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wrote last edited by [email protected]
The number of people I encounter, even on Lemmy, that genuinely believe and rigorously argue that being able to install or distribute software on devices you own is actually bad because “security” is beyond horrifying to me. They have been brainwashed into thinking that corporate monopolies are not only acceptable but desirable because you can completely and blindly trust Mom’s Old Fashioned Robot Oil to make all your decisions for you, for a modest fee and no opting out, of course.
This is why society is collapsing.
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You're right, it is an inordinate amount of effort.
So much effort, that I don't believe doing it on the scale Android / Google would need to do is possible.
We see Google, Apple failing at this insurmountable effort all the time. Even Linux has failed at it sometimes with supply chain attacks.
And frankly I don't feel that Google can do better than what they've done already in terms of sideloading. Right now of you don't want to go through the app store, you have to ignore two separate warnings when you side load a malicious app. At that point it's negligence.
Because of that I don't feel that adding this restriction to sideloading will help the situation. I believe it's a cop out, if anything they should direct the effort to the Play Store more. There is plenty of actually harmful malware on the Play Store that we can see in the news is a much larger impact than sideloading applications.
That's probably why no one is empathizing with what you're asking for, there is too much showing this change is in bad faith.
We did have that impossible to screw up device in feature phones. But we traded that for pocket computers that enable us to install, and build apps.
As for Linux, I completely agree with you. It still needs to improve user friendliness. It's improved exponentially lately, and could be argued to be better than Windows, but it's still not as good as smartphone computers which are the epiphany of user friendliness (and ignoring the dark patterns being added).
wrote last edited by [email protected]For the record, people are misunderstanding what Google is doing. They aren't enforcing full verification of every app, and presumably they're not preventing third party stores, since regulators have already forced their hand on that front.
They are demanding to keep verifiable ID on the authors of every app for the app to be able to launch from any source. Their pitch is not to centralize, which they would like to do but aren't allowed to do, their pitch seems to be to give you a paper trail where you know who made the malware because Google literally has a copy of their ID on file. Microsoft already has this for Windows as a certification system, but crucially on Windows you get a (deliberately very scary) "this app is unsigned and is probably malware" pop up that you can still bypass. It take a lot of unintuitive clicking, but you can still run the software. Google is saying they won't have that workaround at all now on the subset of devices they flag as "Android certified".
In practice this is fairly neutral in terms of security, but it focuses on enforcement and visibility. Besides the very real question of how to even implement this for distributed development or open source applications of the kind that doesn't bother submitting to Google Play, it may also have a heck of a chilling effect on a whole bunch of things you really don't want chilled in terms of privacy and anonimity for developers. It means if you want to control what software can be on ANY phone you need to get to basically three companies across the planet and that's enough. Likewise if you want to go after someone who made a piece of software for whatever reason.
But that's not what the conversation we're having is about, partly because nobody seems to be looking past the headlines, partly because nobody wants to engage with the nuance of the situation and is looking at it from the myopic perspective of principled access at the cost of added complexity when that's not at all what this is about.
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If its such a security threat make it opt in for the users that want it. Idc about googles opinion on security I can handle that myself.
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I get what you are saying but is it really too much to ask for an interface that looks like it belongs there?
I'm not willing to pay for it, are you? If no then its to much to ask.
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I can't even get people to switch to LibreOffice, not cuz they use some advanced MS Office feature but because the interface "looks dated". So they'd rather pay a subscription for life to use software that spies on them than download free software that does what they need but has a 2010s style interface.
Humans suck so much.
wrote last edited by [email protected]Ngl, I installed a few OnlyOffices just because of UI.
It has ribbon UI and about the same placement of buttons as MS Office stuff.It's fine.
(Based in Latvia, but they had a Russian momma, now Singapore.)
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I'm not willing to pay for it, are you? If no then its to much to ask.
I "pay" LibreOffice.
Why not??
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If its such a security threat make it opt in for the users that want it. Idc about googles opinion on security I can handle that myself.
That's literally what its like now. There's a scare message and a toggle
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I think your parents should turn on their parental controls because you're going a bit wild, buddy.
I mean you're basically arguing for parental control, it is just done by google.
