Comment on Is Foss really safe?
pjhenry1216@kbin.social 1 year ago
You mention the Google Play issue. That is an example of a disadvantage of closed source (Android is open, the Google Play Protect is not). Google Play Protect is essentially static code analysis. Think of it almost like antivirus. It tries to look for anomalies in the code itself. But it's not great. It can be tricked. And we don't even know how good it is or what kind of checks it does.
FOSS code has many people looking at it. You can compile it yourself. It's extremely unlikely for something that's remotely popular to have explicitly malicious code in it. Is it impossible? No. But just as you get folks deep diving video game code assets, you get people looking at code of many FOSS projects. Likely because they either want to contribute or make changes.
It comes down to it being easier to find malicious actors in FOSS. Its just more difficult to hide than closed source.
Why would you think closed source is any safer for any of the same reasons but worse? Closed source can just as easily (arguably more easily) steal your info (and many did but bury it in EULAs).
zencat@kbin.social 1 year ago
How come users don't have root access on Android even though Android is open?
pjhenry1216@kbin.social 1 year ago
Because of the handset makers and wireless carriers (honestly more the latter than the former). It's not because of Google or Android.
exscape@kbin.social 1 year ago
Most phones use customized versions of Android and decide you shouldn't have root access. It opens up security issues and makes it easier to bypass ads and DRM which they don't like.
You can get it on some phones, including Google's.
zencat@kbin.social 1 year ago
But why is Android even called opensource when there are restrictions by Google? Isn't it a dangerous path when Google can decide to ban F-droid on the platform? What could stop them from doing that? How is the future of Android even guaranteed under such a greedy company like Google?
DeRp_DaWg@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Because the vast majority of users does not need root access.
zencat@kbin.social 1 year ago
Alright, but why does Google gets to decide that? Why not make it so that users can get the root access like they can get the developers mode unlocked? On top of that, doesn't them making it difficult or almost impossible to remove their apps defy the idea of opensource? How is Android even called opensource when the users have so much restriction put upon by Google?
_haha_oh_wow_@kbin.social 1 year ago
Whether or not someone has admin has nothing to do with whether something is open source.