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Google details new 24-hour process to sideload unverified Android apps

arstechnica.com

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Re: Google details new 24-hour process to sideload unverified Android apps

#781

Post by yaro330 »

grishka wrote: post #87

At this point I'm convinced that there's something deeply wrong with how our society treats technology. Ruining Android for everyone to try to maybe help some rather technologically-hopeless groups of people is the wrong solution. It's unsustainable in the long run. Also, the last thing this world needs right now is even more centralization of power. Especially around yet another US company. People who are unwilling…

You live in a bubble. The roles are inversed. This is "ruining" Android for the 0.001% of power users that install .apk files and improving it for the huge chunk of population that are still getting hit by malicious ads that try to push app installs onto you.

Re: Google details new 24-hour process to sideload unverified Android apps

#782

Post by BatteryMountain »

SchemaLoad wrote: post #352
ravenstine wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has nothing to do with keeping people safe. If it did then power users could continue to install their own software by being given that ability as a developer setting. The fact that some people are gullible enough to go into a hidden setting on their phone and enable that in order to install an app from a random Chinese website is not a good reason to take away everyone's freedom. Consolidation of power is all t…

There is immense pressure to stop online scams which are draining old people of their life savings. The whole flow from the article seems entirely based around letting power users install what they want while being able to break the flow of a scammer guiding a clueless person in to installing malware. It is promising that Google has avoided just turning off sideloading but still put measures in place to protect peopl…

Why can't a bank put a lock on large transfers or have an extra verification step? Or a cooldown period, so that if they see a large transfer from people above 60, let them go to a branch to verify/ack the transaction. Why is this the internet or operating systems problem to solve?

Re: Google details new 24-hour process to sideload unverified Android apps

#783

Post by KoolKat23 »

b112 wrote: post #607
al_borland wrote: post #579

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate this pop-up so much. I don’t even have Chrome installed on my phone. How about open up on the only browser I have installed… This kind of thing should be illegal. The default browser is the default for a reason, to avoid this kind of stuff. I think I’ve reported this as a bug to Google a couple times, in a couple different apps… as they do it in their other apps too. The only thing that bothers me more are the…

It's OK. This is the dying, last gasp effort that a company makes when it has no way to innovate, no way to add any real value, no capacity to drive change internally, and has become completely non-user focused. In short, it's what companies like IBM and Broadcom are now. Shallow husks of their former self, mere holding companies for patents, with a complete lack of care and concern about any end-user retention. Goog…

Sadly I'd say it's the opposite with them winning that antitrust case, none of these big guys give a shit anymore, they're basically slowly easing into doing whatever the hell they want.

Re: Google details new 24-hour process to sideload unverified Android apps

#784

Post by jhanschoo »

grishka wrote: post #87

At this point I'm convinced that there's something deeply wrong with how our society treats technology. Ruining Android for everyone to try to maybe help some rather technologically-hopeless groups of people is the wrong solution. It's unsustainable in the long run. Also, the last thing this world needs right now is even more centralization of power. Especially around yet another US company. People who are unwilling…

My take is quite different. Every device that I use to do internet banking or things of that nature, I'm very happy to delegate security to companies, and consider that already I trust said bank with my finances. If I want a device I "fully control", then I don't expect a bank to trust it, I don't expect to do internet banking on it or other sensitive stuff of that nature. And that's the status quo even with Google implementing this, open-source OSes still exist, just don't expect internet banking to happen on them.

Re: Google details new 24-hour process to sideload unverified Android apps

#785

Post by pzo »

pea wrote: post #636
lelandfe wrote: post #497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An actual example of this lives in the Gmail iOS app. Click a link in an email and every x days, a sheet appears: https://imgur.com/a/nlGS4Yk 1. Chrome 2. Google 3. Default browser app (w/unfamiliar generic logo) They removed the option for Safari some time in the last two years; here's how it looked in 2024: https://imgur.com/1iBVFfc And the cherry on top of dark UX patterns: an unchecked toggle rests at the bottom.…

The darkest UX pattern I have ever hit is trying to cancel Google Workspace; whereby they disable the scrollbar on the page so you cannot actually get to the cancel button.

one time had cancel Google Colabs and really I couldn't figure out have to yell at them in support ticket to remove my subscription (eventually they did)

Re: Google details new 24-hour process to sideload unverified Android apps

#787

Post by BatteryMountain »

gkoberger wrote: post #221
grishka wrote: post #87

At this point I'm convinced that there's something deeply wrong with how our society treats technology. Ruining Android for everyone to try to maybe help some rather technologically-hopeless groups of people is the wrong solution. It's unsustainable in the long run. Also, the last thing this world needs right now is even more centralization of power. Especially around yet another US company. People who are unwilling…

I “get” technology so I understand how you got here. But this is the wrong take. I expect to go to a restaurant and not die from the food… and I want nothing to do with the inner workings of the kitchen. I just want to know any restaurant I go into will be safe. Society has made restaurants safe, either because of government pressure or it’s good for business. How is that not a fair ask for technology, too? We all ha…

So the solution being proposed by multiple companies, is that the restaurant is now responsible to check your age and gender before they bring you something from the kitchen. Also, now you cannot tell the kitchen to use your toaster as some toasters are built to burn the restaurant down or poison the food.

It still doesn't make sense, we need a better plan.

Re: Google details new 24-hour process to sideload unverified Android apps

#788

Post by breakingcups »

dataflow wrote: post #722
al_borland wrote: post #579

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate this pop-up so much. I don’t even have Chrome installed on my phone. How about open up on the only browser I have installed… This kind of thing should be illegal. The default browser is the default for a reason, to avoid this kind of stuff. I think I’ve reported this as a bug to Google a couple times, in a couple different apps… as they do it in their other apps too. The only thing that bothers me more are the…

> The only thing that bothers me more are the, “sign-in with Google”, prompts on 90% of websites now. It's indeed aggravating. Thankfully it turns out you can turn it off (and of course the option is extremely well-hidden): https://developer.chrome.com/docs/identity/fedcm/customizati...

But only on Chrome? I'm on Firefox and I see those prompts all the time.

Re: Google details new 24-hour process to sideload unverified Android apps

#789

Post by gumby271 »

Lammy wrote: post #576
gumby271 wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, I'm happy to be conspiratorial about it too, I give Google no benefit of the doubt, but outside of Play Protect I don't think they explicitly say "your phone is telling us every app you install." This new feature is them making that explicit.

How can you say “outside of Play Protect” when it comes enabled by default and hassles me to turn it back on every time I install an APK?

Really? I turned Play Protect off and have never been prompted to turn it back on, what phone do you have that does that?

Re: Google details new 24-hour process to sideload unverified Android apps

#790

Post by kalaksi »

BatteryMountain wrote: post #782
SchemaLoad wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is immense pressure to stop online scams which are draining old people of their life savings. The whole flow from the article seems entirely based around letting power users install what they want while being able to break the flow of a scammer guiding a clueless person in to installing malware. It is promising that Google has avoided just turning off sideloading but still put measures in place to protect peopl…

Why can't a bank put a lock on large transfers or have an extra verification step? Or a cooldown period, so that if they see a large transfer from people above 60, let them go to a branch to verify/ack the transaction. Why is this the internet or operating systems problem to solve?

It's crazy. There have been news articles here where people have lost their whole account balance in one go and bank says they can't even do anything after the transfer is made. How is that different from Bitcoin then? People that have never done such huge transfer and the banks supposedly are monitoring transfers.

And since the customer was supposedly being careless, they won't get anything from the bank.

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