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We really really need an open OS for mobile phones that is actually competitive with commercial offerings.
I don’t think the OS is the problem - it’s that some of the critical service/apps people rely on (government ID, banking) only exist for the closed systems. Third party OS’s try to “solve” it through various container approaches running the official apps, but since they see that as a security problem it’s not something you can fully trust to be working at all times.
That’s the only reason I’m still on android. If I install a different OS I won’t be able to login to do anything government related. I won’t even be able to pay with my credit card online. I could get a physical code device from the government, but I’m not gonna lie, I really like the ease of access of having an app for that stuff, instead of a seperate device I have to have on me at all times.
I will probably have to go the route of two phones soon. One for my stuff and communicating with friends and family, and one (maybe one of the cheaper iphones?) for all the “required” apps.
Funny enough, you tend to see quite some people in China do this. I wonder why.
All those “apps” are websites. You could say NFC is special, but so is gps.
Exactly. Locking basic services behind apps should be illegal. Services must be accessible to everyone.
same goes for the weather app …
(context: some years ago they locked the publicly-funded german weather service’s API, so common people can’t access it anymore. you need to use a spam-ridden app to access it now.)
At the very least you can still pay a small one-time fee for the DWD WarnWetter app (or enter a code for firefighters).
Best 3€ I’ve ever spent purely out of spite, even if the reason behind it is complete BS.
Yea… Like some of those parking applications. Ugh.
This. Alternative OS exist: Ubuntu Touch, postmarketOS, SailfishOS, just to name a few.
What is missing are the apps people want. And those include mostly commercial apps, where the developers need to weigh dev hours vs profits, and decide to only target the big two for obvious reasons. That is the key problem.
I think they’re both pretty big problems. An open OS and hardware that supports it seems to be a huge hurdle, but at least there is a clear vision of how to solve it. The problem you bring up though… It seems like we’ve almost gone too far at this point and it’s gonna be really hard to put the cat back in the bag. It seems like something we need to solve with legislation potentially?
The people writing the legislation are the same people who don’t see a problem with a government-furnished app using Play Integrity
Yes there is a general ignorance to this problem among law makers, in my country at least, as well as a bit of regulatory capture with respect to tech in general. The boogie man of “security” is also a very persuasive concept for a lot of people. This is not a problem that will be solved easily.
Doesn’t android allow this?
That’s what the OP is referring to: Google just announced they will do their best to kill off sideloading.
I had no idea. Damn…
didn’t apple just get forced to enable side loading in the EU due to the DMA?
Some of these comments are wild.
The OS should not at all stop me from doing what I want to do. Ever. Not even if that means I can fuck it up.
They can warn me when I attempt to do things that could fuck shit up. They can make it a bit harder to navigate to certain things so I’m less likely to fuck shit up. But it’s my god damn hardware. I should be able to run and configure the software on it as I see fit.
meh both on mac and windows you’re not the true admin of the machine. mac requires disabling SIP and some others to even be able to delete default applications for example and don’t get me started on windows. linux ftw (as I type this from my old ass ios device)
And on any Intel hardware the true root account belongs to NSA anyway.
you can get all the right you need with a little trickery. I mean, psexec is made and distributed by Microsoft, freely. a simple download. and I don’t think it’s bad that the average user can’t run everything immediately as TrustedInstaller or SYSTEM.
that’s a nice option to have, at least. i’ve s few more complaints left for each OS, but in the end i’d prefer a linux style and level of control over a machine and overall less abstraction. we’re getting software locked out most hardware nowadays: cars, household appliances, public transit, airports, privacy and so on
I think that just falls under “make it a bit harder to navigate to certain things so I’m less likely to fuck shit up.”
To be clear, Kolanaki is saying that that is not how an OS should behave.
oh yea I agree I was just venting further; prefer less hand holding
I mean nobody is shocked that they both suck. If it’s not open source you are not in control.
“Why isn’t x working! I set x on my [insert device here] and now it won’t turn on!”
Have you people never worked in IT support? Like its all fair and good that you, a power user, dont want the OS to restrict you at all. But for your averrage person to be treated the same is just asking for disaster.
A hidden option to unlock power user mode solves this
Yeah exactly. Though i would personally say a bit more obfuscation is needed then a simple hidden switch.
Don’t hide it. That’s pointless. Make it so someone has to type “I understand what I’m doing and my username is blah” into a box to activate “advanced” mode, after reading a warning, sure.
I don’t disagree, but it’s very funny that LinusTechTips went through that exact process a moment before publically destroying his desktop on PopOS
Right, but pretty much everyone but Linus and his sycophants agree that was a bone headed mistake. If you type “I understand what I am doing…” and you do not understand- you are asking for trouble.
