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Google will allow only apps from verified developers to be installed on Android

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Re: Google will allow only apps from verified developers to be installed on Android

#811

Post by amelius »

rollcat wrote: post #803
arielcostas wrote: post #765

Meaning to use your device you need to have a contractual relationship with a foreign (unless you are in the US) third party that decides what you can or cannot do with it. Plus using GrapheneOS is less of an option every day, since banks and other "regulated" sectors use Google Play Protect and similar DRMs to prevent you from connecting from whatever device you want. Client-side "trust" means the provider owning th…

> Maybe it's time for a third large phone OS [...]. Apple and Google conspired to never allow that to happen. They've pushed Microsoft out of that sector. Microsoft! Name a bigger challenger.

That was before AI coding assistants.

Re: Google will allow only apps from verified developers to be installed on Android

#812

Post by zulban »

tgma wrote: post #503

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…

He can be mostly right but also terrible for his own cause at the same time. Anyone that doesn't see that must not know even the tiniest fraction of the stories, or like him also has a cognitive disability.

Re: Google will allow only apps from verified developers to be installed on Android

#813

Post by Intermernet »

ozim wrote: post #737
medhir wrote: post #407

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

Tell that to all those assholes that are making malware and scamming society on billions. Most of users are not able to keep themselves safe in the internet - they want to install all kind of crap without thinking too much. All of this is companies making it possible that average Joe could just click links, install any kind of crap and still be somewhat secure.

To install 3rd party APKs on Android involves deliberately removing some guard rails. You need to allow it in settings, you need to enable developer mode, you need to agree to each individual source as a trusted source. If people are still blaming malware on this, when malware exists in the actual Play store, then they're delusional.

Right now, the average Joe can't click a link and install a 3rd party app. Meanwhile, you can install malware from the actual authorised sources, or even just come across a vulnerablity in chrome.

Keeping your devices up to date with security patches will save orders of magnitude more people from malicious software than stopping 3rd party app installation.

I occasionally develop Android apps for myself (mostly out of curiosity and experimentation, but sometimes out of a need for some particular functionality). I'm not going to apply for some developer permit and verification just to do this. I may as well buy a damn iPhone.

Re: Google will allow only apps from verified developers to be installed on Android

#814

Post by willjp »

nick486 wrote: post #807
arielcostas wrote: post #765

Meaning to use your device you need to have a contractual relationship with a foreign (unless you are in the US) third party that decides what you can or cannot do with it. Plus using GrapheneOS is less of an option every day, since banks and other "regulated" sectors use Google Play Protect and similar DRMs to prevent you from connecting from whatever device you want. Client-side "trust" means the provider owning th…

realistically, the end point for moderately tech savvy folks is going to a be two-device setup. one cheap phone for basic communication , all the corpo stuff like banking and shirt-and-tie social media + a wifi hotspot. then a second "practical use" device that uses the hotspot, that you fully control and do your tinkering with. edit: coming to think of it, teaching people to have a device for the "clean stuff" and s…

This is really smart. It’s low friction. It’s a drag to need two devices, but it is a low compromise bridge to building up something like a pinephone/pinebook’s ecosystem without needing to keep swapping your sim card.

Re: Google will allow only apps from verified developers to be installed on Android

#816

Post by Y_Y »

nick486 wrote: post #807
arielcostas wrote: post #765

Meaning to use your device you need to have a contractual relationship with a foreign (unless you are in the US) third party that decides what you can or cannot do with it. Plus using GrapheneOS is less of an option every day, since banks and other "regulated" sectors use Google Play Protect and similar DRMs to prevent you from connecting from whatever device you want. Client-side "trust" means the provider owning th…

realistically, the end point for moderately tech savvy folks is going to a be two-device setup. one cheap phone for basic communication , all the corpo stuff like banking and shirt-and-tie social media + a wifi hotspot. then a second "practical use" device that uses the hotspot, that you fully control and do your tinkering with. edit: coming to think of it, teaching people to have a device for the "clean stuff" and s…

This is already happening. It would be nice to have a purpose-built "clean"/”lame" device that not only did networking for you, but let you run whatever super special shit that garbage banking app needs attestation for while serving it over vnc or similar to your "dirty"/"cool" device. Then the lame device could be quite small, maybe even stuck on to the cool device as a dongle something.

Re: Google will allow only apps from verified developers to be installed on Android

#817

Post by acureau »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #804
arielcostas wrote: post #765

Meaning to use your device you need to have a contractual relationship with a foreign (unless you are in the US) third party that decides what you can or cannot do with it. Plus using GrapheneOS is less of an option every day, since banks and other "regulated" sectors use Google Play Protect and similar DRMs to prevent you from connecting from whatever device you want. Client-side "trust" means the provider owning th…

> Android shouldn't be considered Open Source anymore That idea died for me long ago, I had used Android since 2009 till 2020. I gave up on the dream of a Linux phone. Ubuntu had a nice sleek Phone UI they were working on. The issue is if nobody builds the phones and no carrier cares, nobody will pick it up. You need to push yourself into the market. Microsoft could fill this weird gap if they wanted to the key thing…

Given the state of the Kindle and Fire TV interfaces, I hope Amazon keeps far away.

Re: Google will allow only apps from verified developers to be installed on Android

#819

Post by [deleted] »

nick486 wrote: post #807
arielcostas wrote: post #765

Meaning to use your device you need to have a contractual relationship with a foreign (unless you are in the US) third party that decides what you can or cannot do with it. Plus using GrapheneOS is less of an option every day, since banks and other "regulated" sectors use Google Play Protect and similar DRMs to prevent you from connecting from whatever device you want. Client-side "trust" means the provider owning th…

realistically, the end point for moderately tech savvy folks is going to a be two-device setup. one cheap phone for basic communication , all the corpo stuff like banking and shirt-and-tie social media + a wifi hotspot. then a second "practical use" device that uses the hotspot, that you fully control and do your tinkering with. edit: coming to think of it, teaching people to have a device for the "clean stuff" and s…

[deleted]

Re: Google will allow only apps from verified developers to be installed on Android

#820

Post by whitehexagon »

Retr0id wrote: post #62

These days I don't really want a smartphone at all, but begrudgingly use one for things like mobile banking, receiving SMS tokens, etc. If someone made a screenless powerbank-shaped Android device, I might be interested. The device would double as a 5g wifi modem, and to access the UI you'd remote in over VNC from a laptop, or unrestricted mobile device like a PinePhone.

Agreed, I ditched my spy-phone.

I'm using a tp-link M7000 with 4G, for SMS and wifi modem. A simple http page for send and receive SMS. I use the API to have my ZigBee gear SMS me.

I showed my dumb-phone to my bank and asked if I needed to close my account, suddenly card reader was still available as an option. If it becomes mandatory, they can buy me a phone.

It should not become the rule that we need a spy-phone, or any other BigTech services to take part in society. So I make my life hard work to defend that principle.

Hence I am hacking away with Zig on the PinePhone, since it has some nice hardware switches for switching off modem/GPS mic etc. But the modem itself is still a blackbox, so there will always be trust issues there.

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