4 ms·

I'm not the author, but I answered it above: any useful program on Android, if you want to use it in a way similar to how you'd use your PC will have to ignore

I'm not the author, but I answered it above: any useful program on Android, if you want to use it in a way similar to how you'd use your PC will have to ignore Android's permissions model. That model is useful if your model user is restricted by system administrator to only performing a few tasks (i.e. users don't control their device). That whole idea flies out of the window once you want to do something like copy files or run an FTP server etc. My guess is that MS Windows or MacOS users will feel more at home with using their Android device because they are more used to the system telling them what they may or may not do. But, to Linux user this feels very user-ugly. Being in the latter category, I've been oscillating between two states of using my phone: either go all-in, and wipe the OS entirely replacing it with something sensible, or never trust it and don't put any personal data on the phone. Unfortunately, neither state is really feasible at this point. Living in an almost cash-less society, phone is almost a necessary payment tool (my bank tends to randomly lock my debit card every few months...) I also need to use my phone to authenticate to various government and work-related services. And that requires installing the toxic garbage OS on it. I wish services like cash payments and identification were provides as public interfaces instead of installable closed-source software... but, unfortunately, it seems like free software world had lost the battle for the phones. At least for now.

jraph 4y ago
> My guess is that MS Windows or MacOS users will feel more at home with using their Android device because they are more used to the system telling them what they may or may not do. But, to Linux user this feels very user-ugly. Don't lose patience though, it's coming on Linux too with Flatpaks :-) For instance the second screenshot of the latest post of "Adventures in Linux and KDE" [1] shows how it looks in Discover. [1] https://pointieststick.com/2023/02/17/this-week-in-kde-a-smooth-release-of-plasma-5-27/ https://pointieststick.com/2023/02/17/this-week-in-kde-a-smo...
- crabbone 4y ago
  I work in a company that was acquired by a larger company about a year ago. The original company simply gave us laptops for work and asked to put full-disk encryption on them and to follow very general, but very sensible security requirements (eg. lock the screen if going away for long time, don't leave in the office unattended etc.) We were allowed to keep our original laptops so far. The IT department of the new overlords declared that eventually, they are going to retire our current generation of laptops and replace them with something that they, themselves, install and control. Users of such laptops will not have root access, for instance. Will have some mandatory garbage antivirus and other corporate spyware installed on them. The company is said to cycle their laptops every 4 years or so. And that's the time when I'm planning on handing in my two month notice. Yeah, it's possible to make Linux suck as much as Windows or MacOS (in this respect), but this will cause people to revolt. That's why I also won't use Flatpacks or similar containerized / read-only bind-mounted installs etc. This goes against the reason why I chose to use Linux. I feel upset and confused seeing how tools like these get more and more traction.
  - seanw444 4y ago
    I hate that companies do this. I'm very thankful to have found a job where my boss lets me basically self-manage my tasks, and my own hardware. I trust my security more than some IT guys.
  - jraph 4y ago
    I think you are conflating your restrictive and painful company policies with features that can be beneficial to the users. I believe such a permission system can be a good thing. Apart from the "the app could be a bit malicious and I can't check by looking at its code because it's not available" situation which does not really concern me because I avoid proprietary apps, let alone apps that could be a bit malicious, it reduces the surface attack. Imagine a browser that asks for no permissions, or for temporary ones when needed (access to the microphone or the webcam for example - not sure Flatpak allows temporary permissions, but still). Some malicious website trying to exploit a security flaw would be restricted in the harm it can cause by the permission system. The user is still in control because they can decide what to allow. Actually, such a system improves the user control because now, the user can also deny things if they want. Such system can be abused by restrictive policies, but the problem is there: in the policies. Now, I won't use Flatpak as long as I can, because I don't like its heaviness. It takes space on the disk. I don't like the delays it causes when running an app. The integration of Flatpak apps in the system is not perfect yet and I notice it. But this permission system? Yes, looks good :-)
    - crabbone 4y ago
      > features that can be beneficial to the users. I'm talking about both the typical user, and the intention behind creating Linux. The intention was to give freedom to explore and to modify. Using something like Flatpack takes that freedom away. Yes, unfortunately, Linux may be subverted into doing things its authors didn't intend... well, giving freedom has that kind of danger. > Imagine a browser It's a browser problem. It's not a Linux problem. We have an awful application distribution platform that grew out of distributed document database. Something that, from engineering standpoint should have never been allowed to happen, but happened due to greed of some and hubris of others. We should fix browsers, not operating systems to deal with this problem.
warkdarrior 4y ago
MS Windows is a lot more open than Android. Any Windows program you run can access any of your data, without any constraints. Most users, who do not carefully review every piece of code they run, probably like a more constrained environment, so "any program can do anything" cannot happen.
- crabbone 4y ago
  Yeah... I guess, Microsoft couldn't have dreamed about putting their users into such a strict jail as was made possible by the advent of iPhone and later Android. Especially so due to having a free alternative that, if they pushed too hard, might have become more attractive to their users. They were also sued more than Android have been so far. And the legislation has still to pick up steam to crack on the scam that some of the Android (or iPhone) parts are. Unfortunately, legislation needs to have much more technological sophistication that they currently have to be able to deal with this. :(