Granted, that bug shouldn’t have existed in the first place but I feel like the warning should have raised a big red flag for a ‘tech expert’. It almost feels like he did it on purpose to prove some sort of point about how Linux ‘isn’t there yet’ but ofc there is no way to prove that.
I have worked in IT. People still manage to screw up shit that’s locked down. Babysitting everyone because some people are just technologically incompetent is stupid and does not solve any actual problems.
Can’t IT lock things down if they so desire? That is the owner of the device using it as they see fit: Locking it down so the non technical users of the device can’t break it. That you keep suggesting that devices should come out of the box restricted would make your IT job obsolete and in fact impossible to perform.
Edit: And before you ask yes I have worked in IT support, although I currently do not.
Not corporate IT, but IT for home users, back in the days when things were much less locked down basically every computer i got access too was completely crawling with malware. Had tons of people lose all of their data including family photos and the like because they dowloaded something dodgy off limewire and their system just let them run it.
Why cant you guys understand that the vast vast majority of computer users are not technical? And as such need those safety rails in place to save them from their own ignorance?
they are crawling with malware today, from the factory, except it is harder to remove, especially on smartphones.
safety rails are not steal walls. instead of walls education is needed. education can happen not only in schools.
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We’ll always need safety rails, I think the thing you’re missing in most of the arguments you’re seeing here is that people want ways over or around those safety rails, and that those safety rails do not need to be as strict as they’re becoming. That is not the case currently and that is definitely not the direction AOSP or iOS are interested in going.
Also, just for the record, comparing the modern era of computing to the limewire era is bananas.
Exactly.
I have no problem with safety rails for those who need it, my problem is that with each passing update these rails become obligatory and non-removable.Is that not what sideloading is? A way over the safety rails?
But we subsidised the cost of your phone so we could make sweet sweet recurring revenue off your usage habits and targeted advertising!
You wouldn’t want to take that away from us would you? Won’t SOMEBODY think of the shareholders?!
I realise you’re being facetious, but if anything Google made my phone more expensive with the certification process.
I’m getting really sick of products being only available subsidized by a level of invasiveness that should be illegal.
The government should need an individualized warrant to purchase my data. And honestly Google should need one to collect it
I’m getting really sick of products being only available subsidized by a level of invasiveness that should be illegal.
You mean like smart TVs?
An early metastase of the cancer.
From a personal freedom POV, I agree. But, if it was easy it would be a support nightmare.
Google and Apple scan every app that gets loaded into their app stores for malware. There’s also a lengthy review process, even just for updates. Some malware does still slip through, but it’s a trickle compared to what gets blocked. If sideloading apps were easy, my younger sister would be in so much trouble. She’d have various accounts phished within a day. She’d install something that drains the battery within an hour and not understand what was going wrong. And, she’s relatively tech savvy. I have no idea how the older generation would survive.
Of course, since Apple and Google make 30% of every sale on the app store, they’re not purely motivated to just keep their users safe. The real problem is that there is a duopoly in smartphones. Apple and Google have essentially the same policies, and if you don’t like them you have no other options. If there were a dozen OSes, there could be smart phones for Granny that had everything locked down, and smart phones for h4x04z that didn’t. Companies that struck a good balance between protecting their users and allowing their users freedom would do well in the market. Companies that didn’t would shrink and fail.
Sure, but there’s a good argument that that should be an end-user issue, and not something that the OS/Phone manufacturer should be trying to mitigate. It’s a risk you take when owning a device, that you can also break it, or get it infected.
Otherwise, why bother selling the phone in the first place, rather than contracting it out under a rental agreement?
my younger sister would be in so much trouble.
your younger syster should have parental controls on, and it’s worrying that you suggest it is not the case. I don’t know their age but most probably they shouldn’t be able to install any apps from anywhere without parent approval.
She’d have various accounts phished within a day.
guessing fron what we already know, she probably shouldn’t have half of those accounts.
My younger sister is in her 40s. She’s a pretty typical cell phone user.
in that case parental controls would still solve a lot of problems, including this one
I think your parents should turn on their parental controls because you’re going a bit wild, buddy.
oh don’t worry daddy google will turn it on for all of us thanks to the deranged irresponsibility of your kind.
if someone is so tech illiterate that they are breaking the phone’s software and leaking their information all over the internet, they cannot be responsibly allowed to use that device without restrictions.
I bet you are one of those that want forced government ID based age verification everywhere because you agree with people who can’t be bothered to set limits on their kids phone.
I mean you’re basically arguing for parental control, it is just done by google.
So? Don’t run fishy files off the internet unless you’re open to the risks. Have secure walls that require either a setting change or individual permission grants before they can access secure apps.
Operating systems are prone to natural monopoly or duopoly. Furthermore there’s anti consumer incentives here in that governments want surveillance data and os companies sell it.
