zlacker

>>kotaKa+(OP)
I've grown increasingly hateful towards both my Android and iOS devices over the last decade. The platforms themselves are increasingly user-hostile, and their appstores are crammed full of shitty, privacy-invading, telemetry-hoovering, dopamine-triggering, ad-filled, lipstick-covered apps that are often garbage compared to the pioneering days of mobile. I miss the days of my old Palm Pilot.

Is anyone working on fixing this? We can do so much better.

>>rkager+DA
The crazy thing is this is all under the pretense of preventing malware. And I constantly hear this argument that the app stores protect people, even from developers.

I truly don't get it. Are these people from 2009? Have they seen the apps on the current app stores? If you're lucky your highest rated flashlight app will only have a few Fullscreen ads and a subscription less than $10/mo. The recipe sites from content farms are less bloated and way less scammy.

It's certainly not about preventing scams. It's about preventing competition in the scamming business.

>>klabb3+g91
from the techcrunch article:

> According to its own survey, Google says that more than 50 times more malware came through internet-sideloaded sources compared with Google Play, where it has required developer verification since 2023.

50:1 is not preventing. It is just "well, we are better than nothing"

I'm pretty sure there can be other curated stores that can serve the customer¹

[1] customer: owner of phone, not advertisers, data merchants, etc

>>m463+le1
It also shows how bad Google is at preventing malware in the Play store. There are far more than 50x more installs from the Play store than from side loading, which means that most malware is installed through the Play store, despite the much lower barrier to entry for side loading.