alt Hacker NewsMAYBE operating systems shouldn't have gatekeepers which can deny access to billions of customers for any and no reason at all. Apple and Google are WELL past due for regulation in this space. The fact that we cannot download and install software from the internet onto our phones JUST like we can do with our computers is a symbol of our inept and ineffective politicians.
And before someone says "well akshully you can technically do it on Android," Google has been working tirelessly to make it as onerous as possible for both developers and customers. For example, users need to separately authorise each app (browser, files manager, alternative store, etc) to install an APK from outside the Play Store. Google also does background scans using "Play Protect" which will periodically delete apps Google doesn't approve of. This happened to me with SmartTubeNext. I have a dozen other ways Google ensures users are discouraged from stepping outside the Play Store.
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> "Apple and Google are WELL past due for regulation in this space."
There is major regulation in place already. EU's Digital Markets Act forces these OS gatekeepers to allow alternative app stores and external payment methods. It also prevents Apple from playing anti-competitive games with App Store rules, like banning hyperlinks within apps that could be used to allow the user to make a payment elsewhere.
The current US government won't do anything to follow suit, but hopefully a future one might.
A weather app could be asking for your location to give you more convenient local forecasts.
It could also be asking for it to help advertisers build a robust behavioral profile about you.
This is not a systems permission, nor is it something that billions of users can judge the ramifications of each potential privacy impacting decision. Privacy is a systems property, not a technical property enforced with ACLs. ACLs can only keep the door from being wide open, they can't prevent access which has been granted from being abused or help the user understand ramifications of granting access.
We need privacy to be a regulatory concern with actual enforcement via an international framework. Until then, it is a business concern of Apple/Google - because they are in the business of having consumers feel confident that a weather app isn't reporting their behavior to anyone willing to pay for it.
The push to involve the legal system and the government is ironic.
It's partly lawsuits that are pushing Google to do this in the first place - because people download shady apps and get scammed or hacked.
The more regulation we get, the more it's going to push towards central app stores that are inaccessible to small devs.
I am on an Android 10 system... gate keeping wasn't this bad during the Android 10 times...so i fairly use software stores like f-droid... simpmusic is one app I use frequently from f droid....no application so far has been deleted automatically. I guess Google has been upping the gatekeeping with newer systems as they come out
This case has nothing to do with "gatekeepers". It is about the Play Store, operated by Google.
Back in early 2000s, pretty much all Windows machines were infested with malware.
Do you want to bring back those glorious days?
Back in the day users didn't really have much valuable and sensitive stuff on their machines and malware was rather benign - just sending spam, not trying to fuck up that specific user. Could be a bit different when it's a smartphone user depends on.
Your complaint about Android .apk install is... similar to unsigned software installs on Windows in some cases (not a great argument, I know, but the same as the vast majority of users would be used to).
As for SmartTube, their keys were compromised. Inconvenient, but it wasn't about hostility to self-installed applications.
> operating systems shouldn't have gatekeepers which can deny access to billions of customers for any and no reason at all
This is exactly why I use a GNU/Linux phone that runs a desktop operating system with no artificial restrictions. Debian repositories are good enough to save me from malware, aren't they?
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Security at its core comes down to trusting the supply chain that provides the software that runs on your hardware. There are many alternative secure supply chain models, but ultimately users often are incapable of making great choices on what is trustworthy. It does generally make sense that the OS vendor needs to play a key part in helping ensure trusted parties are involved in the supply chain.
Comparing phones to PCs isn't a great comparison because PCs don't have a great track record and the amount of personal data and ease of installing lots of apps is quite different. Of course the current arrangement is far from perfect, but acknowledging the problems it's trying to solve is an important step towards trying to find a solution that is better.
And what should we do about apps' getting hacked, sending out malicious updates that get auto-updated and thereby infecting tens of millions or billions of phones simultaneously?
I'm not saying we have the perfect system but anything that slants the system towards "easier downloads" or "less gatekeeping" brings large, obvious risks. I don't see how regulation would address them.