Where competition fails to protect consumers governments must. And that includes protection from governments. I know it’s ironic today as we’re in a fascist regime, but that’s one of the basic principles of my country. So anyways please Europe protect us worldwide consumers from American companies.
That’s a moron take. Plenty of people have no business downloading random apps. It takes all of 15 seconds with a Google search to side load. It’s a fucking idiot test.
But yeah I’m sure if this check weren’t there people would flock to fdroid 🙄
I think this is referring to recent news that google is trying to ban non-google-play installs (aka: sideloading)
Well that’s different. Blocking side loading is insane. But that post is missing context unless you’re following that closely.
B-b-but brand integrity! Customers love that! (Shareholders too)
Did you even stop for ONE second to think about the shareholders? You guys are all selfish, with your privacy this, freedom that. I can’t take it. Sundar Pichai is frowning down on you all from his penthouse. May his piss rain down and replenish our work ethic.
You own nothing and will be happy is not a communist idea, it’s the endgame of capitalism for 99.9% of the people.
Pardon my ignorance, but would loading a forked version of android (like lineageOS or grapheneOS) get around this? I know graphene at least puts all Google services in its own container. Would that allow the rest of the system to run “side loaded” apps? Or is this unavoidable if you use any version based on android?
Cause at this point, I’m considering loading Ubuntu touch on here
Larger issue at hand is the number of devices that are able to install / are currently supported by those projects.
Even something like unlocking a bootloader is a daunting task for an average someone who’s even considering flashing a custom rom.
Considering regional variants of phones (looking at you Samsung) making this an even higher and more confusing task for the average someone.
The littering of tools for specific devices, requiring running on specific operating systems, the list goes on as far as hurdles to load a more open operating system on a phone.
It’s like that quote, “you can fool some people some of the time, but you can’t fool all people all of the time”- thing is, they don’t have to. They fool most of the people most of the time, and that is all they need to impose their agenda. The fringe cases, like people rooting and installing alternative OS’s, don’t matter if 99% of the world’s population go along with whatever the corps dictate. The sheer inertia of that will keep pulling the tech where they want it to go, as global industry pulls the same way.
Yes. Those who already don’t give a shit about google will be unaffected.
Megacorps gonna megacorp.
Monopolies gonna monopoly.We can fight these giants by not using their services & products.
It only gets harder to fight them the more we give in.
I can’t even get people to switch to LibreOffice, not cuz they use some advanced MS Office feature but because the interface “looks dated”. So they’d rather pay a subscription for life to use software that spies on them than download free software that does what they need but has a 2010s style interface.
Humans suck so much.
I get what you are saying but is it really too much to ask for an interface that looks like it belongs there?
For legally free and open software that has to maintain UI consistency across Windows, MacOS, and the plethora of open desktop environments? Yes, yes it is.
No it’s not. There are other free and open software offerings that function cross platform and do it more cleanly.
For a project as big and old and full of legacy code as LibreOffice, I think their interface is pretty great. And its way more customizable than MS Office. Its just not the absolute latest and greatest in styling.
And, if MS didn’t make it so hard to maintain compatibility with their “open” file format, TDF might be able to put more resources into UX. As it is, they have to reverse engineer all the nonconforming BS that Microsoft puts in their OOXML implementation.
I prefer the old school style menus and such. I stopped using MS Word around the time that they came out with the ‘ribbon’ style menus or whatever it’s called, so if they ‘update’ it I sure hope it’s as an option or a fork.
I can understand people who grew up with it or who have spent years using it might like it better though.
I’m not willing to pay for it, are you? If no then its to much to ask.
No, it’s too much to demand but simply asking they keep the interface as clean looking as any other free cross platform open source project is not an outlandish request.
They update the ui in most of their patches, theyve made the ui incredibly customisable. They have the classic header or a ribbon header. Its open source software it can’t afford a redesign every few years to keep up with Microsoft design trends. The team is like 8 people.
I might be wrong but i feel like the people complaining about the ui dont really even use it. After a week of using it you get used to it and it looks normal.
I can use libreoffice. I just don’t. My Mac has Apple numbers and pages and they are enough for me and when I finally make the jump to Linux full time I’ll just have to adapt to libre again. But this is a complaint that many others have which is why I bring it up.
I “pay” LibreOffice.
Why not??
because the interface “looks dated”.
The real issue is M$ intentionally not following standards, so that opening an Office doc may or may not properly render in other suites. Hooray for EEE. Fuckers.
Eh, I haven’t had that issue in years. Maybe its a problem for office workers who make extremely complicated documents and spreadsheets, but those aren’t the kinds of people I’m talking about.
EDIT: Not implying you’re wrong about M$ fake open standards bullshit, just that I don’t think its a huge concern for the average home user.