jraph 4y ago

> My guess is that MS Windows or MacOS users will feel more at home with using their Android device because they are more used to the system telling them what they may or may not do. But, to Linux user this feels very user-ugly. Don't lose patience though, it's coming on Linux too with Flatpaks :-) For instance the second screenshot of the latest post of "Adventures in Linux and KDE" [1] shows how it looks in Discover. [1] https://pointieststick.com/2023/02/17/this-week-in-kde-a-smooth-release-of-plasma-5-27/ https://pointieststick.com/2023/02/17/this-week-in-kde-a-smo...

crabbone 4y ago
I work in a company that was acquired by a larger company about a year ago. The original company simply gave us laptops for work and asked to put full-disk encryption on them and to follow very general, but very sensible security requirements (eg. lock the screen if going away for long time, don't leave in the office unattended etc.) We were allowed to keep our original laptops so far. The IT department of the new overlords declared that eventually, they are going to retire our current generation of laptops and replace them with something that they, themselves, install and control. Users of such laptops will not have root access, for instance. Will have some mandatory garbage antivirus and other corporate spyware installed on them. The company is said to cycle their laptops every 4 years or so. And that's the time when I'm planning on handing in my two month notice. Yeah, it's possible to make Linux suck as much as Windows or MacOS (in this respect), but this will cause people to revolt. That's why I also won't use Flatpacks or similar containerized / read-only bind-mounted installs etc. This goes against the reason why I chose to use Linux. I feel upset and confused seeing how tools like these get more and more traction.
- seanw444 4y ago
  I hate that companies do this. I'm very thankful to have found a job where my boss lets me basically self-manage my tasks, and my own hardware. I trust my security more than some IT guys.
- jraph 4y ago
  I think you are conflating your restrictive and painful company policies with features that can be beneficial to the users. I believe such a permission system can be a good thing. Apart from the "the app could be a bit malicious and I can't check by looking at its code because it's not available" situation which does not really concern me because I avoid proprietary apps, let alone apps that could be a bit malicious, it reduces the surface attack. Imagine a browser that asks for no permissions, or for temporary ones when needed (access to the microphone or the webcam for example - not sure Flatpak allows temporary permissions, but still). Some malicious website trying to exploit a security flaw would be restricted in the harm it can cause by the permission system. The user is still in control because they can decide what to allow. Actually, such a system improves the user control because now, the user can also deny things if they want. Such system can be abused by restrictive policies, but the problem is there: in the policies. Now, I won't use Flatpak as long as I can, because I don't like its heaviness. It takes space on the disk. I don't like the delays it causes when running an app. The integration of Flatpak apps in the system is not perfect yet and I notice it. But this permission system? Yes, looks good :-)
  - crabbone 4y ago
    > features that can be beneficial to the users. I'm talking about both the typical user, and the intention behind creating Linux. The intention was to give freedom to explore and to modify. Using something like Flatpack takes that freedom away. Yes, unfortunately, Linux may be subverted into doing things its authors didn't intend... well, giving freedom has that kind of danger. > Imagine a browser It's a browser problem. It's not a Linux problem. We have an awful application distribution platform that grew out of distributed document database. Something that, from engineering standpoint should have never been allowed to happen, but happened due to greed of some and hubris of others. We should fix browsers, not operating systems to deal with this problem.

warkdarrior 4y ago

MS Windows is a lot more open than Android. Any Windows program you run can access any of your data, without any constraints. Most users, who do not carefully review every piece of code they run, probably like a more constrained environment, so "any program can do anything" cannot happen.

crabbone 4y ago
Yeah... I guess, Microsoft couldn't have dreamed about putting their users into such a strict jail as was made possible by the advent of iPhone and later Android. Especially so due to having a free alternative that, if they pushed too hard, might have become more attractive to their users. They were also sued more than Android have been so far. And the legislation has still to pick up steam to crack on the scam that some of the Android (or iPhone) parts are. Unfortunately, legislation needs to have much more technological sophistication that they currently have to be able to deal with this. :(