I actually like that policy. In years I haven't had the desire or need to install random apps from websites, and I can't think of anything I'm missing that is excluded from the app store. People do stupid things with security when they install apps from random websites, because most users have no clue at all about privacy or what rogue apps can do. This is especially dangerous with kids and older people. Considering phones can give away location, record audio and video, banking passwords and so on, I think locking them down is fine. Regular apps are bad enough. We don't need more phone malware.
Comment on Apple removes app created by Andrew Tate
Eavolution@kbin.social 9 months agoI agree, however they also don't allow sideloading as far as I know. I think there's a distinction between policing whats on your store, and what users can install from anywhere.
squiblet@kbin.social 9 months ago
jet@hackertalks.com 9 months ago
I couldn’t use my phone at all, without side loading apps. F droid makes side loading open source apps extremely easy, most the apps I use on a daily basis are side-loaded via f droid. My browser, my password manager, my video player, my podcast player, my map system, my VPN, my secure messenger,… none of which are on the main app store.
I’m only using this as an illustration that there is a use case for side loading your own independent ecosystem onto your phone. It gives users more choice
Fight4freedom@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
You should check out “obtainium”. You can install apps directly from source. github.com/ImranR98/Obtainium
jet@hackertalks.com 9 months ago
That’s super interesting. I looked at the burrito video, justifying the migration away from f Droid. And I agree, there’s a lot of good reasons to use the developer keys directly. One nice benefit of f droid though is ensuring the source code matches the binary. With their recent progress in reproducible builds, and using the developer signing keys for those builds, we get the best of both worlds.
ThankYouVeryMuch@kbin.social 9 months ago
I agree to a certain point, I have Linux on all my computers because of the freedom. But I have an iPhone, the only apple thing I own, and one of the main reasons is the AppStore and how restrictive it is.
I would say that for the average end user being able to install software from anywhere is a liability and causes a lot more issues than it solves, I've seen lots of computers running like trash because the users kept just typing 'download <software> free' on google and going along with any random shady site that popped. Apple cater more to these average users than to power users, and honestly the google play store is a dumpster fire. A walled garden doesn't sound that bad when it's the wastelands outside