Humans are creatures of habit, and risk averse most of the time. Risk, being change of any sort when things seem “stable.”
All you can do is lead by example and enjoy life and tell those poor souls they’re stupid for spending money for something they can change the look like MS Office easily.
Ngl, I installed a few OnlyOffices just because of UI.
It has ribbon UI and about the same placement of buttons as MS Office stuff.It’s fine.
(Based in Latvia, but they had a Russian momma, now Singapore.)
These guys forget that they are an incredibly stark minority of users. Most users cannot be trusted to have free reign over their own system. We all know this to be true. You’ve troubleshot your grandma’s Jitterbug phone that somehow had Internet Explorer toolbars installed onto it, you know this to be true.
Maybe there is no reasonable case for a developer to have any say over what you - specifically you, the guy who knows what “*nix” means - do with your hardware. But there are plenty of reasonable cases for the other 99.99% of users.
Posts like this are like a mechanic saying “There is no reason for a manufacturer to force drivers into having a catalytic converter in their own engine”. Like… okay, maybe your car is special because you’re a literal expert, but the rest of the world need that thing because they can’t be trusted to manage their emissions on their own.
Posts like this are like a mechanic saying “There is no reason for a manufacturer to force drivers into having a catalytic converter in their own engine”
It’s more along the lines of “There’s no reason for manufacturers to forbid my mechanic from installing a perfectly fine catalytic converter just because said manufacturer doesn’t like it”
Giving manufacturers full control over the software users run will not end well. Why should google tolerate a browser that runs an adblock extension? Currently they do so because the alternative would be losing users to alternatives but if they have all android devices under control and make deals with most of the browser devs (it’s all chromium already and firefox is almost entirely financed by google) then you’ll find yourself forced to watch ads. This is what they’re slowly creeping towards.
You already can’t “sideload” without navigating the options and going through a big scary pop-up saying you better know what you’re doing. In other words, it’s already locked down enough.
This is not about making grandma safe. It is about control.
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That’s fine. They should be LEGALLY required to allow ME to make that call and offer an avenue to allow me to do remove it all.
Nobody is saying everyone’s machine MUST be completely open and insecure.
But that’s a far cry from giving me no recourse to make MY hardware do what I want it to.
And before anybody screams “liability”, they’re going to hold you to an EULA anyway - throw a couple lines in there.
Nobody is saying everyone’s machine MUST be completely open and insecure.
Neither am I. I don’t disagree that Google is overstepping with the restrictions they’re imposing lately. It’s a point I’ll damn well argue, myself.
The problem I take is with the argument the OP presents, because it incorrectly suggests that the average user has (or should have) an expert-level knowledge of their devices. Safety rails exist for a reason. Yes, they’re going too far; but no, removing them outright would not be the better solution.
That would be true, if the Play store was curated any better.
You can still upload malware to the Play store. It happened numerous times, both on the Apple side, and on the Google Side.
Restricting your choice from 2 places of dodgy places to 1 dodgy place does nothing.
Why do you hate property rights?
Because that’s what your argument actually boils down to: utter and complete contempt for users’ property rights. You’re advocating for subjugating them to corporations as technofeudal serfs.
You know this to be true.
You’ve made up some things there. My concern is that the OP is a poor argument for the point it’s trying to make. Not sure where you invented the rest of that bullshit from.
I didn’t make up a damn thing. You clearly and obviously hate property rights. That’s the only reason you could possibly justify trying to take them away from people. Just admit it.
Claiming that corporations – not governments, corporations, which is why your catalytic converter analogy was bullshit BTW – need to self-servingly restrict people in the name of “protecting” them is fucking dishonest and you know it.
Cool, I never claimed anything even close to what you just vomited out. Here’s what I did say, though:
The problem I take is with the argument the OP presents, because it incorrectly suggests that the average user has (or should have) an expert-level knowledge of their devices. Safety rails exist for a reason. Yes, they’re going too far; but no, removing them outright would not be the better solution.
That’s all I was claiming, my guy. Go find your “gotcha” moment somewhere else, because it ain’t here.
What’s being discussed here isn’t “safety rails,” though. Why are you lying?
Android already had “safety rails,” which is why installing from sources other than the Play Store was called “sideloading” and not just “loading.” What’s happening now is that Google is turning those barriers against the users and building a cage to imprison them instead.
People need to understand how fucking despicable and beyond the pale this shit actually is, yet you’re making excuses for it instead. What the fuck.
Yes, you’ve identified that there are multiple rails. Arguably, too many. It’s almost like I pointed that out already.
Yes, they’re going too far
Are you illiterate or just trolling?
