Touch though).

Re: Google confirms 'high-friction' sideloading flow is coming to Android

#410

Post by Saris »

fc417fc802 wrote: post #258
fruitworks wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what manner do they extract less data

Unless you're running Graphene or a similar security minded distro the sandboxing isn't very good. Okay let's be honest it's fairly abysmal at preventing fingerprinting. It could almost be accused of not even bothering to try. But one example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43518866

Even with graphene I don't believe it mitigates much as far as apps collecting data. The idea for more privacy is you run open source apps instead that just don't collect data.

AFAIK Graphene is oriented towards strong device security with privacy as more of a side effect.

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