4 ms·

> They discourage any installation outside their walled garden because they know that if users have an alternative like they do on PC, their walled garden is do

by JadeNB 7y ago

> They discourage any installation outside their walled garden because they know that if users have an alternative like they do on PC, their walled garden is doomed to fail, they could never sustain a real competition. Not that I disagree that the Apple and Google app stores are monopolies, but, as a counterexample to "doomed to fail", I would almost never install a Firefox extension from outside addons.mozilla.org , even though it's just an extra click or two to do so—the security trade-off is just too great.

realusername 7y ago
I have done it a few times myself, I just looked at the website to be sure I'm installing the right one. I don't think stores provide any security guarantee anyway, anything you can do with an app installed outside the store, you can also do it with an app inside the store. The security is provided by the sandboxing capabilities and the permissions, not the store.
- JadeNB 7y ago
  > I have done it a few times myself, I just looked at the website to be sure I'm installing the right one. I don't claim no-one wouldn't, just that I wouldn't—and I'm a moderately techie type. > I don't think stores provide any security guarantee anyway, anything you can do with an app outside the store, you could do it with an app inside the store. Certainly the mere act of being in the 'store' itself does nothing, but I trust Mozilla's review process (certainly more than Apple's or Google's) to screen out some of the obvious security flags that I wouldn't, or couldn't be bothered to, notice.
  - realusername 7y ago
    Depends what we are talking about, if it's unintentional security issues, the store review is good for that. If the author is trying to put malware in the extension, you have so many ways to hide it that it's pretty much guaranteed they won't catch it. That's why I trust much more the sandboxing capabilities than the store review.
    - seanwilson 7y ago
      > That's why I trust much more the sandboxing capabilities than the store review. Nobody has found a decent way to do fine grained permissions for extensions yet and it's made much harder (compared to say mobile apps) when many extensions need to read/modify data on any web domain. The ominous "Access your data on all web sites" permission is required by uBlock for example because there's nothing more fine grained that will let it block the network requests it's checking for.
- wlesieutre 7y ago
  > I don't think stores provide any security guarantee anyway, anything you can do with an app installed outside the store, you can also do it with an app inside the store. The security is provided by the sandboxing capabilities and the permissions, not the store. In Firefox's case they also have a "Recommended Extensions Program" with more thorough security review by Mozilla. All of the extensions I use (Stylus among them) are in this category. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/recommended-extensions-program https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/recommended-extensions-...

by JadeNB 7y ago

realusername 7y ago

I have done it a few times myself, I just looked at the website to be sure I'm installing the right one. I don't think stores provide any security guarantee anyway, anything you can do with an app installed outside the store, you can also do it with an app inside the store. The security is provided by the sandboxing capabilities and the permissions, not the store.

JadeNB 7y ago
> I have done it a few times myself, I just looked at the website to be sure I'm installing the right one. I don't claim no-one wouldn't, just that I wouldn't—and I'm a moderately techie type. > I don't think stores provide any security guarantee anyway, anything you can do with an app outside the store, you could do it with an app inside the store. Certainly the mere act of being in the 'store' itself does nothing, but I trust Mozilla's review process (certainly more than Apple's or Google's) to screen out some of the obvious security flags that I wouldn't, or couldn't be bothered to, notice.
- realusername 7y ago
  Depends what we are talking about, if it's unintentional security issues, the store review is good for that. If the author is trying to put malware in the extension, you have so many ways to hide it that it's pretty much guaranteed they won't catch it. That's why I trust much more the sandboxing capabilities than the store review.
  - seanwilson 7y ago
    > That's why I trust much more the sandboxing capabilities than the store review. Nobody has found a decent way to do fine grained permissions for extensions yet and it's made much harder (compared to say mobile apps) when many extensions need to read/modify data on any web domain. The ominous "Access your data on all web sites" permission is required by uBlock for example because there's nothing more fine grained that will let it block the network requests it's checking for.
wlesieutre 7y ago
> I don't think stores provide any security guarantee anyway, anything you can do with an app installed outside the store, you can also do it with an app inside the store. The security is provided by the sandboxing capabilities and the permissions, not the store. In Firefox's case they also have a "Recommended Extensions Program" with more thorough security review by Mozilla. All of the extensions I use (Stylus among them) are in this category. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/recommended-extensions-program https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/recommended-extensions-...