I don’t know where you think you wrote that, but it wasn’t in this comment chain. Are you expecting me to go hunting through your user page or something? You are not fucking entitled to call me “illiterate” for responding to what you actually wrote here and not being clairvoyant!
If anything, you’re the one who’s [concern] trolling here, playing devil’s advocate for Google.
my take on it is that it was a mistake to push end-to-end encryption on every chat. now the government wants to remove privacy for everyone, because some people are going to abuse it.
it would have been a better approach to make privacy through encryption possible, but somewhat technical so non-techy people aren’t going to use it much.
context: EU tries to implement “chat control” (again) which is basically removing user’s privacy on private chat messages by letting the government spy on it.
my take on it is that it was a mistake to push end-to-end encryption on every chat. now the government wants to remove privacy for everyone, because some people are going to abuse it.
I’m inclined to agree with this, even though I dislike it. I think encryption should be accessible to everybody, for any purpose, no questions asked. But, making it mainstream allowed certain powers to control the narrative. It’s much easier to shift public opinions on something that most people know about, as opposed to something that’s more niche. While everybody should have access to encryption, there is benefit to obscurity, as well.
governments are trying to take away privacy from regular people so we never should have tried to give it to everybody
Wtf??? That’s completely asinine.
By your logic, 30 years ago you shouldn’t have been trusted to have free reign over your system because you didn’t know what you were doing yet.
But you did have free reign, you learned, and now you want to pull the ladder up behind you.
By your logic, 30 years ago you shouldn’t have been trusted to have free reign over your system because you didn’t know what you were doing yet.
30 years ago I would’ve been a child. So… yeah. Not exactly somebody who should have the ability to give root access to any scuzzy app prompting for it.
But you did have free reign, you learned, and now you want to pull the ladder up behind you.
You assume a lot here.
But these users can fuck their phone up perfectly fine with the offerings provided by the horribly curated play store and thats even intentional. I dont doubt there are also techilliterate users who seek out dodgy sites to sideload some shitty apk. But i dont believe google one bit this move is made to make the experience more secure for this subset of users. Its about as much control as possible over their platform because the line must go up.
But i dont believe google one bit this move is made to make the experience more secure for this subset of users.
It’s in their financial interests if their platforms aren’t synonymous with data breaches. So yes, the security of users is a prerequisite to their profit-driven goals.
People cannot be trusted to govern themselves, this is why I am supporting the redcoats. HAIL KING GEORGE III! /s
I think that, with the current state of OSes like Windows and Android, there should be some minimal amount of friction to enabling installation of non-vetted apps. Maybe some switch that can’t be enabled accidentally, or without understanding that there’s risk involved (or at least a switch that can be disabled and password protected) for the sake of children or the elderly.
On the other hand, though, an OS should be built with enough security and sandboxing that no single application can brick your entire device without at least tapping through and giving it a ton of permissions; which means that the only remaining risk to the end user would be access to disinformation or other harmful content, or the risk of personal information exfiltration (i.e. phishing). At that point, a simple block list (or even just an allow list) maintained by a trusted guardian or third party would be sufficient to keep children or the elderly from harmful content, and whoops we’ve just invented the internet again.
I am once again begging for Boot2Gecko to become a thing.
Boot2Gecko is a thing: it’s called KaiOS. It targets lower tech devices though and is just as locked down as Android, potentially even more actually.
I’m interested: why do you want it? I’m not a big fan of the idea of web development being the standard
As for KaiOS, I don’t think that’s really a good successor of Boot2Gecko; from what I’ve seen they went the app route, which kind of fundamentally violates the spirit of what B2G was supposed to be.
I’m not sure what the original vision was, but KaiOS is just a fork of Boot2Gecko.
I, too, hate web dev being the standard. It’s inevitable though. Mostly OS agnostic, easy to learn, etc.
I don’t see why it’s inevitable at all. Browsers are incredibly useful and will always have their place, but they don’t have to be everything. Why would you say it’s inevitable? There are plenty of other OS agnostic frameworks on which to build programs, and not everything actually has to be OS agnostic imo. I don’t write anything with Windows in mind :)
If you write desktop software and don’t ship a Windows version, that’s like 90% of users you’re missing out on. Android vs iOS you lose half. Not everyone wants to learn C++ for qt and by the time you get to things like Flutter, might as well use Tauri and some lightweight js framework.
Not an issue if you only do FOSS, but commercial software is always about lowest possible cost to build
Sure, but imagine a world where you could run a JVM (just as an example please don’t focus on that lol) on your phone (and yes I know Android is JVM-esque, but you aren’t just running JVM code on there willy nilly due to the way it’s designed). There is no longer an Android vs iOS in that case with respect to JVM and even desktop or laptop applications. Of course there would need to be work done on the development side to deal with screen size and all that fun stuff, but these are all solvable problems and things you already have to deal with. QT has very easy to use Python bindings if you want an easy entry to that so that’s no big deal. I don’t write a lot of GUI code so I don’t know the landscape that well, but I’ve had success with PyQt6 and Kotlin + JavaFX.
