Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google have declared Droidscript is malware

groups.google.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 665 posts

Re: Google have declared Droidscript is malware

#61

Post by vultour »

ajross wrote: post #14
blakesterz wrote: post #2

I had to go look to see what this was: "DroidScript is an easy to use, portable coding tool which simplifies mobile App development. It dramatically improves productivity by speeding up development by as much as 10x compared with using the standard development tools. It’s also an ideal tool for learning JavaScript, you can literally code anywhere with DroidScript, it’s not cloud based and doesn’t require an internet…

Time for one of these again. So... having read through their marketing material, this is an on-device tool that opens up what appears to be most of the Android application API to at least the user of the device, and potentially to any Droidscript applications they grab from other sources, and... maybe to other apps on the device? It's not clear from a quick read how extensive the runtime control is. So just right out…

> Play Store vetting process

You mean the one that doesn't exist?

Re: Google have declared Droidscript is malware

#62

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

Pxtl wrote: post #35
ajross wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Time for one of these again. So... having read through their marketing material, this is an on-device tool that opens up what appears to be most of the Android application API to at least the user of the device, and potentially to any Droidscript applications they grab from other sources, and... maybe to other apps on the device? It's not clear from a quick read how extensive the runtime control is. So just right out…

That said, an open-source version of this on F-droid would be hella cool, but wrapping every API with Javascript sounds non-trivial.

> wrapping every API with Javascript sounds non-trivial.

I am not an expert in JS or the Android API, but I wonder if you couldn't do it automatically? If types line up closely enough, I would think that you could get a list of Android APIs (pull it from AOSP if you have to) and mechanically translate to a JS API.

Re: Google have declared Droidscript is malware

#63

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

ajross wrote: post #14
blakesterz wrote: post #2

I had to go look to see what this was: "DroidScript is an easy to use, portable coding tool which simplifies mobile App development. It dramatically improves productivity by speeding up development by as much as 10x compared with using the standard development tools. It’s also an ideal tool for learning JavaScript, you can literally code anywhere with DroidScript, it’s not cloud based and doesn’t require an internet…

Time for one of these again. So... having read through their marketing material, this is an on-device tool that opens up what appears to be most of the Android application API to at least the user of the device, and potentially to any Droidscript applications they grab from other sources, and... maybe to other apps on the device? It's not clear from a quick read how extensive the runtime control is. So just right out…

> Droidscript itself may not be engaged in advertising fraud, but it makes advertising fraud trivial to deploy.

No more than being able to build an app on my laptop and push it over ADB.

> (And it needs to be said: this is the kind of app that would never have been legal at all on any version of iOS.)

It also needs to be said that this is why I don't use Apple devices. What they inflict on their platform is not an argument for what should happen elsewhere.

Re: Google have declared Droidscript is malware

#64

Post by eptcyka »

ajross wrote: post #14
blakesterz wrote: post #2

I had to go look to see what this was: "DroidScript is an easy to use, portable coding tool which simplifies mobile App development. It dramatically improves productivity by speeding up development by as much as 10x compared with using the standard development tools. It’s also an ideal tool for learning JavaScript, you can literally code anywhere with DroidScript, it’s not cloud based and doesn’t require an internet…

Time for one of these again. So... having read through their marketing material, this is an on-device tool that opens up what appears to be most of the Android application API to at least the user of the device, and potentially to any Droidscript applications they grab from other sources, and... maybe to other apps on the device? It's not clear from a quick read how extensive the runtime control is. So just right out…

Chrome is closed source and has developer tools, and has damn near every permission Android provides. You can app your apps on it, as long as they are of the web variety. Should we not ban chrome too?

If droidscript enables ad fraud, isn't it an issue with how the android sandboxing model is fundamentally broken? Given that there are far more people using phones than computers, and a lot of new smartphone users will have never used a desktop or laptop computer, droidscript might be their first venture into programming and/or hacking. Let's not shut it down.

Re: Google have declared Droidscript is malware

#65

Post by nromiun »

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #56
nromiun wrote: post #26

> We don't allow apps with any code that could put a user, a user’s data, or a device at risk. If Google thinks the ability to execute arbitrary code puts users' data at risk why don't they go the full iOS route and ban everything, from scripting apps to other JS engines beside Chromium? I am so sick of their behaviour, the only reason I am still on Android because things like F-Droid still exists and iOS is even mor…

Given the issues that termux has hit, they're certainly moving that way. https://github.com/termux/termux-packages/wiki/Termux-and-An...

Yep, Termux is the most used app on my phone and I don't know what I will do when they have to migrate to SDK 29. I will probably buy another phone and install LineageOS.

Re: Google have declared Droidscript is malware

#66

Post by overgard »

pdkl95 wrote: post #47

The War On General Purpose Computing[1][2] is escalating. The war has moved past trivial fights over copyright/"DRM", and is now directly targeting programming environments. [1] https://boingboing.net/2012/01/10/lockdown.html [2] https://boingboing.net/2012/08/23/civilwar.html edit: fixed link - thanks for the bug report

This seems so self-defeating by these companies. All this will do is push people to learn to develop on the web (arguably where they already are learning), while completely bypassing any built-in API's and stores. Sure, there's stuff you can't access without native code, but at a certain point why would anyone want to risk making their primary codebase dependent on one of these stores?

When FOSS tablets and phones become competitive, I'm really interested in getting one. Maybe even before they're realistically competitive.

Re: Google have declared Droidscript is malware

#68

Post by diogenesjunior »

nromiun wrote: post #65
yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given the issues that termux has hit, they're certainly moving that way. https://github.com/termux/termux-packages/wiki/Termux-and-An...

Yep, Termux is the most used app on my phone and I don't know what I will do when they have to migrate to SDK 29. I will probably buy another phone and install LineageOS.

>I don't know what I will do

>I will probably buy another phone and install LineageOS

Re: Google have declared Droidscript is malware

#69

Post by oblio »

pdkl95 wrote: post #47

The War On General Purpose Computing[1][2] is escalating. The war has moved past trivial fights over copyright/"DRM", and is now directly targeting programming environments. [1] https://boingboing.net/2012/01/10/lockdown.html [2] https://boingboing.net/2012/08/23/civilwar.html edit: fixed link - thanks for the bug report

You've posted the same link twice.
Post reply on HN