• Pyrodexter@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    Well, as far as I know the current idea is that you’ll have to toggle a setting in developer options and wait 24 hours (once). After that you can sideload unverified stuff as much as you like. So it’s not horribly sad, I´d say.

    I actually kind of think that’s a reasonable change. It improves safety for the clueless majority, but it still gives those that know what they are doing a free reign with a minor initial inconvenience. And I kind of feel like articles still claiming how horrible this all is are mostly just outrage farming. Unless the plans have changed to something more fucked up, that is.

    • edible_funk@sh.itjust.works
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      1 day ago

      No, it’s not reasonable. Fuck the clueless majority. Stupid people should be prevented from hurting others, but they should not be prevented from hurting themselves. If you manage to download malware that’s on you, no big brother should ever be controlling what you can and can’t install on your personal fuckin devices. I’m a fucking adult and I do not need or want some bullshit fucking kid mode imposed on my personal shit because Google went full fucking nazi. Companies have no business dictating how you use your own purchases property. Imagine your fucking car saying nah you’ve already driven twenty miles today it’s not safe for you to drive more and just shutting the fuck down. Every motherfucker making these decisions in every industry need to be publicly gruesomely executed. The owner class needs to remember who they’re accountable to.

      • stabby_cicada@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        1 day ago

        Don’t cut yourself on that edge there, bro.

        You know why we first called malware computer viruses, back in the day? Because they spread.

        Every infected computer makes the botnet stronger and more effective at infecting future computers.

        Every personal email account that’s hacked and exploited is a treasure trove of information against all that person’s friends and relatives and contacts, and a vector of attack against everyone that person has ever emailed.

        So yeah, we need security controls for the same reason we need vaccines. Because public health protects everybody.

        • Addv4@lemmy.world
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          22 hours ago

          If that’s the case, then Google really needs to fix the play store because you can absolutely get malware from there. This change is mostly to start locking down the ecosystem to force users to only be able to pay Google a cut of all revenue on the platform (apple already does this). It’s bullshit, and it hopefully backfires for Google.

          • pfried@reddthat.com
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            17 hours ago

            This change is the opposite. It makes it possible for a user to install the Epic Games Store from their website without seeing a scary warning, and Google won’t get a cut of any of the revenues from that store. The same with any other company. Netflix can now offer their app from their website, and people can install it without any warning, and Netflix won’t have to send any revenue to Google for people who subscribe in the app.

            • Addv4@lemmy.world
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              16 hours ago

              Uh, no it’s not. Quite literally the opposite actually. You can get apks for your apps outside of the play store currently, just have to install them yourself (yeah, you need to check a box to install third party apps once, but that’s it). The proposed change from google is mostly to make that harder, and make most users locked more into the play store ecosystem so that Google gets their cut from everything.

              • pfried@reddthat.com
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                16 hours ago

                Uh, no it’s not.

                It is. As a result of the Epic Games v. Google, Android builds with the Play Store are required to allow users to install apps without any warning at all. They obviously can’t allow any app to be installed without a warning because this would be a boon to malware authors, so this is now enabled with verification. You can now even share apps you build with your friends without requiring them to go through an unverified apps flow with a scary warning. Additionally, Google is not allowed to take a revenue cut from those installs.

                You’re confused because the install process for apps that are not verified (a path that didn’t exist before at all) or installed from a system app store has changed. This now has to be done with adb, which takes effect immediately, or via an on-phone process that takes a day to complete. Once it is done, this setting is copied to new phones, so the process actually becomes easier for most people who do this because they don’t have to go through the process repeatedly.

    • Test_Tickles@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Publicly traded companies are soulless entities that are legally bound to 1 and only 1 goal, short term profits. Any time you see a company do something stupid, ineffectual, completely pointless, ect., then what you are seeing is step one in a plan. It is costing them money and future profits to make these changes that they know will be wildly unpopular just to maybe, sort of, possibly could, but won’t really, protect a very small number of the dumbest people on the planet? No, companies ruin, poison, make homeless, and kill people constantly while being completely aware of what they are doing. They do it and continue to come up with new ways to do it because they have just the 1 goal, profit. So, if this is not altruism then what is it? That’s what people are upset about. Because there are a lot of reasons for them not to do this, but the only reasons for them to do it are all bad in addition to violating their 1 goal. And they are still doing it anyway.

    • Jason2357@lemmy.ca
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      1 day ago

      It will kill off projects that rely on sideloading. Slowly, but if you need to do the dance, fewer and fewer people will use them.

      • Pyrodexter@lemmy.world
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        24 hours ago

        I’m not sure that’s true. Fewer, sure, although not necessarily that much fewer. But “fewer and fewer”, I don’t think so. It’s not big enough of a hurdle to dissuade anyone who has already done it once.