561–570 of 1001 posts
Every day we stray farther from the premise that we should be allowed to install / modify software on the computers we own. Will once again re-up the concept of a “right to root access”, to prevent big corps from pulling this bs over and over again: https://medhir.com/blog/right-to-root-access
Android's ability to run binaries outside of the Google Play Store is a key differentiator of their product vs. Apple's. Or at least it used to be.
Most Android users choose that ecosystem due to the price point, as most of the world can not afford iPhones (even second hand ones).
Only a tiny fraction of the billions of Android users out there, chose it for its more open aspects.
The only silver lining I see is if it allows you to bypass this by enabling dev mode on your phone. If you can't sideload unverified apps even in dev mode, that would be insanely bad. IF that is the case, I'm actually willing to be slightly inclined to see this as a positive? We should normalize installing apps outside of Google Play, but that means malware becomes a serious issue with people downloading and installi…
In fact, you may not even be able to use any apps that interact with Google Play Services, which includes almost every app on the market.
The funny thing is Stallman started his fight like half a century ago and on regular days Hacker News shits on him eating something off of his foot and not being polished and diplomatic, and loves practical aspects of Corporate Open Source and gratis goodies and doesn't particularly care about Free Software. On this day suddenly folks come out of the woodwork advocating for half baked measures to achieve what Stallma…
Yes, it's unfair that someone can be 100% correct but people won't listen to them because of their appearance or mannerisms. But whining about that unfairness is unproductive. People will never listen to someone who can't stop themselves from eating stuff from their foot in public.
Time to donate to GrapheneOS[1] and alternatives[2]. Or contribute [3]. [1] https://grapheneos.org/donate [2] https://members.calyxinstitute.org/donate [3] https://grapheneos.org/hiring
If this is enforced via Play Protect, then the whole mechanism can likely be disabled with: adb shell settings put global package_verifier_user_consent -1 This does not require root access and prevents Android from invoking Play Protect in the first place. (This is what AOSP's own test suite does, along with other test suites in eg. Unreal Engine, etc.) I personally won't be doing this verification for my open-source…
I have several own-built apps which I use for different purposes only on my own devices.
Why the fuck should I become a verified developer just to use/install/update them?
I'm already pissed off enough by the fact that I must agree to let them upload and scan my app just to install/update it.
If this is a thing then the solution they offer is incorrect. A big giant red screen: “warning the identity of this application developer has not been verified and this could be an application stealing your data, etc” would have worked. What they want is to get rid of apps like YouTube Vanced that are making them lose money (and other Play Store apps)
"Displaying an angry warning message" is one of the tools we've used for decades, and never with much success.
By allowing people to shoot themselves in the foot after ignoring a unmistakable warning, you are helping teach the foolish to be more careful in the future. Making mistakes is the best way to learn something.