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Better for you maybe, but not better for the average user who ended up with malware infecting their systems left and right because they weren't technical enough

Better for you maybe, but not better for the average user who ended up with malware infecting their systems left and right because they weren't technical enough to avoid it.

givinguflac 10y ago
Exactly. I have personally been on the receiving end of plenty of phone calls from users who had no idea they couldn't necessarily trust an application downloaded from a 3rd party site. "But it's the same application!" Sure it is, but who knows what else you're getting, even if it's as 'benign' as shitty toolbars. Has no one ever seen a parent/grandparents nightmare of toolbar hell in a browser window?
- izacus 10y ago
  We did. And somehow the computer revolution still happened even though people actually had to learn a bit about how their tools worked. Meanwhile in that crazy wild west the whole OSS infrastructure powering the most important global computer network was born. Tools, operating systems and software that isn't allowed to exist in app stores because they might be "dangerous" to the average user (whoever that is).
  - icebraining 10y ago
    people actually had to learn a bit about how their tools worked. They didn't, though; they just muddled through and asked their friends or some tech support service to reinstall Windows occasionally, when the viruses, adware and other crap made the computer too slow, or when the ramsomware encrypted all their files.
xg15 10y ago
Then we should either: a) Educate users and give them more knowledge and better tools to easily protect themselves or b) Have app-stores organized in such a way that user interests and legitimate security concerns are not conflated with commercial interests of the platform owners as it's currently the case. Either treat app stores as a public utility with rights and regulations or require all devices to support competing stores.
SunShiranui 10y ago
You don't necessarily need a walled garden to solve that problem - package managers on Linux distribution do the same. It needs the appropriate user experience for non-technical users.

Better for you maybe, but not better for the average user who ended up with malware infecting their systems left and right because they weren't technical enough to avoid it.

givinguflac 10y ago

Exactly. I have personally been on the receiving end of plenty of phone calls from users who had no idea they couldn't necessarily trust an application downloaded from a 3rd party site. "But it's the same application!" Sure it is, but who knows what else you're getting, even if it's as 'benign' as shitty toolbars. Has no one ever seen a parent/grandparents nightmare of toolbar hell in a browser window?

izacus 10y ago
We did. And somehow the computer revolution still happened even though people actually had to learn a bit about how their tools worked. Meanwhile in that crazy wild west the whole OSS infrastructure powering the most important global computer network was born. Tools, operating systems and software that isn't allowed to exist in app stores because they might be "dangerous" to the average user (whoever that is).
- icebraining 10y ago
  people actually had to learn a bit about how their tools worked. They didn't, though; they just muddled through and asked their friends or some tech support service to reinstall Windows occasionally, when the viruses, adware and other crap made the computer too slow, or when the ramsomware encrypted all their files.

xg15 10y ago

Then we should either: a) Educate users and give them more knowledge and better tools to easily protect themselves or b) Have app-stores organized in such a way that user interests and legitimate security concerns are not conflated with commercial interests of the platform owners as it's currently the case. Either treat app stores as a public utility with rights and regulations or require all devices to support competing stores.

SunShiranui 10y ago

You don't necessarily need a walled garden to solve that problem - package managers on Linux distribution do the same. It needs the appropriate user experience for non-technical users.