Anyway that’s all kinda besides the point. We know how to build VMs; we’ve done it plenty of times. There is nothing magic about JavaScript; it’s just a VM. Are browsers incredibly complex and well designed programs? Yes, but they’re not special and their role as the backbone of everything doesn’t seem inevitable or wise to me.
Let me answer your question with a question: How many things do you do with your phone that aren’t also able to be accomplished with a website already? I’d be willing to bet that the answer is in the single digits. And for most of those, that limitation is likely to be entirely arbitrary, instituted by a developer as an anti-consumer form of lock-in.
Delivering application-like experiences via the web allows users to make accessibility changes to that experience without the developer needing to support it explicitly. It also allows users to implement plugins that extend and improve their experience, by removing undesirable content or adding functionality that you haven’t provided. And because browsers are built on open standards, there’s no longer any device ecosystem lock-in; I should be able to access all of the websites I want to from any browser on any device. Users could even build their own bespoke applications, without the need to enable a developer mode on their phone or get a certification from a megacorp.
And because downloadable and cacheable progressive web apps are a thing, as well as local storage options for browsers, the experience for an end-user of a browser-only phone wouldn’t need to be any different in low-signal or high-latency situations.
The web is a mature and proven platform for delivering arbitrary code and data, plugins make the web more accessible and easier to use, and web standards make the world more open. It’s not a perfect platform, of course, but it’s the one we’ve got; I think making it the default rather than the fallback for the devices most people use more than any other would be a great boon for the world at large.
Let me answer your question with a question: How many things do you do with your phone that aren’t also able to be accomplished with a website already?
This is kinda begging the question imo. Phones are terrible anti-user devices, so I can’t do the things I’d like to do with it that I can’t also accomplish on a website. Wasn’t that kinda the problem that was initially stated in the OP?
Delivering application-like experiences via the web allows users to make accessibility changes to that experience without the developer needing to support it explicitly. It also allows users to implement plugins that extend and improve their experience, by removing undesirable content or adding functionality that you haven’t provided. And because browsers are built on open standards, there’s no longer any device ecosystem lock-in; I should be able to access all of the websites I want to from any browser on any device. Users could even build their own bespoke applications, without the need to enable a developer mode on their phone or get a certification from a megacorp.
Almost all of this would be equally possible if the phone wasn’t just a platform for a browser. I actually think a browser model limits a lot of what you say here, and browsers definitely have ecosystem lock-in problems: what Google says essentially goes these days. The browser isn’t the great liberator of phones imo.
I don’t hate browsers; a lot of what you said is true and great for users with respect to browsers. I do however think it’s a weird way to try to fix the phone ecosystem by replacing a restrictive sandbox with a restrictive sandbox that also ties you to a really terrible development ecosystem.
Phones are terrible anti-user devices, so I can’t do the things I’d like to do with it that I can’t also accomplish on a website. Wasn’t that kinda the problem that was initially stated in the OP?
Maybe I phrased it poorly. I meant, what things do you do on your phone that wouldn’t be possible on a website if you were on another platform?
Actually, I’ve been actively trying to use Firefox Mobile for everything I reasonably can on my phone, and it’s way more possible than you might think.
I actually think a browser model limits a lot of what you say here,
I think you misunderstand me here. I’m not asking for a browser model to increase the number of things that app developers can do, I want to increase the number of things that end-users can safely do, and running web apps in a browser are currently the easiest way to do that.
and browsers definitely have ecosystem lock-in problems: what Google says essentially goes these days. The browser isn’t the great liberator of phones imo.
That’s absolutely a huge problem, yes; but it’s a different one. And in the faintest praise possible, Google does at least maintain fairly solid web standards.
I do however think it’s a weird way to try to fix the phone ecosystem by replacing a restrictive sandbox with a restrictive sandbox that also ties you to a really terrible development ecosystem.
It would be a replacing a sandbox that’s restrictive for the user and developer with one that’s only restrictive for the developer. And I don’t think it’s a particularly terrible development ecosystem; in a lot of ways, the front-end dev ecosystem is the most mature ecosystem. We’re absolutely spoiled for choice in IDEs, in linting tools, in packages…I mean, I used to work in email development years ago. THAT is a terrible development ecosystem, let me tell you.
I meant, what things do you do on your phone that wouldn’t be possible on a website if you were on another platform?
