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Google. A search giant. A machine learning leader. They can save me from a typo in the web search, but can't in the Play store. That's another reason to switch
by hawski 9y ago
Google. A search giant. A machine learning leader. They can save me from a typo in the web search, but can't in the Play store.
That's another reason to switch to F-Droid.
- 27182818284 9y ago>they can save me from a typo in the web search, but can't in the Play store. Besides machine intervention, this seems like a company the size of Google could easily help (if not solve) while creating a lot of good will by hiring a few at-home workers to better flag or check in on certain applications. Off the top of my head, this wouldn't require a ton of training and you could even provide burner-like phones for folks to download the apps to and play a bit on.
- notatoad 9y agoIt could easily be hooked it into their existing opinion rewards program. Every time a new app is published on the play store or the name of an existing app is changed, just ask a half-dozen real verified humans if it matches the name of an app they've heard of before. I'd be happy to do it once a week or so for ten cents of play store credit.
- eli 9y agoWhat keeps someone from doing the same thing to f-droid?
- thriftwy 9y agoMaybe they have package vetting process with an actual human inside?
- avodonosov 9y agoThey have software dev process with actual human, inside.
- nolok 9y agoThey don't. More exactly, they try to vet things, after the fact, and not covering anything. Source : their own faq.
- disconnected 9y agoI skimmed their docs and I don't see any sort of language that corroborates what you are claiming. They DO seem to have some sort of review process in place: https://f-droid.org/en/docs/Inclusion_How-To/ https://f-droid.org/en/docs/Inclusion_How-To/ See: Application Review Process. I don't know how exhaustive it is or how effective it is in practice though.
- Sylos 9y agoThey don't do a thorough code review, but they are human beings and they manually build the software from its code repository, so they will notice these kind of discrepancies.
- orblivion 9y agoYou're basically saying that f-droid is better because it's small. Nothing to do with its selling point of being FOSS. (And for the record I'm an f-droid user)
- Sylos 9y ago1) What does it matter? If it's better by being small, it's still better. 2) The F-Droid maintainers manually build the apps on F-Droid from the respective code repositories. They will notice when something like that is off. This has to do with it being FOSS. And if you're wanting to tell me that this doesn't scale, not really, no, but it's the same thing that Linux distros have been doing for a long time and Red Hat, SUSE, Canonical actually do have a crapton of users, especially on the server side.
- Godel_unicode 9y agoManual code inspection and FOSS or closed is entirely orthogonal to typo squatting of package names. Every one of those distros gets around volume of desired apps by allowing the inclusion of third-party repos (e.g. current Python or docker) which in turn introduces typo squatting as a vector. You're asking for app store maintainers to slow everything to a crawl and never get popular. No entity which wants to be successful will do that, corporate or otherwise.
- kenaiphatdu 9y agoAgreed. At least with Google, we have something big to blame on.
- Teever 9y agoBesides assuaging feelings of rage what does this accomplish exactly?
- Apocryphon 9y agoPotential for class action lawsuits?
- Godel_unicode 9y agoBlame, nothing. But a single app store means only one place to remove offending apps from.
- gnarbarian 9y agoFewer people run it so it's not as desirable a target. "Security via unpopularity"
- phalangion 9y agoAka, the Linux anti-virus.
- ljk 9y agoisn't it more like Apple anti-virus?
- stordoff 9y agoIt's a factor, but is it really that big of a factor for Linux? I'd've thought that its usage on servers would make it a sizeable target (both as powerful machines to use in a botnet and as a way to compromise company information).
- staticassertion 9y agoAttacks on servers are of a different nature. No one runs Linux desktop, so it is not a valuable target for trojans or other attacks like that. If it were popular we'd see just as much malware for linux.
- Apocryphon 9y agoUniversities and teams within corporations run Linux desktop, though. Maybe they'd make for specialized targets?
- coding123 9y agoYou can't put up a wordpress site with more than 4 plugins selected at random on a linux box that is secure. I even experienced a THEME that was hacked.
- 9y ago
- archvile 9y agoGoogle has no incentive to police the store or protect it’s user’s devices. They only care about getting more people on the Android platform so they can increase their search and advertising revenue. They could give 2 shits about the Play Store.
- kornish 9y agoOne incentive to police the store is that quality is a draw for users.
- noxToken 9y agoWhat's the alternative, iOS? That's great for people with financial stability in developed nations, but that leaves out swathes of those in developing nations.
- tehwebguy 9y agoOld & new previous-gen iPhones are available at Android prices, including “free with contract” (in the US at least). They aren’t cutting edge, but neither are the equivalently priced Androids.
- noxToken 9y agoGood catch. Didn't even think about that.
- ben_w 9y agoI have an Android dev phone that cost £19, no contract, about half-to-a-third the price of a then-equivalent second-hand iPhone. In third world countries even a £19 device is worth stealing, as a friend of my partner experienced.
- tehwebguy 9y agoWow, that is cheaper than I expected. What brand?
- jtokoph 9y ago> That's another reason to switch to F-Droid. But if you need to download WhatsApp to communicate with loved ones, you can't get it from F-Droid, right?
- fiatjaf 9y agoIf your loved ones require you to install crap on your phone to communicate with you, do they really love you?
- Shinkirou 9y agoDon't be dense. Not everyone has the technical skills to decide which is the best app to message others. People just go with the popular ones or the ones their family/friends use.
- skinnymuch 9y agoIf you won't install what you call crap and they call good or great on your phone to communicate with them, do you really love them?
- fiatjaf 9y agoGreat reply. Your question demands an answer, for real. As does mine.
- skinnymuch 9y agoI used to begrudge my friends when I was depressed and isolated (self-sabotage). Why weren't they communicating with me in my ways? They were, but not frequently enough to satisfy me. But in the end, them reaching out multiple times when I was available in only one or two spots, was very commendable and I appreciate the friends that did. There has to be a middle ground. In this case, unfortunately, besides close friends or family who know something about tech, you will have to be the one to compromise and use their apps. Plus, I've seen getting people to move to your communication methods which are less popular usually leads to less talking. Not always, just something I've noticed isn't uncommon. I end up talking to people more if we just use FBM or iMessage or something.
- bambax 9y ago> They can save me from a typo in the web search Well, I'm not so sure. For example, if you search, in French, for the correctly spelled phrase "Avez-vous aidé quelqu'un aujourd'hui" they suggest the wrong spelling "Avez-vous aider quelqu'un aujourd'hui", which is a grammatical abomination. https://i.imgur.com/em6t9qS.png https://i.imgur.com/em6t9qS.png