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wrote last edited by [email protected]
I am not sure if enhanced (and force-fed) security features are the main problems here. Monopolies, spying and not having easily accessible alternatives (easy from the perspective of a more average user) are the main problems. Because google and apple are monopolies, most security critical apps like banking apps (that you unfortunately need now a days) don't support alternative OSs which also feedbacks the monopoly. Otherwise I am fine if some people opt for a phone that is basically a locked black box for them so long as there are other alternatives (including those which are still super secure/locked but does not spy).
It is much more crazy to me that you have to fight your device so that it does not sneakily do something that you don't want it to do (like install AI out of the blue or use data for mapping your habits). And most average users won't give this fight and that is what these companies really count on.
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That's what the OP is referring to: Google just announced they will do their best to kill off sideloading.
didn't apple just get forced to enable side loading in the EU due to the DMA?
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Aren’t they claiming this move is specifically to comply with the EU’s Digital Services act?
Apple just enabled sideloading in the EU to comply with the DMA. I highly doubt that android will be allowed to remove sideloading
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We'll always need safety rails, I think the thing you're missing in most of the arguments you're seeing here is that people want ways over or around those safety rails, and that those safety rails do not need to be as strict as they're becoming. That is not the case currently and that is definitely not the direction AOSP or iOS are interested in going.
Also, just for the record, comparing the modern era of computing to the limewire era is bananas.
Is that not what sideloading is? A way over the safety rails?
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didn't apple just get forced to enable side loading in the EU due to the DMA?
Yeah, but I think they implemented the same restrictions Google is planning, so I'm not very helpful that EU is gonna stop Google...
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I can only hope the EU will set Google straight, the way they did Apple.
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I can only hope the EU will set Google straight, the way they did Apple.
Considering:
A) You can still install any app you want beyond the Play Store (the rule is that developers need to get all their apps signed, and doesn't effect the end user technically)
And
B) Its most likely being done because of the EU, it's a part of the DSA (https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/priorities-2019-2024/europe-fit-digital-age/digital-services-act_en). The "trader status", and other parts against illegal content)
The EU most like has already set them straight and this is the result.
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This does feel like a bit of a double-standard to me. I’ve hated how Microsoft and Apple have introduced app stores on Windows and macOS and try to push people to only install from there instead of directly from the developer. And yet on Linux the advice seems to be never ever download directly from the developer; you should only download from the package repository provided by your OS (which sure feels like an App Store). And that package probably wasn’t even provided by the developer or the OS but some random volunteer that you just assume has good intentions.
I measured the heights of myself and my niece and found them to be different, clearly a double standard must be involved.
You yourself mentioned a lot of differences between corporate app stores and distros' software repositories. Why are you surprised people rate them differently?
Perhaps because your standards are different from more Linux users' standards.
I for example would rather take my chances with a random volunteer rather than trust a corporation that had a history of breaking laws and I know it to want to make money off me.
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This. Alternative OS exist: Ubuntu Touch, postmarketOS, SailfishOS, just to name a few.
What is missing are the apps people want. And those include mostly commercial apps, where the developers need to weigh dev hours vs profits, and decide to only target the big two for obvious reasons. That is the key problem.
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That's the only reason I'm still on android. If I install a different OS I won't be able to login to do anything government related. I won't even be able to pay with my credit card online. I could get a physical code device from the government, but I'm not gonna lie, I really like the ease of access of having an app for that stuff, instead of a seperate device I have to have on me at all times.
wrote last edited by [email protected]I will probably have to go the route of two phones soon. One for my stuff and communicating with friends and family, and one (maybe one of the cheaper iphones?) for all the "required" apps.
Funny enough, you tend to see quite some people in China do this. I wonder why.
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At the very least you can still pay a small one-time fee for the DWD WarnWetter app (or enter a code for firefighters).
Best 3€ I've ever spent purely out of spite, even if the reason behind it is complete BS.
They sometimes hand out codes "to be used only by firefighters and paramedics, wink wink".
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All those "apps" are websites. You could say NFC is special, but so is gps.
To be fair, a lot of those depend on some client side trust. Which is conceptually stupid, but it is the way it is.
