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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

#921

Post by mrguyorama »

wswin wrote: post #387
tavavex wrote: post #271

The part in the flow where you select between allowing app installs for 7 days or forever is a glimpse into the future. That toggle shows the thought process that's going on at Google. I can bet that a few versions down the line, the "Not recommended" option of allowing installs indefinitely will become so not recommended that they'll remove it outright. Then shrink the 7 day window to 3 days or less. Or only give us…

what's your solution to combat scammers?

So there's no scamming happening in Apple's fully walled garden, "Only approved apps allowed" system, right?

https://blog.lastpass.com/posts/warning-fraudulent-app-imper...

Oh, turns out they just let you pretend to be the real company to sell your scam app.

What a load of good that "Approval" process does.

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

#922

Post by stek29 »

rtkwe wrote: post #35
astra1701 wrote: post #14

This is going to hurt legitimate sideloading way more than actually necessary to reduce scams: - Must enable developer mode -- some apps (e.g., banking apps) will refuse to operate and such when developer mode is on, and so if you depend on such apps, I guess you just can't sideload? - One-day (day!!!) waiting period to activate (one-time) -- the vast majority of people who need to sideload something will probably no…

> - Must enable developer mode -- some apps (e.g., banking apps) will refuse to operate and such when developer mode is on, and so if you depend on such apps, I guess you just can't sideload? What apps are those? I've yet to run into any of my banking apps that refuse to run with developer mode enabled. I've seen a few that do that for rooted phones but that's a different story. I've been running android for a decade…

TrueMoney is a Thai e-wallet/fintech app which refuses to open if Developer Mode is enabled, it actively checks for developer mode on each start.

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

#924

Post by ozgrakkurt »

wswin wrote: post #387
tavavex wrote: post #271

The part in the flow where you select between allowing app installs for 7 days or forever is a glimpse into the future. That toggle shows the thought process that's going on at Google. I can bet that a few versions down the line, the "Not recommended" option of allowing installs indefinitely will become so not recommended that they'll remove it outright. Then shrink the 7 day window to 3 days or less. Or only give us…

what's your solution to combat scammers?

Education is the only solution to this.

You can’t feasibly protect someone that believes the person on the phone is their family member or the chief of police.

This kind of thing has to be verified like how they try drugs. Just randomly doing things will surely be useless, similar to how randomly optimizing parts of a program is generally worthless.

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

#925

Post by goda90 »

utopiah wrote: post #657
stavros wrote: post #542

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they manage to expand their lineup a bit, that'll be my next phone. Or, if a company makes a phone with GrapheneOS preinstalled, I'm giving them my money. Fuck Google for doing this, and Play Integrity making me unable to use banks is even worse.

> if a company makes a phone with GrapheneOS preinstalled, I'm giving them my money. FWIW you can buy a Pixel (new or 2nd hand) and install GrapheneOS via the Web https://grapheneos.org/install/web with nothing (genuinely nothing) installed on your computer and get it working in ~15min (depending on your connection to download the ROM) out of which maybe ~2min will be your interacting with the setup process. I initia…

> with nothing (genuinely nothing) installed on your computer

Not 100% accurate. You need a browser that supports WebUSB[0] which are just Chromium based ones, not Safari or Firefox.

[0]https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/WebUSB_API

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

#926

Post by fooqux »

ninjagoo wrote: post #853
Anonyneko wrote: post #850

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Open phones are all fine and well, but good luck convincing banking and government applications to work on those (especially in countries where bank login is used to access government services).

> Open phones are all fine and well, but good luck convincing banking and government applications to work on those (especially in countries where bank login is used to access government services). First phones, then lobbying. As citizens of an open society, government exists to serve us, not the other way around. With enough users, they will have to respond. As I said, there are a number of areas that need attention…

> As citizens of an open society, government exists to serve us, not the other way around.

I really wish this was true. It should be true. It used to be true. But I don't think it is now.

> With enough users, they will have to respond.

Well, yeah. But even if we had millions of people lined up (which we don't) it still wouldn't be enough to force a positive response.

Frankly there's too much money wrapped up in this now. Because of that, open computing will always be under attack. I hate coming off as so defeatist, but what we need is a culture change, and a new device which is (from the perspective of the 99%) worse and more expensive than Android isn't going to get us that.

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

#927

Post by goda90 »

egeres wrote: post #500
armadyl wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GrapheneOS phones are still an option, it’s unaffected by these rules.

They have terrible support for banking apps and any app that needs play integrity

I've had multiple apps attempt to use Play Integrity on my GrapheneOS phone(it tells you when they try), and then just work anyway. Not sure why.

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

#928

Post by ipaddr »

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…

None involve installing an app from a non app store.

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

#929

Post by bryanrasmussen »

ddalex wrote: post #874
shafyy wrote: post #794

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I want through this last year and documented it in a screencast. This is how it looks https://mstdn.social/@can/115243851196253381 How is this legal?

Don't assign to malice what can be explained by incompetence: * new automated UX experiments starts * the UI bot made a change that made the page unscrollable * the experiment has a much higher rate of retention then the control (because people can't scroll) * the experiment is deemed a success by results analysis (no one looks at the page to see WHY) * the experiment is blessed as the new pipeline Such an obvious bu…

>Don't assign to malice what can be explained by incompetence:

OK, if it is a bug, what are the different time frames for people experiencing this pretty serious bug?

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

#930

Post by retr0rocket »

ddalex wrote: post #874
shafyy wrote: post #794

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I want through this last year and documented it in a screencast. This is how it looks https://mstdn.social/@can/115243851196253381 How is this legal?

Don't assign to malice what can be explained by incompetence: * new automated UX experiments starts * the UI bot made a change that made the page unscrollable * the experiment has a much higher rate of retention then the control (because people can't scroll) * the experiment is deemed a success by results analysis (no one looks at the page to see WHY) * the experiment is blessed as the new pipeline Such an obvious bu…

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