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I've moved away from the Android ecosystem long ago, so I don't know if this is still maintained, but there's the Addons Detector app[1] which can be used to lo

I've moved away from the Android ecosystem long ago, so I don't know if this is still maintained, but there's the Addons Detector app[1] which can be used to locate adware applications. [1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?hl=en&id=com.denper.addonsdetector https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?hl=en&id=com.denp...

eastbound 3y ago
Just search the Play store for “antivirus” and install all of them. /s that’s probably the problem with an unsafe OS by default.
- throwme_123 3y ago
  This is a joke, right? Many of these so called "antiviruses" are malware themselves.
  - sva_ 3y ago
    In case you really don't know, the "/s" stands for "the preceding text was meant sarcastically".
    - junon 3y ago
      It's a reddit thing which is why it doesn't land here on HN as well.
      - sva_ 3y ago
        https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony_punctuation https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony_punctuation
    - Uehreka 3y ago
      I’m pretty sure it stands for “I was being sarcastic but my sarcasm wasn’t funny enough to read as sarcasm”.
- ohgodplsno 3y ago
  >that’s probably the problem with an unsafe OS by default. Considering how absolutely dreadful iOS has been when it comes to CVEs allowing arbitrary code executions with kernel level privileges, I don't really think anyone gets to talk about iOS being "secure" by default. Secure for your grandfather maybe. There's a reason Zerodium values iOS zero days less than Android ones too [0], which is quite telling of the amount of them they already have in stock. See also Pegasus, which literally had multiple no-interaction RCEs for iPhones through iMessage (because Apple keeps parsing files through horribly vulnerable parsers). [1] Apple gets to pretend that iOS is secure because they control the app store, which is the only official point of entry, and iOS is closed source. [0] https://zerodium.com/program.html https://zerodium.com/program.html [1] https://citizenlab.ca/2021/09/forcedentry-nso-group-imessage-zero-click-exploit-captured-in-the-wild/ https://citizenlab.ca/2021/09/forcedentry-nso-group-imessage...
  - 16bitvoid 3y ago
    > There's a reason Zerodium values iOS zero days less than Android ones too [0], which is quite telling of the amount of them they already have in stock. You could be right, but I don't think it's a given that the latter follows the former. The reason that Zerodium values iOS zero-days less than Androids is more likely because the US and European governments that purchase these exploits from Zerodium value iOS less than Android, which itself could be attributed to there simply being more Android phones used by adversarial countries than iOS.
    - ohgodplsno 3y ago
      Nope. Case in point, Pegasus was used to attack the French Minister of Armies on her iPhone. Hard to attack someone more valuable than that. Zerodium doesn't blow zero days on showing ads to you, they are used for nation-state level attacks.
  - hansel_der 3y ago
    > There's a reason Zerodium values iOS zero days less than Android ones too iirc it was the other way around for some time
kornhole 3y ago
There are loads of tools available to fix Android phones. The problem is that most people just use whatever is setup preinstalled. It would be a fun experiment for someone to document and post here: Buy the cheapest most bloated phone you can find and then: 1. Run the universal android debloater found on Github to disable all the crap. 2. Install some apps such as InviZible Pro to firewall the apps.

eastbound 3y ago

Just search the Play store for “antivirus” and install all of them. /s that’s probably the problem with an unsafe OS by default.

throwme_123 3y ago
This is a joke, right? Many of these so called "antiviruses" are malware themselves.
- sva_ 3y ago
  In case you really don't know, the "/s" stands for "the preceding text was meant sarcastically".
  - junon 3y ago
    It's a reddit thing which is why it doesn't land here on HN as well.
    - sva_ 3y ago
      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony_punctuation https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony_punctuation
  - Uehreka 3y ago
    I’m pretty sure it stands for “I was being sarcastic but my sarcasm wasn’t funny enough to read as sarcasm”.
ohgodplsno 3y ago
>that’s probably the problem with an unsafe OS by default. Considering how absolutely dreadful iOS has been when it comes to CVEs allowing arbitrary code executions with kernel level privileges, I don't really think anyone gets to talk about iOS being "secure" by default. Secure for your grandfather maybe. There's a reason Zerodium values iOS zero days less than Android ones too [0], which is quite telling of the amount of them they already have in stock. See also Pegasus, which literally had multiple no-interaction RCEs for iPhones through iMessage (because Apple keeps parsing files through horribly vulnerable parsers). [1] Apple gets to pretend that iOS is secure because they control the app store, which is the only official point of entry, and iOS is closed source. [0] https://zerodium.com/program.html https://zerodium.com/program.html [1] https://citizenlab.ca/2021/09/forcedentry-nso-group-imessage-zero-click-exploit-captured-in-the-wild/ https://citizenlab.ca/2021/09/forcedentry-nso-group-imessage...
- 16bitvoid 3y ago
  > There's a reason Zerodium values iOS zero days less than Android ones too [0], which is quite telling of the amount of them they already have in stock. You could be right, but I don't think it's a given that the latter follows the former. The reason that Zerodium values iOS zero-days less than Androids is more likely because the US and European governments that purchase these exploits from Zerodium value iOS less than Android, which itself could be attributed to there simply being more Android phones used by adversarial countries than iOS.
  - ohgodplsno 3y ago
    Nope. Case in point, Pegasus was used to attack the French Minister of Armies on her iPhone. Hard to attack someone more valuable than that. Zerodium doesn't blow zero days on showing ads to you, they are used for nation-state level attacks.
- hansel_der 3y ago
  > There's a reason Zerodium values iOS zero days less than Android ones too iirc it was the other way around for some time

kornhole 3y ago

There are loads of tools available to fix Android phones. The problem is that most people just use whatever is setup preinstalled. It would be a fun experiment for someone to document and post here: Buy the cheapest most bloated phone you can find and then: 1. Run the universal android debloater found on Github to disable all the crap. 2. Install some apps such as InviZible Pro to firewall the apps.