This is still begging the question: your question contains the assertion that the current smart phone model must continue. If you only think about the things you currently do with it, then of course you can do a lot of the same things with a browser model: they’re both restrictive sandboxes in similar ways. Interestingly though, I can name a few things already that are currently easy on an Android phone but not in a browser, the most obvious being running any sort of network server. You can’t take advantage of Linux’s configfs and functionfs APIs on a device that is ironically the best device made to use them. I mean, browsers were never even designed to allow filesystem access so an API would need to be added for that even, something so trivial. There are an almost infinite number of things you can do with direct access to an OS compared to through browsers; browsers are required to treat every single thing they do on behalf of the server they’re talking to as malicious. That’s the whole threat model, and it’s completely correct, but I don’t want that threat model applied to my entire device.
I think we’re just thinking of different things. You seem to be thinking about how to remake the current smart phone experience, and that’s pretty easy to do with a browser model. I think the current smart phone experience is pretty bad and incredibly limiting, so I see a move to the browser model pretty much… no different. I wouldn’t be particularly excited. I never understood the Boot2Gecko excitement anyway.
I’d like to see a smart phone that is just a small computer that happens to also have phone functionality. Where you actually have an entire Linux system available to you, and you’re allowed unconfined root access. You simply can’t get that if you’re being sandboxed by anything. To be honest if Android just stopped all the insanity around full, meaningful root access and unmodifiable hardware roots of trust, I wouldn’t need anything else. I like the availability of the tightly controlled application sandboxes. I love the use of SELinux throughout.
With respect to the development ecosystem… we can agree to disagree I guess. I’d rather leave the industry than deal with modern web development, but that’s just my personal opinion.
Google does at least maintain fairly solid web standards
I have to strongly disagree with this though. Google wants to bring it’s attestation APIs to browsers. What a nightmare. They also try to move browser addon development in user hostile ways, like trying to kill ad blocking. I don’t trust Google to have the user’s best interest in mind for a single second.
Anyway, I asked where you’re coming from so thanks for sharing.
Yeah I can accept some kind of “hey we can’t verify this, you are on your own if you want to install” warning message, but if it prevents me then I don’t want it.
I don’t know about you, but my Pixel 6a already does this. When I go to install an APK not from the app store directly it warms me, requires me to acknowledge that the APK was downloaded through Firefox, and acknowledge what permissions it is requesting.
https://developer.android.com/developer-verification not for long
Yes, the problem is that Android is talking about requiring developer verification at install time; as I understand it, without allowing an override.
Is this the context? https://mastodon.social/@arstechnica/115091392102147470
[email protected] - Google will block sideloading of unverified Android apps starting next year Google says it’s no different than checking IDs at the airport. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/08/google-will-block-sideloading-of-unverified-android-apps-starting-next-year/?utm_social-type=owned
No difference from checking IDs at the airport? So Google wants a government body to handle their platform on their behalf and to ensure a common playing field where at the airport I can choose whatever vendor I’d like?
REMOVE SHOES BEFORE BOOTING ANDROID.
Unless you pay extra for Android pre-check. Get the right credit card and you can get it for free, plus lounge access!
No difference from checking IDs at the airport?
An airplane is a glorified autobus. You don’t need an ID to get on one of those.
I had to ‘sideload’ the secret of mana port because play store would refuse to validate the license offline after purchase. If I can’t play offline a single player game that i bought, than what should i do.
I also have an apk of wayward souls, because it was removed from the store and i like that game. Also a premium game. So yes. Running software as i see fit.
My feed is curated by the Illuminati
That’s what they want you to think.
they are everywhere one just has to learn how to read the signs 🔝🔜⚛️
(/s)
Only in the US, I guess. In my country and in Europe this will not fly…
Nope
These requirements go into effect in Brazil, Indonesia, Singapore, and Thailand. At this point, any app installed on a certified Android device in these regions must be registered by a verified developer.
2027 and beyond: We will continue to roll out these requirements globally.
https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2025/08/elevating-android-security.html?m=1
Aren’t they claiming this move is specifically to comply with the EU’s Digital Services act?
We can hope…
edit
To clarify, I hope it will not fly outside the US, but looking at the world around I feel this is not very realistic hope
You know, it’s true - I have never heard a Linux user refer to something as sideloading, even though Linux is the platform that originated official software repositories.
The key thing to understand is that there’s a big fucking difference between a “repository” and an “app store.” One is designed for the convenience of users; the other is designed to exploit them.
deleted by creator
Exactly right. The message of the post is that “side-loading” is only used in reference to exploitation services. We could just as easily refer to side loading in Linux and it would be accurate in every way, except that there is no exploitation.
It’s literally the exception that proves the rule.
This does feel like a bit of a double-standard to me. I’ve hated how Microsoft and Apple have introduced app stores on Windows and macOS and try to push people to only install from there instead of directly from the developer. And yet on Linux the advice seems to be never ever download directly from the developer; you should only download from the package repository provided by your OS (which sure feels like an App Store). And that package probably wasn’t even provided by the developer or the OS but some random volunteer that you just assume has good intentions.
Nothing ever comes “directly from the developer”, and any developer that attempts to do so ends up in a level of hell not yet documented. There are way too many distros, way too many architectures, way too many moving targets, that also includes iOS, macOS and Windows. No single developer can hit them all. There’s no standard packaging either. So, usually they only package for one or a handful of popular distros, or one container format. But that’s the magic of FOSS. Anyone can take the source code and repackage it, redistribute it and make it available for others. This is assumed to be a strength and not a weakness of FOSS and Linux. Thus, the distros create their own official repositories where they make themselves responsible that everything will mostly work nicely with one another.
The difference is that package repositories are safe havens of compatibility. While appStores are enforced cages that cannot be escaped. If a package repository tries to fuck up with users, hurt the FOSS space (looking at you Ubuntu Snaps), or gets compromised by a bad actor; you just move to another repository, another distro, a different format, another safe space. If Android or Apple decides to enshittify and fuck over customers, users, get compromised or do something to hurt developers, you are fuck out of luck. This difference matters.
If you used Linux before the repos were fully developed then you understand why they were created.
Who else remembers “dependency hell?”
Corpos just took the same idea and twisted it into something else.
Dependency hell was what drove me back to Windows. Fortunately, I didn’t stay there and I learned how to apt-get.
And yet on Linux the advice seems to be never ever download directly from the developer
That’s just advice for making life easy for new people, because distro-packaged software is more likely to work well with the operating system. I run packages from devs, even nightly automated builds of stuff, all the time.
It may feel like a double standard but it’s not
Most Linux stores are created and maintained by volunteers
Those stores aren’t limiting software they host based on what makes them the most money. Money isn’t involved.at all
Linux won’t stop you from adding more stores
Linix won’t stop you from manually adding any other software, either as a package or even manually building it from scratch
My package manager installs all of the dependencies the program needs and takes care of updates, too. If I install directly from the developer, I have to do all that myself. Fuck that.
Because the Linux repositories are apathetic third parties (ie they have no reason to care whether or not you download any given app) while Microsoft and apple are financially incentivised for you to buy buy buy.
This means that when you download a .exe from a vendor instead of going through the windows store you’re cutting Microsoft out of their cut of what you paid and you’re denying Microsoft information about what it is that you bought. But the flipside is Microsoft didn’t impartially verify that it’s not malicious.
When you download a .deb instead of going through apt, you’re also denying them their cut (of nothing) and you’re denying the repository managers the ability to see what you’re doing, but Linux people generally trust repository managers to not be selling their habits to advertisers and governments.
I will say there is a reason to side load on Linux though, paid software is sometimes unavailable through repos.
The key difference is that one is advised, the other is enforced.
If its such a security threat make it opt in for the users that want it. Idc about googles opinion on security I can handle that myself.
That’s literally what its like now. There’s a scare message and a toggle
The “reasonable case” is the law, and they will use it against you without mercy
The number of people I encounter, even on Lemmy, that genuinely believe and rigorously argue that being able to install or distribute software on devices you own is actually bad because “security” is beyond horrifying to me. They have been brainwashed into thinking that corporate monopolies are not only acceptable but desirable because you can completely and blindly trust Mom’s Old Fashioned Robot Oil to make all your decisions for you, for a modest fee and no opting out, of course.
This is why society is collapsing.
Dude, I’ve been fighting this fight for over 10 years starting on reddit.
The amount of people, even supposedly?!? tech savy people that bootlick and excuse corporate behaviour is maddening. To the point makes you want to be conspiratorial and think they are saboteurs.
What I will never EVER understand is being loyal and “loving” a company. No matter if it’s Apple, Samsung, Google they ARE NOT your friends. In fact they are the exact opposite and will make your life worse if it means they can squeeze an extra cent out of you.
Lately I’ve been thinking that what it is, is people trying to eliminate that overwhelming sense of existential dread which springs from all of this, by buying into it, just like fascists do- “if I join them they won’t come for me”. They start telling themselves that “maybe it’s for the best”, that “maybe good things will come of it”, and once someone makes that jump it’s easy for them to become zealous or fanatic, not only because it gives them an even greater sense of empowerment because they’re now part of an ingroup or a club, but can also get off even more on perceived moral or intellectual supremacy over others.
These are extremely uncertain times, and uncertainty makes human scared and anxious, and scared anxious humans latch on to anything that gets them out of those feelings, in this case like surrendering before this gargantuan machine that they can neither understand nor control.
It’s like with cultists. They crave the comfort of someone telling them what the truth is, to give them certainty. I don’t know, something I thought about.
